Another wall jack question
dircom:
It could have been that the original owners never had a Telco landline, thus only the CATV wire
however, per code, it has to be grounded, ie, you can't just run a wire from the pole to a jack
Sometimes on old CATV installations, it was just a grounding connector on the outside of the house.
If vinyl siding was installed after the CATV wire was installed then, the ground could be under the siding
If you have a basement, look in there.
I have seen Telco interfaces in attics, but those were on old houses.
MJINNY:
Thanks Dircom. I'm beginning to think that they never had a telco demarc box installed. If this is the case then I should have no trouble plugging that obi right into the wall jack. I don't think it's in the attic as there are no wires going to the attic. What I think they did is pretty much what I did...except they plugged the wire from the phone port on cable modem into the wall jack (as opposed to an Obi). The CATV system is indeed grounded. I'm probably the only house on the street with no demarc box.
MurrayB:
Make sure that there is no voltage present on line 1 (the center two wires) and no voltage present on line 2 which is the outer two wires. Then you can be fairly certain that you are not connected. I say fairly certain because if there is truly a connection to the Telco they could light it up at any time.
Good Luck!
sailing:
I just read through this thread and will add my opinion. In 2005-6, when your house was built, cable companies were in full competition with the phone company. Since the original owner never had a POTS line, there was no reason for the phone company to string a line to the house. If a POTS line was run to the house underground, you would find a box in the basement. Since you could not find one, it probably isn't there.
If the Obi was back fed because the phone lines were connected to a POTS line, chance are the line output would be blown but the Obi would still register and you could still access it with a browser. I would say the first one was faulty. (Hopefully you did a factory reset and reconfigured it before assuming it was broke.)
MJINNY:
Thanks sailing, MurrayB and all others! I don't have a proper voltmeter unfortunately to be able to test the phone line. As you mentioned, I was still able to access the Obi with a browser, I attempted to reset and reconfigure many times, but it just would not connect to the VOIP provider...it would say "configuring" for about 10 minutes, then stop and would simply say "not connected". I gave up on it for the day but by the next morning however it was reconnected! I thought the problem was solved. This lasted for about two days and then it disconnected again on Monday and I had the same issue as the first time. By that time, my new Obi 100 arrived. It was only about $40 so no big deal. I simply replaced the old one with the new one...same connection and everything and it's worked fine since Monday. I guess I can keep the old one as a spare. Maybe I'll unplug it from the wall just to be on the safe side? I don't think I'll call the phone company just to come to my house to confirm there is no demarc. However, having all the interior jacks lit up is nice...you can purchase a full featured corded office phone and just plug it into the wall. It's not worth if the device gets back fed though.
If an Obi is plugged into a jack that is powered however, is the damage immediate or does it happen slowly over a period of time (assuming there is no sudden turn on, i.e. the power is on continuously)? I did have my old one plugged into the wall for months with no issues. I don't think the line output was blown however because I still got a dial tone. It was when I tried to dial out that I got the recorded message "no service is available".
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