Ooma Forums

KevinDoman wrote:And yes, I have Qwest DSL.

Bingo!

Make sure you have a DSL filter to isolate the DSL signal from interfering with your Scout/Hub communication.

Take care to consider how you arrange this because you can also filter out the Scout/Hub communication with the DSL filter as well. There are several ways to deal with this and what works best for you will depend a lot on your physical situation with your house and where things are located.

Scott

Well, filter or no filter, the scout behaved the same: Top 2 button red, then lower two buttons, then the bottom four button. Again, both hub and scout are connected to the splitter.

About one minute or so after I plugged the scout into the jack, the hub would reboot, so something is going on but who knows what

k.

When you did the initial setup online, did you specify to integrate with your landline? The simple test for this is if your Hub goes red if you unplug the Wall port from the phone line. If so, then it's tough to test if it's a problem between your Scout and Hub because you need the landline in order to test.

When you did the test with the DSL filter, did you put the filter from the wall, and then ran a line to your splitter, and from the splitter you went to Hub and Scout wall ports? If you did that in your test such that your Scout and Hub never went through your home phone wires, and you had a DSL filter straight from the wall where you picked up your landline, then there is another problem and you'll need to contact Ooma tech support. If you have to call them, ask them to remove the landline integration until you get the hub and scout working. That way you can have the Scout and Hub directly connected via the wall port without connecting to your landline to avoid any potential DSL/HPNA conflicts.

Scott

Thanks Scott!!! You got it! The hub and the scout worked!

I used two filter before, that's why it didn't work. I removed everything and plug the filter in my house jack, then the Omma splitter, hub and scout then plugged to the splitter and voila! The scout turned blue within 15 seconds.

So now I'm facing another problem - what would be my next step if I want to move my scout to another location in my house? Or is my house's internal wiring is wacky to the point that I can't have my hub and scout separated?

Kevin.

Since you have DSL and I assume landline integration, you need to figure out a way to send the DSL signal to your DSL modem, landline dialtone without DSL signal to your hub's wall port and connect your hub and scout through the wall ports while supporting a DSL (HPNA) signal between them.

You may be able to do that using the correct combination of splitters and using your house's 2nd line if it's wired for 2 lines. Otherwise you may need to do some re-wiring.

Excellent news! So it was a DSL and HPNA conflict.

There are many options, almost limitless. It depends a lot on your situation with your telephone wires in your home, and your motivation/laziness (no offense intended). It is a bit tricky since you have an integrated landline but not impossible. The ideal approach is if you can split the DSL and landline at the telco demarc (the phone box outside that you have access to) and run a separate line to your DSL modem. The idea is so your phone lines in your home do not have the DSL signal on them, such that the DSL signal is only going to your DSL modem. Depending on your situation this may be tough.

Another thought that would be simple to do is to go to your telco demarc and put the phone line and line 2. That is the yellow/black pair of wires. In your home you can use an L1,L2,L1+L2 splitter (or make a special L2 to L1 cable) so you can get the phone line off Line 2. Run Line 2 to your DSL modem. Then use a filter from Line 2 (you may need a second splitter to make this happen) to Line 1. So now you have just your landline on Line 1, and both your DSL and landline on Line 2. This is might be the simplest solution.

There are other options to consider as well, but it really depends on your situation, your motivation, and personal style. Let me know what you're thinking and will continue talking over some options.

To give you an idea of where this could go. I ran a Cat5 from the demarc to my network rack and disconnected all phone lines in the demarc. In my network rack I have my DSL modem, a router, a 24 port switch, and an RJ45 based phone module, and a patch panel where I ran new Cat6 to each room (at least two runs). I can explain how it's wired up another time, but what I did is put the Ooma Hub phone port on Line 1, the Scout phone port on Line 2, and the Hub and Scout wall ports on Line 3 (for the HPNA). Now I can go to any phone jack in the entire house and expect a regular two line phone to work. You wouldn't know Ooma was involved at all besides where I put the Hub or Scout for voice mail access. This might be over the top for most people since it is a ton of work to run new cable.

There is a compromise that I thought of after doing this that is almost as sophisticated, but with far less effort. If you run Cat5 (four pairs) from your DSL modem to your demarc. Disconnect all phone lines from the telco and connect them on L3 or L4 on the Cat5. You now can do all of the filtering inside your home in a single spot where the DSL modem is and still preserve your existing phone wiring for regular phone access. I can explain this in greater detail if this sounds like something you might want to do.

Scott

Scott -

I understood most of your response, but my house was completely finished when I moved in. Looked like I will take both yours and bw1's responses and sleep on them for a bit to see if I can make something works for my situation. Otherwise, it's useless to have both the hub and scout sit next to each other in a remote room.

K.

One of my suggestions does not require you to rip into walls at all. You could pursue that.

There is value to the Scout even if it is next to the hub. The Scout is how you get a second physical line. Some people intentionally put the hub and scout next to each other. If you don't care about two lines, then the scout is useless if next to the hub just like you said.

Sleeping on it is a good idea. If you're home is reasonably new it should already have two line wiring in it, if not even four line and the most you'd need to do at most is use a screw driver to make sure the wiring for the second line is done correctly, and/or making a simple change in the demarc. All done with a screw driver.

Scott

You've proved that it works when the scout is sitting next to the hub.
Now all you need to do is extend the scout away from the hub in order to meet you needs.

In order to do that without disrupting the DSL signal you need to isolate a wire pair in your home wiring to connect the wall port of the hub with the wall port of the scout.

Since most home wiring is CAT3 ( 2 pairs) this is not very difficult.

The first pair should be your red/green. This is the pair that carries your dialtone and DSL signal. It appears you resolved the problem using the DSL filter from earlier posts.

You will want to leave this pair alone.

There is another pair of yellow/black wires that is typically unused unless your home has two distinct phone lines. You can use this yellow/black pair to connect the wall ports of the hub and scout together
You need to make sure there is no voltage on the pair (ie-disconnect from the demarc), also you need to make sure there is continuity between the jack near the hub and the jack in the room you want to put the scout.

You can use 2-line splitters plugged into the wall jacks to separate the lines and plug both the hub's wall jack and the scouts wall jack into the 2nd line of the splitter in each room

As long as you have continuity and no DT on the second pair, that will accomplish your goal