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“Alarming” Transition from 110 to 202

Started by Shunpiker, March 13, 2013, 10:07:04 AM

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Shunpiker

Greetings Fellow OBi users!

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new 202 to replace a 110 which has given me great service this past year.

The main reason was so one of the two existing phone lines in our home can be dedicated to the alarm system. Since the 110 only has a single active wire pair, this had not been possible, and I became concerned since the alarm could not take control of the line when we were on the phone (especially unsettling when the device was being tied up remotely using Obion on our iPhones).

Here's what I'd like some help with:

• Do both phone ports on the 202 have two active wire pairs to support the 4 services?
• Which port(s)/pairs must I use to dedicate one line to the alarm and the other to my analog phone (i.e. using the existing house wiring).
• How can this be configured so that remote use via OBion always goes through the phone line, leaving the (unpublished) alarm line constantly available?

I've been using two Google voice numbers with the 110, and am thinking of adding Anveo E911 for exclusive use by the alarm once the 202 arrives.

Hope this makes sense and seems achievable.

Thanks for your time and insights!  ::)

Shale

#1
Quote from: Shunpiker on March 13, 2013, 10:07:04 AM
Greetings Fellow OBi users!

Eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new 202 to replace a 110 which has given me great service this past year.

The main reason was so one of the two existing phone lines in our home can be dedicated to the alarm system. Since the 110 only has a single active wire pair, this had not been possible, and I became concerned since the alarm could not take control of the line when we were on the phone (especially unsettling when the device was being tied up remotely using Obion on our iPhones).

Here's what I'd like some help with:

• Do both phone ports on the 202 have two active wire pairs to support the 4 services?
No. Phoneline 1 appears as the inner pair on the Phone 1 port. Phoneline 2 is on the pair outside of the inner pair on the Phone 1 jack as well as on the inner pair of the Phone 2 jack.

Quote

• Which port(s)/pairs must I use to dedicate one line to the alarm and the other to my analog phone (i.e. using the existing house wiring).

Your call. You have two phone ports on the OBi202. Make a decision.
Quote

• How can this be configured so that remote use via OBion always goes through the phone line, leaving the (unpublished) alarm line constantly available?

I've been using two Google voice numbers with the 110, and am thinking of adding Anveo E911 for exclusive use by the alarm once the 202 arrives.

If you use OBiTalk, there is a checkbox system to say which services (SP1,SP2,SP3, and SP4) are associated with each phone line.

Suppose you use Phone 1 for regular. Suppose your main GV is SP1, and your alarm GV is SP2. Anveo is SP3. You would associate incoming SP1 and SP3 to Phone 1. You would associate incoming SP2 to Phone 2.
Outgoing Phone 2 would go to SP2 . Outgoing Phone 1 would be on SP1 by default, but you could override with rules or prefixes.
All 911 from Phone 1 or Phone 2 outbound would go to SP3. Also 933 (the test number for the 911 process) would go to SP3. OBiTalk knows about the 933 as well as 911 on Anveo, so no setup other than testing boxes is needed.

The thing OBiTalk will not automatically help you with *yet* is SIP scanners. Look at how to deal with that. It is not so hard.

Rick

Have you verified with your monitoring company that using GV or VoIP is acceptable?  Many companies can't/won't use VoIP services, many systems can't reliably transmit over them.

Been posted many times on this forum.

Shunpiker

Thanks for the quick responses – the 202 is scheduled to arrive by end of business today!

Rick: Appreciate your concern – I test the alarm weekly and it's been dialing out reliably on the 110 for the past year, so I expect that behavior to continue with the 202.

Shale: Grateful for your info on how the ports are wired. I had been confused about how many physically independent lines could be in use, so it sounds like just two. If I understand correctly, I would "hardwire" the alarm to SP2 [and my analog phones to SP1]. That way, if I call out without any prefixes (or remotely via OBion), SP2 would remain available to the alarm. However, I thought Anveo would be the one to associate with SP2? If that's correct, my two GV accounts would be on SP1 and SP3; and I recognize that I'd only be able to have an active call on one of them at any particular time that way. Am I seeing this correctly?

Alternately, in your scenario, afraid I'm unclear on how/why SP3 would go out on (either/both?) SP1 and SP2? And both (existing) GV numbers have been given out friends/businesses so activity on SP2 would block alarm dialout. 

I had to look up SIP scanners. I'm having no issues with unwanted calls and didn't know what it meant!

Thanks again for your time and guidance!

Rick

The 202 allows you to decide which ports SP1 - SP4 use.

Yes, you would setup Anveo for Phone Port 2 if that's the one you're setting up for your alarm connection.  Which SP is up to you, in the setup you pick the physical port it goes to.

Yes, if you have two (or three) GV accounts, you can only make, or accept calls, on one of them at a time on Phone Port 1.

Shunpiker

Thanks again Rick!

The 202 just arrived, so I will start experimenting no later than tomorrow. For reasons I won't go into here, the connection to the alarm line may be the most challenging aspect (though I also need to educate myself about Anveo).

Appreciate your staying "tuned in" - I'll post a progress update by the weekend if not before.

Shunpiker

Hello again!

I decided to test Anveo on the 110 before swapping it out for the newly-arrived 202. Glad I did, as I think it helped me understand some of the behaviors, as well as some of the earlier posts.

At the risk of being simplistic, let me start by restating what's probably obvious to most people on the forum:

1) When my alarm is tested (or set off), it dials out to an 800 number using whatever it's physically connected to [regardless of whether the SP is e.g. Google Voice or Anveo].
2) If that connection is to an OBi ATA, that means it will use whatever primary SP is associated with that physical port (just like any non-prefixed outbound call).
3) On the other hand, in cases where Anveo is configured as one of the SPs, 911 (or 933) calls will go out over a primary line, EVEN IF Anveo is actually set up as non-primary.

OK - kindly advise if any of the above is incorrect.

So far, so good. Whenever GV is designated as the primary line on the 110, the alarm dials out just fine [Anveo is non-primary]. Results are less consistent the other way around, depending on which of my two GV accounts is used for SP2.

My hypothesis is that the alarm can only dial out with Anveo as primary if the phone number of the non-primary (in this case GV) line is actually listed under "Your Phone Number" on Anveo's "Web Call" page. Otherwise, Anveo's call log still shows that the number was dialed, but the alarm test fails.

This may be unimportant if Point 3 above is correct, because then I'll just associate a dedicated, non-published GV number with the alarm; and let Anveo route 911 calls wherever it wants. Nonetheless, I'd still like to know if I'm understanding correctly.

And I'm still a bit confused about what this means for physically setting up the 202. I don't mind if my two published GV numbers can't be used simultaneously; so long as the third unpublished GV account is constantly accessible to the alarm.

Thanks for taking the time to read, correct and advise!

Shale

May we assume you are not using OBiTalk to set things up?