Explain my outside box

[minniemae]

Here is a photo of my outside phone box https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113249099909191326387/albums/5727620022094016209/5730254136361930210 (click forward arrow to see other views).

The flat black cable coming into the box contains  blue,blue&white wires and the orange,white wires.  Is this the telephone service and DSL or just DSL?

The two round beige cables coming out of the hole in the brick wall - one contains red/green/yellow wires and the other is connected to a post in the center of the box.  Are these the two phone lines in the house or what?

To disconnect the outside service while leaving DSL, I disconnect the red/green wires, right?

I read the article at
http://voip.mi-telecom.org/ and understand that no one is liable for any advice given here.  The article mentioned the old quad wiring and the new wiring but my box doesn't seem to follow it exactly.  It was confusing.

[MichiganTelephone]

Here is a photo of my outside phone box https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113249099909191326387/albums/5727620022094016209/5730254136361930210 (click forward arrow to see other views).

The flat black cable coming into the box contains  blue,blue&white wires and the orange,white wires.  Is this the telephone service and DSL or just DSL?

The two round beige cables coming out of the hole in the brick wall - one contains red/green/yellow wires and the other is connected to a post in the center of the box.  Are these the two phone lines in the house or what?

To disconnect the outside service while leaving DSL, I disconnect the red/green wires, right?

I read the article at
http://voip.mi-telecom.org/ and understand that no one is liable for any advice given here.  The article mentioned the old quad wiring and the new wiring but my box doesn't seem to follow it exactly.  It was confusing.

What you have is an old style lightning protector (probably installed sometime in the 1950's through 1970's).  If you have DSL AND phone service then they are both coming in on the same pair (unless there's another box on your house that you don't know about, which is unlikely).  The beige wire with the red/green/yellow wires is the original station wire and the one connected to the center post is the ground wire (and it is VERY IMPORTANT that you DO NOT disconnect anything from the center post, because that ground helps protect your home from damange by lightning and power surges).  If you simply disconnect the inside pair (the green and red wires that connect to the two outer posts) you will disconnect both your phone and DSL service, so you probably don't want to do that unless you have an alternative strategy for connecting the incoming phone line to your DSL modem.

The bad part is that you do not even have "quad" station wire.  You have three conductor wire that was mostly used on old party lines and in GTE territory.  If you had "quad" wire you could use the second pair for your DSL modem.

My question to you now is are you willing to run new or additional phone wire (could be CAT 5 wire), and also is the area where the wire comes into the house exposed?  The answer to the last question will likely depend on whether you have a finished or unfinished basement.  If it's unfinished and the wiring is exposed then what you need to find out is whether there is a common connect point where the beige wire with the red/green/yellow wires inside connects to all the other jacks inside your home (if you find it, take a picture of that and add it to your photos).  If you can isolate the pair going to your DSL modem you could leave that one connected, while breaking off all the connections to the other jacks and connecting those pairs together separately.  If you don't know much about electricity or wiring this can be a tough thing to figure out, and will be almost impossible if your basement is finished (assuming you even have a basement).

Unfortunately, in some cases like this you may find it's easier and cheaper to just buy a cordless phone set with multiple handsets from a nearby office supply store or online, and plug it directly into your OBi.  Another option would be to dump DSL and get cable Internet service, then once that's installed and the DSL is disconnected there would be no reason you could not disconnect the green and red wires shown in that photo (be sure to leave the blue and white/blue wires connected where they are now, again for lightning/surge protection reasons).

Note that I am ASSUMING that blue and white/blue wires come from the black cable (the drop wire running down the side of the house).  If that's not the case, then some of what I have said above may not be valid.  For example, if they are coming from a hole through the wall inside the box area, then that would invalidate much of what I've said above.

[minniemae]

Thank you so much for that excellent explanation!  I could still cancel my Verizon land line phone service and keep dsl, right?  I just couldn't test it beforehand.  But likely any phone calls made from the Obi would be competing with the dsl since they will be on the same line and probably have a lot of static?

That's a bummer.  I don't have a basement so I'll have to look at either the wireless phones or cable internet.

Thank you again!

M

[RevKev]

It looks to me like...

The flat black cable coming into the box contains  blue,blue&white wires and the orange,white wires.  Is this the telephone service and DSL or just DSL?

The blue, blue/white wires are the line coming to the house from Verizon. This caries both your phone service and DSL. The orange,white pair are not being used.

The two round beige cables coming out of the hole in the brick wall - one contains red/green/yellow wires

The red,green pair is the phone/dsl service going into the house. The green wire is connected to the blue/white wire, the red wire connected to the blue.

and the other is connected to a post in the center of the box

The ground wire to the house line.

To disconnect the outside service while leaving DSL, I disconnect the red/green wires, right?

Wrong. You can't disconnect one without disconnecting both. Your phone and DSL run over the same wires.

I believe what MichiganTelephone is saying, and I agree with, is that if you want to isolate phones from DSL, you'll have to do it inside the house by connecting the red,green pair only to your DSL modem and not to any other phone lines in the house.

