How do I know if all my Jacks will work will Ooma

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gvccooma
Posts:17
Joined:Mon Oct 21, 2024 2:20 pm
How do I know if all my Jacks will work will Ooma

Post by gvccooma » Mon Jan 27, 2025 2:24 pm

I have an Ooma line for my office. I'm considering replacing my ATT landline in my home with
bout 6 jacks on that circuit with another Ooma line using a Linx. All the jacks
have a dial tone. How do I know if I connect a Linx to one of those jacks all the jacks will connect to the new Ooma number using the Linx. I need to have a couple of jacks with Ooma dial tone. Comments? Thanks

Robek
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Joined:Thu Sep 26, 2019 6:56 pm

Re: How do I know if all my Jacks will work will Ooma

Post by Robek » Thu Jan 30, 2025 1:14 pm

Please stop creating new topics, to ask the same questions, again and again. If two different posts are related to the same issue, then they can go in the same topic. Otherwise, it is much harder for anyone else with the same questions to follow along, through the different topics.

Be sure to fully disconnect the AT&T landline service from the wall jacks, before connecting the Ooma service to them. The wall jacks all connect to each other, but they must never connect to two different services at the same time. When in doubt, consult a licensed electrician.

The telephone manufacturers provide a "Ringer Equivalency Number" (REN) for all of their telephones. Add up all the RENs for each phone connected to the wall jacks; the total number must be less than the REN for the device that provides the dial tone; the Telo REN is 5, and the Linx REN is 1.

Normally, the Telo would connect to the wall jacks, since it can support more phones than the Linx can, and the Linx would separately connect directly to a single phone. Do not connect both the Telo and the Linx to the same set of wall jacks at the same time.

gvccooma
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Joined:Mon Oct 21, 2024 2:20 pm

Re: How do I know if all my Jacks will work will Ooma

Post by gvccooma » Fri Jan 31, 2025 4:40 pm

Who are you? My questions are not the same, and I never seem to get a straight answer to my questions?


My landline is ported, and ATT has disconnected my phone. Another question, because everyone gives a different answer to it. For all seven (7) jacks to work with the new Ooma line, do I have to go out to the ATT box and physically disconnect the wires into the house even though the phone is disconnected? If I leave them connected will it do any damage, and will the jacks get an Ooma dial tone.

kevin_anderson_dbq
Posts:8
Joined:Wed Sep 28, 2022 11:17 am

Re: How do I know if all my Jacks will work will Ooma

Post by kevin_anderson_dbq » Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:08 am

gvccooma,

First of all, you can trust and follow the instructions that user "robek" has given you. He is one of the knowledgeable, authoritative support users on this forum.

To your question of about disconnecting ATT service in order to make sure you can use all phone jacks, the short answer is yes, you need to physically separate your house from ATT wires outside your house. When you say that your service was "disconnected" by ATT, it may be that they simply deactivated your service without physically disconnecting any of the wires that lead to your location. It may be all they did was update all the computers behind their system to no longer provide dial tone or react to an off-hook condition on your line without actually doing any physical separation. (This is common by phone companies, as it simplifies their ability to connect up a new customer in a property, as they can do so without physically even coming to the house.) So to be sure of that, the burden is on the Ooma user (as it is a self-install phone system) or any other VoIP installation to make sure your phone system is physically isolated from your former telephone provider.

To do that, you need to either open up the telephone company's NID (demarcation box) on the side of your house and disconnect the house wiring there (by hopefully just unplugging the wiring plug), or inside house do it at the phone distribution block by unscrewing and disconnecting the wire coming into the house at that point. I tried to find again the illustrated instructions that I followed two years ago, but unfortunately I did not bookmark the page; I do know that there are YouTube videos and other written instructions to describe what to do. For my home, the instructions I followed were (1) open up the customer's side of the phone NID box on the side of my house, (2) disconnect the two phone jacks (as my house, when it was a duplex years ago, had both halves of the four-wire drop going into the house to two separate phone distribution blocks inside), (3) take an old phone cord that I cut up to give me just two plugs with a short piece of about 1 inch of wire on each to then plug into both of the now empty jacks to keep then clean and protected, (4) tape a note inside the NID that indicates that the phone company should not reconnect any wires because the house now has VoIP phone service, and finally (5) close up the telephone company's NID box and re-tighten any locking screw you had loosened to get into the box.

Finally, Robek's comment about REN is also good, as it indicates that you possibly cannot have all seven phone jacks connected to phones, due to there not being enough ring current generated by the Ooma Telo device to make all the phones ring. (The ring current the Ooma Telo can create is less than what the telephone company can provide over their landline wiring.) The reality will depend on the number and types of phones you have, and their age (in that older electromechanical phones more to make them ring as compared to newer all-electric phones). And note his comment about the Linx being its own device that cannot be connected to the same set of seven jacks as the Telo, and its phone instead be just its own phone.

MLXXXp
Posts:129
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Location:Toronto, Canada

Re: How do I know if all my Jacks will work will Ooma

Post by MLXXXp » Sun Feb 02, 2025 5:13 am

kevin_anderson_dbq wrote:
Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:08 am
Finally, Robek's comment about REN is also good, as it indicates that you possibly cannot have all seven phone jacks connected to phones, due to there not being enough ring current generated by the Ooma Telo device to make all the phones ring.
Ring boosters are available that would likely solve that problem (though they tend to be fairly expensive).
E.g.:
https://vikingelectronics.com/products/rg-10a/
kevin_anderson_dbq wrote:
Sat Feb 01, 2025 10:08 am
And note his comment about the Linx being its own device that cannot be connected to the same set of seven jacks as the Telo, and its phone instead be just its own phone.
If the jacks are wired with two (or three) pairs, the Linx could be placed on the second pair. You would need an adapter that moved the Linx's first pair to the second pair, and an adapter that moved the second pair back to the first pair for each phone that you wanted attached to the Linx. This would also allow for two line phones that could handle both lines.

Robek
Posts:404
Joined:Thu Sep 26, 2019 6:56 pm

Re: How do I know if all my Jacks will work will Ooma

Post by Robek » Tue Feb 11, 2025 8:17 pm

gvccooma wrote: My questions are not the same, and I never seem to get a straight answer to my questions
That can be read two different ways; is that "to get" as in "to receive", or as in "to understand"? If some answer isn't clear, then please try to explain what parts are confusing, and ask for additional clarification. Otherwise, consider asking (or hiring) someone else more tech-savvy to set up the telephones instead.

The "another" question about physically disconnecting the in-house wiring had already been addressed at least four times, in at least four different topics, here, here, here, and here. And all of those posts included a link to Ooma's more detailed documentation, here:
WARNING: The PHONE port ... is not designed or certified for connecting to your phone company’s wiring, whether through the phone jacks in your house or otherwise. [This] creates an increased risk of electrical shock and/or fire ... If you have any questions or concerns ... consult with a licensed electrician ... !

... do not have a landline physically connected to your home. This means that the phone company’s wiring outside your house has been completely and physically disconnected from your home’s internal phone jack wiring, including any ground wire ...
If that wasn't a straight enough answer before, then hopefully one of the other posts here cleared everything up.

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