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Incoming landline calls delayed by 2 rings and does not connect live calls.

Started by wvoc, December 12, 2012, 02:10:47 AM

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wvoc

This is kind of a minor problem but I was wondering if anyone could help.

I am currently in my Philippines house and, because the house is made really solid, DECT signals (and wifi and other home wireless signals) do not penetrate to the 2nd floor. Actually, even on the 1st level I have to use a ridiculous amount of repeaters/extenders to get wifi and DECT to permeate the 1st floor as it is.

Anyway, because of this I have Obi110 setup so that only the 1st floor is connected to the Obi via a DECT phone system (DECT base station connected to Obi). The 2nd floor is connected to the normal local telco phone line. This part is no problem.

The problem is that when I get a landline call, it rings on the 2nd floor 2 times before the 1st floor phones rings. It seems the Obi delays the ring for some reason.

The other problem is if someone answers the phone on the 2nd floor, and then someone on the first floor picks up the phone, the person on the 1st floor cannot connect to the call. To put this in a practical example, as that I mangled the heck out of that sentence, if someone calls in and my girlfriend answers it on the 2nd floor and the call is for me. She then lets me know I have a phone call and if I try and pick it up on the 1st floor (connected to obi) I hear nothing but a dial tone.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Thanks!

Rick

Quote from: wvoc on December 12, 2012, 02:10:47 AM
This is kind of a minor problem but I was wondering if anyone could help.

I am currently in my Philippines house and, because the house is made really solid, DECT signals (and wifi and other home wireless signals) do not penetrate to the 2nd floor. Actually, even on the 1st level I have to use a ridiculous amount of repeaters/extenders to get wifi and DECT to permeate the 1st floor as it is.

Anyway, because of this I have Obi110 setup so that only the 1st floor is connected to the Obi via a DECT phone system (DECT base station connected to Obi). The 2nd floor is connected to the normal local telco phone line. This part is no problem.

The problem is that when I get a landline call, it rings on the 2nd floor 2 times before the 1st floor phones rings. It seems the Obi delays the ring for some reason.

The other problem is if someone answers the phone on the 2nd floor, and then someone on the first floor picks up the phone, the person on the 1st floor cannot connect to the call. To put this in a practical example, as that I mangled the heck out of that sentence, if someone calls in and my girlfriend answers it on the 2nd floor and the call is for me. She then lets me know I have a phone call and if I try and pick it up on the 1st floor (connected to obi) I hear nothing but a dial tone.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?

Thanks!

You have things hooked up improperly.  Here's what you should do:

1) Locate the OBi 110 near where the outside Telco line comes into your home, and feeds all the phone outlets.

2) Plug the outside line into the LINE port of your OBi 110.

3) Plug the line feeding the house outlets into the PHONE port of y our OBi 110.

4) Plug any phones, including the DECT base, into any phone outlets.  Now, all phones will have use of both the outside line and anything setup on your OBi.

If you cannot locate the OBi as I indicated, you have other options:

1) If your phone outlets in the Philippines have 4 wires just like the U.S., then it's likely that they are only using Red and Green.  If you can verify that, by examining an outlet and examining the incoming wiring from the Telco, you can simply take one of the outlets and change it to a double phone outlet, with one outlet red/green and one outlet the other two.  Then, in the basement or wherever the Telco feeds the rest of the house, change the feed to those two wires, so only one outlet is live with the Telco feed.  Plug the OBi's LINE port into that outlet, and plug the PHONE port into the red/green outlet.

ProfTech

I hope I understand your configuration correctly. It sounds like you have your land line connected to the LINE input on the 110. If that is correct there may be two things you can do to improve the situation.

1. Set Physical Interfaces -> Line Port -> Ring Delay to Zero. Note this is only possible if you are not using Caller ID.
2. Make sure Physical Interfaces -> Phone Port -> EnableLINEPortBargeIn is Checked. Then when someone picks up the phone on the 2nd floor and yells "The call is for you", all you have to do is pick up the phone connected to the Obi and press #. The Obi will connect you to the caller.
3. Set Physical Interfaces -> Line Port -> RingIndicationDelayTime to 256 also seems to help. I couldn't see any difference between a setting of Zero and 256.

With these settings there is  slight delay before the Obi rings but it is barely noticeable.

wvoc

Thank you guys!