If you want to keep the phone service but connect it to an Obi, you'll need a DSL filter between the line coming in and the Obi.

Your wiring probably looks something like this...

[outside box]==red/green==[wall]==red/green==[inside junction box]==red/green==[phone(s)/DSL modem]

There's probably multiple red/green pairs coming from the inside junction box to the phone jacks throughout the house. Somewhere inside you have a DSL modem connected to the junction box (possibly to a phone jack). And somewhere in the inside wiring, you have DSL filter(s) before the line(s) reach the phone(s).

Again, as MichiganTelephone said, if you can get a picture of what's inside the house, it would help.

I could still cancel my Verizon land line phone service and keep dsl, right?

Yes you can cancel your Verizon phone service but keep the DSL (Verizon will most likely bump the rate on the DSL quite a bit).

I just couldn't test it beforehand.

You can test it by hooking up the Obi like it was a phone. Verizon line (with DSL filter) to the LINE port. Phone(s) to the PHONE port. Ethernet to your router. You may only be able to test it with a single phone without digging into the house wiring.

But likely any phone calls made from the Obi would be competing with the dsl since they will be on the same line and probably have a lot of static?

I wouldn't say you're competing with DSL, you're using DSL for your phone calls. You're competing with any other device (computer) that is also using DSL.

[MichiganTelephone]

You can test it by hooking up the Obi like it was a phone. Verizon line (with DSL filter) to the LINE port. Phone(s) to the PHONE port. Ethernet to your router. You may only be able to test it with a single phone without digging into the house wiring.

Then, maybe, he can throw his device in the trash and buy a new one, assuming he still has a home to use a device in!  The problem is that even though it's not technically necessary in order to provide DSL, the phone companies put "wetting voltage" on the line.  This helps prevent corrosion and "noise" on the line, but it effectively makes the line "live", just as if it had dial tone.  In fact, in many cases it DOES have dial tone, but if you plug in a phone you can only call the phone company (to order phone service, naturally) and 911.

The DSL filters only filter out high frequencies.  They pass DC voltage, which is exactly what you DON'T want to connect the Phone port of an OBi device (or any other VoIP device) to.  At best, the device and the telco voltage will be "bucking" each other, and you'll get low or no volume on the phones.  At worst, the polarities will be matched in such a way that it's like a dead short times two.  Imagine putting two batteries in series and then dead shorting one end to the other; they would drain in no time AND generate a lot of heat in whatever wire was carrying the quick discharge of current.  So not only is there a very good chance of permanently damaging your equipment, but even (in the worst case scenario) starting a fire!

The rule is, never connect the PHONE port of a VoIP device to ANY lines that are still connected to the phone company's lines coming from outside, and never connect it to any lines that have voltage on them from ANY source (for example, some door/gate systems put voltage on the phone line even if the phone company drop is completely disconnected).  This is why I harp about actually testing the line to make sure it's as dead as a doornail before you hook your VoIP device to it.  Of course the OBi110 LINE port is the exception to that rule — it's designed to accept voltage from the phone company, but you still can't use it to send your VoIP service to the phone line so that other phones in your home can access it.

Side note:  Since the DSL modem doesn't NEED the DC voltage from the phone company inside the home, it should be technically possible to construct a filter that does the OPPOSITE of what phone company-provided DSL filters do, and pass only the higher DSL frequencies but no DC voltage (or low frequency AC such as that used for ringing phones) at all.  Basically you'd only want to pass frequencies above about 3000 Hz.  In theory, if such a device existed and you put it out in the protector block or Network Interface, then it might be safe to hook your OBi's phone port to such a line.  I'm not saying it WOULD be, just that it MIGHT be IF such a device existed, which as far as I know it does not (at least not anything intended for home users).  But in most cases, rather than try to find an unavailable device that might not work, it would be far easier and a lot cheaper to run a new, separate phone line from the Network Interface Unit (or old-style protector block) direct to the DSL modem (and for DSL I'd use at least Cat5 wire - it just might increase the DSL speed a bit over the ~50 year old untwisted wiring that's in the house now).

[jimates]

MT,

I don't think you read his statement correctly.

Verizon line (with DSL filter) to the LINE port.
This would be correct. connecting the existing "phone service" to the line port of the Obi.

You may only be able to test it with a single phone without digging into the house wiring.
This is mostly correct. It should say
You will only be able to test it with a single phone connected to the phone port (without digging into the house wiring).

[MichiganTelephone]

MT,

I don't think you read his statement correctly.

Verizon line (with DSL filter) to the LINE port.
This would be correct. connecting the existing "phone service" to the line port of the Obi.

You're right, I misread that.  Hooking the outside phone line to the LINE port is perfectly acceptable; that's the intended use.  I don't think the OP ever stated which model OBi he has and I may have for some reason assumed he has an OBi100, but in any case I totally missed RevKev's reference to the LINE port.  My profuse apologies for that! 

My post was cautioning against connecting the outside phone line to the PHONE port, which of course is a big no-no!