obi 200 to ring all phones

[colleenz]

Please excuse my ignorance. I have the obi 200 and Vestalink on one phone. As I'm disabled, I have phones all over the house. At the moment all the phones except the one voip are connected to Century Link land line. I would like to get rid of the land line & have all the phones ring with my voip connection. Is this possible?  I think I read about this before but can't find the reference. I don't understand the voip lingo yet so much of the topics are a mystery to me. If someone would be kind enough to explain things to me, it would be very much appreciated.  Thanks, Colleen

[gderf]

No problem. Just disconnect your house phone wiring from the Century Link connection and plug your obi into any wall telephone jack. All phones plugged into other jacks will ring and can call out. There is a limit on how many phones with ringers enabled that can be plugged in though.

The land line to house wiring connection is usually made in a small box on the outside of your house. If there is a pluggable test jack in that box, just disconnect it there.

[azrobert]

Expanding on gderf's answer, it's very important to disconnect the house phone wiring from the outside telephone company's wiring. Even if you cancel your service the wires might still be live and cause damage to the OBi equipment.

This is the best picture of the phone company's box I could find:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23200826-Line-Problem-modem-doesnt-work-on-all-jacks-after-tech

It's the 3rd picture labeled "normal phone box outside my house".

Don't worry about opening the box. They are for homeowner access and there is a simple screw to open them. The portion of the box not meant for homeowner access will have a security screw.

The box has the normal telephone RJ11 plug. The male connector is connected to the house wiring and the female to the phone company. There may be several of these plugs. Just disconnect all of them. Hopefully, you have a box similar to the above.

[colleenz]

thank you very much for the answers to my question; much appreciated!

[NKYadav]

First of all, let me say that this thread answered the very questions I was looking to have answered.  Now, on to newer questions.

No problem. Just disconnect your house phone wiring from the Century Link connection and plug your obi into any wall telephone jack. All phones plugged into other jacks will ring and can call out. There is a limit on how many phones with ringers enabled that can be plugged in though.

The land line to house wiring connection is usually made in a small box on the outside of your house. If there is a pluggable test jack in that box, just disconnect it there.

Thanks for that info.

RE: Limit on # of phones with ringers:

I currently use Vonage.  Here is my setup:

I have 1 cordless phone connected directly to the vonage device (splitting lines to phone and to wall jacks) and I have 1 group of 3 cordless (one main base that actually connects physically to the lines, and 2 more remotes that connect to the bae wirelessly), a second single cordless connected physically, and 2 regular corded phones connected to the house network.  Honestly, the corded phones can be completely removed (if need be) because 1 is in a room that is almost never occupied (and within 15 feet of one of the cordless remote receivers) and the other is in the same room as another cordless remote receiver.

Expanding on gderf's answer, it's very important to disconnect the house phone wiring from the outside telephone company's wiring. Even if you cancel your service the wires might still be live and cause damage to the OBi equipment.

This is the best picture of the phone company's box I could find:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r23200826-Line-Problem-modem-doesnt-work-on-all-jacks-after-tech

It's the 3rd picture labeled "normal phone box outside my house".

Don't worry about opening the box. They are for homeowner access and there is a simple screw to open them. The portion of the box not meant for homeowner access will have a security screw.

The box has the normal telephone RJ11 plug. The male connector is connected to the house wiring and the female to the phone company. There may be several of these plugs. Just disconnect all of them. Hopefully, you have a box similar to the above.

I've had VoIP service, first through my ISP, then AT&T, and finally, now, through Vonage, for several years, at leastt 7, but closer to 9, IIRC.  I had no idea that such a setup (which is how all three current and previous versions of VoIP at my house) could be affected by disruptive voltage from exterior lines that were never physically disconnected from my house network.

Do you think that I should verify that the lines were physically disconnected so many years ago when I first got VoIP befor I connect my OBI (probably 200, possibly 202) in my house to the house network?

[colleenz]

No problem. Just disconnect your house phone wiring from the Century Link connection and plug your obi into any wall telephone jack. All phones plugged into other jacks will ring and can call out. There is a limit on how many phones with ringers enabled that can be plugged in though.

The land line to house wiring connection is usually made in a small box on the outside of your house. If there is a pluggable test jack in that box, just disconnect it there.

