Making home jacks phone or scout compatible

[mrdbarnes]

I would like to know if there is a way to use the hub outputs (wall and phone) combined to make the home jacks be ready for a phone or a scout. I recently rewired (while adding several more) all my phone wiring so that I could use the hub phone output so that all of my DVRs and other devices requiring simple dial-out capacity could be simply plugged into a jack. I setup the termination of the six wire phone jacks to a single jack near my hub. I can now use the hub phone output to make all may jacks phone ready OR the hub wall output to make the jacks Scout ready. I was hoping there was a way to setup a splitter cable so that the wiring configuration would allow the jacks to be used for either, I guess knowing the hub output jacks' wiring configuration might help.

Those with multiple dial-out devices would be aided in that they can use home jacks for multiple uses, not requiring a scout at each location. Once properly connected and configured with the hub DVRs, Faxes. alarm systems and otehr such devices could operate w/o a scout. I own four scouts (current limit for OOMA hub use) and have intentions to add separate private numbers once I can setup my wiring as I have hopes to.

Can you help with this? Maybe Ooma might offer the "Y" cable as an accessory for those that want to best use the system.

Thanks!

[Bobby B]

Hello mrdbarnes,

Right now, "unofficially" if you are using the Hub without a landline, you can supply dialtone to several phones in your home by connecting your Hub's PHONE port to the wall of your home. Unfortunately you won't be able to use your four Scouts in this configuration.

If you have a second phone line (e.g. separate home phone wiring), you could use that phone line to connect the Scouts to the ooma Hub. So you'd connect your DVRs and PHONE port of the ooma Hub to one line and the Scouts and WALL port of the ooma Hub to the other line.

-Bobby

[mrdbarnes]

Bobby,

Thanks for the quick response despite it not being the answer I was hoping for. When I pullled new wiring I setup all six pins in the phone-jack wiring, assuming that that would open up the options of custom wire configurations and multiple lines. I made and pulled all new network and phone wiring, making harnesses for each point where comminications were needed. What I am sensing from your response and how it was phrased is that there might be a way to do this, but there is no way for me to acquire the hub's phone and wall output wiring configurations. IF and when that information might be made available, I would certainly appreciate a note to that regard.

Thanks,

Dan

[Dennis P]

For both the PHONE and WALL port, ooma uses pins 3 and 4 for tip/ring (standard for line 1 of a RJ-11/RJ-14 jack).

If you wanted to run both ports throughout your house on one jack, you can simply hang a two-line splitter off each jack. This converts 2 RJ-11's to an RJ-14, so that L1 is on pins 3 and 4 and L2 is on pins 2 and 5. So if you put WALL on L1 and PHONE one L2, you'd have the option of accessing either at any of your taps by plugging into the appropriate jack on the splitter. I'd recommend that mapping so you don't accidently plug the PHONE jack of the Hub into a live landline.

Never thought of doing that before, but that'd be a pretty sweet setup.

[mrdbarnes]

Dennis,

Thank you SO much.... I will take that information and make my OOMA fly! THAT is the answer I was hoping for!

Dan

[kevinbradshaw]

mrdbarnes,

can you give us an update on how this turned out? this would be a great setup. has anyone posted this on the feature request board? maybe ooma could include some splitters or something to make this a little easier?



Thanks,

Kevin