Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

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cbeyer
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Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by cbeyer » Fri Apr 19, 2013 12:23 am

Installed cable modem, router, and Ooma for a friend. He had an electrician install phone jack and cable jack in office. All worked with nbr selected from Ooma. 3 days later, port of number from AT&T completed. Thought it worked, incoming calls were successful. However, outgoing always got busy signal after dialing (7, 10, or 11 digits.) Almost always, if I dialed my home number, which is LD from their home, it worked. My phone is an Ooma.
So if you hook the phone directly to Ooma, it works fine. Checked polarity and it was right out of Ooma, but wrong in house jacks. I reversed send/receive in that new jack, and polarity was right, but same results (busy) when dialing.
Someone been there, done that? Ooma lost interest when I could dial correctly direct attached.

murphy
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by murphy » Fri Apr 19, 2013 1:59 am

Has AT&T's wiring been completely disconnected from the house?
Customer since January 2009
Telo with 2 Handsets, a Linx, and a Safety Phone
Telo2 with 2 Handsets and a Linx

cbeyer
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by cbeyer » Fri Apr 19, 2013 8:47 am

Yes. First thing I checked. Apparently AT&T did it (just unplug connection on customer side of panel)

thunderbird
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by thunderbird » Fri Apr 19, 2013 2:50 pm

cbeyer wrote:Yes. First thing I checked. Apparently AT&T did it (just unplug connection on customer side of panel)
You probably should check again, because ATT doesn't always wire things the same way, and there may yet be a sneak circuit to the old ATT wiring.

cbeyer
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by cbeyer » Fri Apr 19, 2013 3:10 pm

well, unless they have another connection point coming into the house other than the box beside the power meter, I'm pretty sure the connection is broke. Many times I have had to go outside and disconnect the wire from their side to the customer side to check their claim that there was no problem on their side, so problem must be in the house. And when I find no dial tone from their sided, they discover a lineman working on another issue accidentally disconnected the wrong wires down the street.
I might look like I just fell off the tomato truck, but I have been around the bend a few times.

thunderbird
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by thunderbird » Sun Apr 21, 2013 4:13 pm

cbeyer wrote:well, unless they have another connection point coming into the house other than the box beside the power meter, I'm pretty sure the connection is broke. Many times I have had to go outside and disconnect the wire from their side to the customer side to check their claim that there was no problem on their side, so problem must be in the house. And when I find no dial tone from their sided, they discover a lineman working on another issue accidentally disconnected the wrong wires down the street.
I might look like I just fell off the tomato truck, but I have been around the bend a few times.
You could try to isolate the problem with your house wiring by removing one of the house jacks. Use a multimeter and check first for any voltage AC or DC between phone wires. But check only after the Ooma Telo is disconnected, all phones, fax machines, security system, and any other phone type devices are remove from the House phone system wiring. (You could also temporarily, with every phone, fax, etc. disconnected from the house wiring, temporarily connect the Ooma Telo to the house wiring and check if it works, with one phone, still connected to the house wiring.) If you find any voltages, do the following to try to isolate the problem. (The house phone wiring is probably daisy chained together) so go to each phone jack in the house, remove the wiring from the phone jack, but only after identifying where each wire came from, terminal stud, etc., so they can be replace correctly. Then check with the meter again. Continue until you find the source of the voltage. Make repairs as necessary.

If you didn’t find any voltages with the multimeter, find a good earth ground in your house and check with multimeter set on the Ohms setting, for a path to ground. You should not find a path to gound, but if you find a path to ground, use the same isolation procedure to find the source of the ground path. Make repairs a necessary.

cbeyer
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by cbeyer » Sun Apr 21, 2013 6:33 pm

I did pull the wires off the new jack installed by the electrician to eliminate it as the problem. The 3 phones were all working fine with the AT&T landline.
I detected no stray voltage with no Ooma connected. I was getting wrong polarity at the jacks, but the Ooma was right polarity. I switched the send / receive on the new jack, and polarity was then right.
And, again, incoming calls work fine to all phones.
Outgoing dialing gets a busy after the 7,10, or 11 digits dialed.
EXCEPT when dialing my home number which works fine. I'm sure the fact that I have Ooma at home has something to do with that, but it is over my pay grade, and Ooma had no comment when I mentioned it.
Mean anything to you?

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lbmofo
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by lbmofo » Sun Apr 21, 2013 7:52 pm

If phone works fine connected directly to Ooma and not when connected to house wiring, something is wrong with house wiring. That's why Ooma won't help any further if all works fine directly connected to Ooma. You just need to figure out what's going on with the house wiring.

thunderbird
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by thunderbird » Sun Apr 21, 2013 8:19 pm

cbeyer:
Did you go around the house and disconnect all phones, fax machines, security system, or any other phone type device and then test?

Basically the house phone wiring is just two wires that float, if nothing else is connected.

I tested, at our home, by taking the two wires off one of the jacks wires and switching them.

I tested to - from an Ooma connected phone to - from another Ooma Connected phone, making calls both ways. No problem.

I Tested to - from an Ooma phone to - from an outside the Ooma system phone, making call both ways. No problem.

I switched the wires back and retested with both an Ooma phone and an outside of the Ooma system phone and there was no problem.

So the polarity theory doesn't hold much water.

So there is something that loads the house phone wiring just enough to prevent the dialing signal to reach an outside phone system, but it still has enough signal to work within the Ooma System.

Since there was no problem before Ooma, sounds like to me that the old phone provider wiring isn't completely disconnected.

I would go back to look at the wiring coming into the house from the street and not just remove the plug from the box, but I would remove the old provider inbound wires off of the terminal block studs or screws. Mark and tag then as to where they came from for later ease of reinstallation.

Hollywood
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Re: Get busy using house wiring but not direct attached to Ooma

Post by Hollywood » Sun Apr 21, 2013 10:20 pm

polarity does matter on some older phones. if you have a phone that dials out properly when connected to the ooma, but not when the phone port is connected to a wall port, and the same phone is plugged to another wall jack, THEN take a spare phone cable and cut it in the middle and splice the green wire on one side of the cable to the red on the other side. then the red to the green. If it works, solder and tape and be done. If it doesn't work, your house jacks may not be wired properly.

If you have an older black Telo, remember the WALL port (if it has one) is NOT to be used for your purpose, just the Phone port on the Telo.

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