I've got my OBI connected and working well. I know want to test the phone quality with the phone lines in my house. I went to my outside phone box and disconnected the two wires that come from the outside telephone cable. I leave the two wires connected that come from the flat black cable (dsl).
I use a phone cord and connect my Obi to a phone jack in my house wall. The land line phones do not get a dial tone. The phone connected directly to the Obi does get a dial tone.
Do I have to disconnect phone service from Verizon (while keeping DSL) in order to use the landline phones that are connected to my house? I really would like to test the quality before I officially disconnect service from Verizon.
The telephone(s) connected to the OBi PHONE Port must be totally isolated from the incoming line from your telephone company. Connecting the OBi PHONE Port to a live incoming line from your telephone company can potentially damage the OBi. The incoming line from your telephone company should be connected only to the OBi LINE Port.
Sorry, I mistyped that. The cord connect the house land line system was connected the LINE port of the Obi. The house phones do not have a dial tone and I'm wondering why.
The house telephone(s) must be isolated (disconnected) from the incoming line from your telephone company, while keepig the incoming line from your telephone company connected to the OBi LINE Port. Then the OBi PHONE Port can be safely connected to your house telephone(s).
Ok, I think I understand what you are saying. In this photo,https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113249099909191326387/albums/5727620022094016209/5727620022725762418 , I disconnected the green and red wires (incoming phone line) but left the blue wires (incoming dsl line). Then I connected the OBI LINE port to the phone jack. No dial tone on my house phones.
My question is: is the problem with my house land lines or my disconnect at the outside box or does Verizon (who provides both my phone and dsl service) need to turn off the phone service first?
The OBi LINE Port is for connecting ONLY to an incoming line from your telephone company. Telephones conncted to the OBi LINE Port will not receive dialtone from the OBi.
The OBi PHONE Port is for connecting ONLY to telephone sets. The OBi generates dialtone ONLY from its PHONE Port.
DSL and telephone service are typically provided over the same pair of wires from the telephone company.
I think we are saying the same things. Perhaps I am using the word, phone jack, incorrectly.
I have an analog phone connected directly to the OBI. Tested it. It works. Should I disconnect it before connecting the Obi to the wall phone jack to test the house phones? I want to use my various analog phones throughout my house with the internet phone service through Obi then disconnect my phone service from Verizon.
I'm just trying to identify why my house phones won't work.
I finally understand what you are saying since I read the post by MichiganTelephone. You were saying that I can plug either an analog phone directly to the PHONE port of the Obi OR I can plug the land line phone system into PHONE (if it's properly disconnected and has no dial tone). But that the LINE port is for plugging into a live phone line. I don't know why you would want to do that but I understand now I was plugging the house phone line into the wrong port and that I cannot simultaneously have the analog phone connected to the Obi while the land line system is plugged there.
Quote from: minniemae on April 11, 2012, 12:09:33 PM... that I cannot simultaneously have the analog phone connected to the Obi while the land line system is plugged there.
You can connect both, by using a splitter, e.g. http://www.amazon.com/Ziotek-RJ-11-Line-Splitter-6P6C/dp/B000BSHMPW
Quote from: minniemae on April 11, 2012, 12:09:33 PM
But that the LINE port is for plugging into a live phone line. I don't know why you would want to do that but...
With the OBi LINE Port connected to your incoming Verizon phone line, all telephones can be connected to the OBi PHONE Port. The OBi PHONE Port can then access both VoIP services as well a landline services from the same set of telephones.
The OBi is also capable of forwarding calls between services. For example, you might have the OBi forward incoming calls on your Verizon line to your cell phone using Google Voice.