Rick, I see what you mean but this is a problem. This:



is my wire box and the lines go off to my house directly to the jacks. Its actually not only my wire box. The local telco, PLDT, installed it in a shed on my property decades ago and it services lines for many of the houses in my block. Technically, I am not even allowed to have opened it like I did for this picture, but screw PLDT. I wanted to do an entire overhaul when I had the house built but they refused and I sued. I am still (many, many years after I have bought the property and built the house) in legal proceedings with them over either paying me rent or removing the shed and upgrading the wire work for the block. :(

ProfTech, thanks that sounds like it will work! EnableLINEPortBargeIn was unchecked and the rest was all set to default. I can live without callerID, pretty useless here anyway. I will post back if I run into any issues.

Thanks again!




MurrayB

In general it would be a good idea to break the wiring where it enters your house and install  a jack to act as a Demarc or NID (network interface device) so you can simply isolate your phones from the telco.

wvoc

I wish :(. That is the problem with corporate monopolies. See PLDT owns the lines. That means only they can lay the wires and I cannot cut them or change them, even on my own property. If I do so, then PLDT can cancel my service. Most people just do what they want and then pay someone else to fix the lines they laid if there is a problem. Stupid me, I decided this was wrong and tried to do something about it. Now all they want is a tiny excuse to cut my service.

As they are the only telco who has wired the subdivision where my house is, if they cut service, I have no phone. To get the only other option, Globe, to come into the subdivision, the board of the subdivision has to approve it and either have a set number of households who will switch to Globe or pay the cost of wiring the entire place. I am working on that, but the problem is Globe landline is rather poor and their DSL service is crud so very few people want to switch.

I have considered going all mobile, but its a big hassle and the costs are high for data and they are ridiculously capped and slow. See, PLDT and Globe are the only options for mobile too. There will be another option for data, at some point, which is the cable monopoly whenever they decide they will spend the money to upgrade the lines to my subdivision.

Yup, its a corporate dream and a consumer nightmare. I would've been better off not to have caused trouble and then I could've just quietly did what I wanted with the phone lines. Sometimes I am an idiot.

Lavarock7

Do you have a standard telco RJ-11 that you can start with?

If so then connect that to the OBI LINE port. Then run your own RJ-11 wire upstairs. Find a location for the DECT base that covers the parts of the house and position it there. Your Phone connection from the OBI plugs into that base.

If you need other phones connected, unplug them from the wall and put then between the OBI and the base. Then they all are using the OBI.

This way you have not changed any phone company wiring and they can't complain. Surely you can find and run some "satin cord" or your own 4 wires about the house? It should not be too expensive. If you buy 4 wire (or even 2 wire, make sure it is twisted and try to run it away from electric and noisy electronics, just in case.

Old touchtone phones were sensitive to polarity and if the polarity was reversed, the phone would not make tones. Swap the two wires and all works again. The Telephone company used to swap the wires when they wanted to disable dialing on an extension. Then we used to just flash the switchhook (9 times to dial a 9).

I believe that your ring voltage may be the same as mine, if so, it is 90 volts ac and will cause quite a jolt. Be careful and start hooking things up from the phone side and head towards the outside lines. I always use insulated test clips to connect to live phone lines until I can get everything working. It is easier to swap wires that way.

If you want to buy me a ticket, I'd be happy to do it for you, since I'm halfway theer already.
My websites: Kona Coffee: http://itskona.com and Web Hosting: http://planetaloha.info<br />A simplified Voip explanation: http://voip.planet-aloha.com

MrGadget

Quote from: Rick on December 12, 2012, 06:01:31 AM

You have things hooked up improperly.  Here's what you should do:

1) Locate the OBi 110 near where the outside Telco line comes into your home, and feeds all the phone outlets.

2) Plug the outside line into the LINE port of your OBi 110.

3) Plug the line feeding the house outlets into the PHONE port of y our OBi 110.

4) Plug any phones, including the DECT base, into any phone outlets.  Now, all phones will have use of both the outside line and anything setup on your OBi.

Rick,

This is not good advice using the latest design of the OBi110 units. Earlier versions had a PSTN relay to bypass the OBi in the event of a power failure, the latest devices do NOT have this relay and cause the phone service to completely fail for all downstream phones connected to the OBi. So, not only are you without power in your house, you don't have emergency phone service either.

Based upon this poorly redesigned Obi110, I suggest that you have access to a hardwired phone service for emergencies.