Whole House

[aLf]

Hi all. This has probably been asked a million times. Sorry.

New out of the box and want to set up for the whole house. I have disconnected the phone company line and have an input jack ready from ooma. I can't see any reason why I just can't run an ethernet cable from my router across the basement to ooma, inserting it on the "modem" jack. Then just run a phone line from the "home" jack to the input jack I have in my Leviton system. Before I do this, I wanted to verify that I'm OK doing it this way? Also, this setup will force me to leave the ooma box in the basement next to my Leviton box. Another question then is how to get voicemail from "upstairs"? I also assume that the "scout" is worthless under my setup.

Thanks,

aLf

[southsound]

First off, welcome to ooma and to the forum!

You are almost correct in your wiring. The telephone output of the hub is actually on the Phone jack. This is what you will use to heat up the whole house. If you have a lot of telephones of the old mechanical bell type, you might need to limit the number of such phones to 5 or less. Most modern phones and cordless phones have little drain to the ringing circuit in the hub. Each phone will list an REN on the phone - try to keep the total to 5 or less.

As to the scout, why not use it in a central place for voicemail? You can put it on a second pair and connect that pair to the Wall jacks on both the hub and the scout. You really don't even need a phone plugged into the scout to gain full benefit.

Let us know if some part of this isn't clear.

[southsound]

This is how another user, Aveamantium, set his system up. Great job Aveamantium!



You can find many posts from him and how he has his system configured - also he might just chime in on this thread, if we're fortunate.

[aLf]

southsound:

Thanks. My REN comes up with 5-6, is that close enough? I'm unclear as to your explanation of the scout and using the second pair. How do I do that? I only have one line. All my LAN peripherals are set up as static IP's, should I set ooma up static as well? If so, how? In your post you said to route "out" of ooma on the "PHONE" port, is that right? That said, I will modem in and phone out. In the picture you posted, he has two phone lines going into his telco block, what is the second line?

Thanks, I'll surely have more questions, but appreciate your input. If there are any other gotcha's. let me know, I set up a new DrayTek router today with fiber cable all day today and will be working on this tomorrow.

Regards,

aLf

[southsound]

The REN of 5 or 6 should not be a problem. What Aveamantium has done is to use a 2-line splitter to run the Wall connection from his hub on the same cable (different pair) as the Phone (or telephone) output. That way he is able to use the scout without additional wiring. Most homes are wired with 3 or 4 pair unshielded twisted pair. Just make sure that the second pair (white/orange orange/white) is connected to the jack where you want to use the scout. The scout communicates using HPNA so the second pair is only passing data, not voice. But that would give you a nifty way to retrieve voicemail.

Since you have static IP's for everything else, that would certainly work fine for ooma. I'm not much of a networking person, but others may want to chime in. Also, if call quality is not up to snuff (although I can't imagine that with fiber) they can tell you about setting QoS settings on the router. To set up the hub the first time (if you are going to use static IP) you will need to plug a laptop or other PC into the Home port of the hub so you can access the setup screen.

[aLf]

south:

Sorry I'm a bit dense, maybe and explain of the "phone" "wall" and "home" port(s) will help me. Other than one spot in the house where I can use the scout, I dont see any benefit in the second pair thing. I'm assuming that just the one outlet where the scout lives is needing the second pair. Are the ports on the scout pre-wired to the second pair?

Thanks,

aLf

[southsound]

No problem. The Phone jack on the hub gives you normal dialtone and is what you use to connect either one or a house full of phones. The Wall jack is used to communicate with the scout (also used if integrating the ooma hub with a landline - which is not your case). The scout Wall port and the hub Wall port are both wired for line 1 - that is why you see the 2-line splitter in the picture. You could also just use a second jack wired from the second pair to the red and green of that second jack. I use them in my home as I really don't like the splitters. You can get "keystone" jacks and multiple jack plates to meet your needs.

Again, the second pair would only be so you could use the scout as a voicemail retrieval device (or if you had Premier, a second line).

Keystone jack:

Double keystone wall plate:

I see that WayneDSR is also on the forum - Wayne, any other thoughts?

<<Ack! Edited because it's late and of course it is red and green. Thanks niknak - and to think I used to be a telco installer!>>

[WayneDsr]

Well, since you "caught" me browsing I might as well put in my 2 cents.

I believe you can plug both the PHONE (to get phone over the entire house) AND plug the WALL into the wall jack to get Scout anywhere in the house as long as you don't have a landline OR DSL sharing the main line.

Wayne

[WayneDsr]

And in your case you would not need to use the HOME port.

Wayne

[niknak]

...You could also just use a second jack wired from the second pair to the red and yellow of that second jack...

If you don't want shorts or stray voltages use standard wiring conventions:
red/green - line#1
yellow / black - line#2