OK, I disconnected from Century Link & am connected to voip.ms.  So far so good, however; I've tried the suggestions on how to get all my phones to ring & am getting nowhere. This am. I used a phone splitter in the Obi200 & connected one line to the answering machine/phone (Panasonic) & the other line from the Obi to the wall jack. I couldn't get it to work & even the voip phone didn't ring; so I disconnected all of that & put everything back the way it was, ie. Phone wire from the Obi to the Panasonic. The phone rings again thank goodness, but I still want all my phones to ring.  Any ideas?
Thanks, Colleen

[SteveInWA]

OK, I disconnected from Century Link & am connected to voip.ms.  So far so good, however; I've tried the suggestions on how to get all my phones to ring & am getting nowhere. This am. I used a phone splitter in the Obi200 & connected one line to the answering machine/phone (Panasonic) & the other line from the Obi to the wall jack. I couldn't get it to work & even the voip phone didn't ring; so I disconnected all of that & put everything back the way it was, ie. Phone wire from the Obi to the Panasonic. The phone rings again thank goodness, but I still want all my phones to ring.  Any ideas?
Thanks, Colleen

Hi:  this suggests one of two things:  either CenturyLink simply discontinued your phone service, but the telephone wires are still connected from your house to their central office, causing some sort of interference with your OBi, or you've made a wiring error.

Note that there are two kinds of 1-into-2 splitters, and they look identical until you closely examine the raised lettering on the plastic body of the splitter.  The kind you want duplicates the same exact pins of the OBi's jack into the pins on the two female jacks of the splitter.  The other kind is used on a four-wire, two-line phone jack (RJ-14) and splits that into one female jack for line one, and the other female jack for line two.  The RJ-14 splitter has raised L1 and L2 lettering above the two female jacks.

If you mistakenly used one of those, and you connected the house wiring to the "L2" jack on the splitter, there won't be any signal.

First:  go to wherever your CenturyLink wiring came into the house.  Disconnect (unscrew or cut off) the wires from the telphone pole or underground wiring, and tape them out of the way.  Then, plug a two-conductor, not four-conductor, "silver satin" modular phone cord from the OBi's PHONE port to an available modular wall jack.  ?Now, plug the Panny phone into another wall jack.  Does this work?

If not, you may need an electrician or someone familiar with telephone wiring to figure out what's wrong.

[colleenz]

OK, I disconnected from Century Link & am connected to voip.ms.  So far so good, however; I've tried the suggestions on how to get all my phones to ring & am getting nowhere. This am. I used a phone splitter in the Obi200 & connected one line to the answering machine/phone (Panasonic) & the other line from the Obi to the wall jack. I couldn't get it to work & even the voip phone didn't ring; so I disconnected all of that & put everything back the way it was, ie. Phone wire from the Obi to the Panasonic. The phone rings again thank goodness, but I still want all my phones to ring.  Any ideas?
Thanks, Colleen

Hi:  this suggests one of two things:  either CenturyLink simply discontinued your phone service, but the telephone wires are still connected from your house to their central office, causing some sort of interference with your OBi, or you've made a wiring error.

Note that there are two kinds of 1-into-2 splitters, and they look identical until you closely examine the raised lettering on the plastic body of the splitter.  The kind you want duplicates the same exact pins of the OBi's jack into the pins on the two female jacks of the splitter.  The other kind is used on a four-wire, two-line phone jack (RJ-14) and splits that into one female jack for line one, and the other female jack for line two.  The RJ-14 splitter has raised L1 and L2 lettering above the two female jacks.

If you mistakenly used one of those, and you connected the house wiring to the "L2" jack on the splitter, there won't be any signal.

First:  go to wherever your CenturyLink wiring came into the house.  Disconnect (unscrew or cut off) the wires from the telephone pole or underground wiring, and tape them out of the way.  Then, plug a two-conductor, not four-conductor, "silver satin" modular phone cord from the OBi's PHONE port to an available modular wall jack.  ?Now, plug the Panny phone into another wall jack.  Does this work?
If not, you may need an electrician or someone familiar with telephone wiring to figure out what's wrong.

Thanks for new info.  The phone company wires coming into the house have been disconnected. I'll play with the "silver satin" phone cord later today. 

[cheerful]

Sorry to bump an old thread.  Does this setup work with OBI 200?  I am looking to have a similar setup.

Thanks

[SteveInWA]

Please stop posting the same (or similar) question repeatedly across the forum.