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Using Existing Home Phone Jacks

Started by efiniti, May 19, 2012, 04:09:48 PM

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efiniti

I searched the forum and found this post

https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=1981.20

And it helped me understand a bit.  Here's what my phone box looks like in my garage. 

http://imgur.com/KmsNR

Now when I opened the box there was no phone line connected to that phone jack that you see. 

Am I right in that all I would have to do is connect a phone line from the PORT jack of the Obitalk 110 into that phone jack in the phone box and then I'll be able to use the phone service with any phone connected in the house?

chicobiker

The way I read the post you referred to is that he had disconnected the phone company line from his internal house wiring.  If that is what you have then I would think that your internal house phone wiring, being all tied together, would just act as a single phone line.  If this is true then you would plug your obi into the wall using the phone port rather than the line port on your obi.  Then every phone in your house should have use of the obi.  At least that is the way I see it.

Casey

MichiganTelephone

You don't need to do anything in that box as long as that phone plug (on the upper right hand side of the box) stays UNplugged.  I would personally wrap a piece of electrical tape (or some other tape with insulating qualities; even scotch tape would do in a pinch) around that plug so no one can accidentally plug it into the jack.

Then plus a phone into any jack in your home and the line should be totally dead (if you blow into the mouthpiece or press a touch tone button you should not hear ANYTHING).  If it's truly dead, you should be able to connect the PHONE port of your Obihai device to that jack (using a standard phone cord) and that should provide dial tone to all the other jacks in your home.  The only reason that would not be true is if there was at one time a second line coming into your some and one or more of the jacks are wired to use the second pair — in that case you may need to rewire those jack(s) to use the primary pair (red and green, or blue and white with blue stripe) — or one of the wires got damaged or cut somewhere.

See http://mi-telecom.org/distribute.html for much more information on the subject (probably more than you'll ever want to know).
Inactive, no longer posting or responding to messages.  Goodbye and good luck.  Some of my old Obihai-related blog posts have been moved to http://tech.iprock.com - note this in NOT my blog; I have simply given the owner permission to repost some of my old stuff.

efiniti

Thanks, I'll take a read at that link.

Thing is, the phone plug was already unplugged when I opened the phone box. 

However, I am using AT&T's home phone service at the moment. 

So I have service with every jack in my house, its with AT&T, even though the phone plug in the phone box is unplugged. 

Side note, I plugged in a spare phone to that phone plug in the phone box and tried to dial my cell phone.  It came up as a different number than my normal home number, same area code.  Strange?

efiniti

Yeah something else must be afoot.  After reading the tutorial it seems all that's necessary is to unplug the phone ports, but mine was already like that and my telephone system works just fine.

MichiganTelephone

Quote from: efiniti on May 20, 2012, 11:29:14 PM
Yeah something else must be afoot.  After reading the tutorial it seems all that's necessary is to unplug the phone ports, but mine was already like that and my telephone system works just fine.

Well, that's why I always tell people to TEST their lines and not assume that just because it looks disconnected it really is.  What's doubtless happening is that AT&T (or you??) has put some type of equipment in your home that connects to your home phone wiring somewhere.  You'll need to find that connection and break it to get AT&T's dial tone off your jacks, before you connect your OBi110 PHONE port, otherwise you could damage both devices!

If all else fails, get an electrician (or for that matter, a high school computer geek) to help you locate the connection between AT&T's equipment and your home phone wiring.  With any luck it will be something you can just unplug, and not a hardwired connection.
Inactive, no longer posting or responding to messages.  Goodbye and good luck.  Some of my old Obihai-related blog posts have been moved to http://tech.iprock.com - note this in NOT my blog; I have simply given the owner permission to repost some of my old stuff.

jimates

There are many possibilities. For example: At some point the phones quit working. Someone went to the box and tested the jack and it was dead. Someone figured out that the phone line coming in was still active but the interface box was faulty. Instead of replacing the box, they just took the line in and put it under the screws with the house wiring in the customer side of the box.

of course this is just one example, and that could be figured out by looking at the connections in the customer side of the interface box. The wire coming to the home from the pole or pedestal should not terminate in the customer side.