Whole House

[WayneDsr]

Ok, gotchya. I thought there was something else I wasn't seeing. Yep, good idea with all the electronics plugged in at one location.

Wayne

[Aveamantium]

Just curous, bw1, from where is the surge coming from, lightning?
Thanks,

Wayne

Considering that my satellite receiver and my computer modem are plugged into wall jacks. A surge could easily be transferred thru the phone line.

Sorry but I didn't go back and read all your posts but you have "Satellite" and VoIP is working? I always thought there was too much latency for this kind of ISP to work with VoIP? I have a wireless connection to my ISP (with an antenna on my roof) and it works good but I did run my incoming line from the antenna through a surge protector before connecting it to my ooma. Seems like the antenna is just a lightening rod waiting to get struck!

Edit: Nevermind... Looks like you have a cable modem and Satellite for TV... Pays to read first!

[scottlindner]

Just curous, bw1, from where is the surge coming from, lightning?

One of my uncles worked as an technician for AT&T his entire life. He once saw the results of lightning that ripped through an entire person's home through the phone lines. That's when he realized lightning protection is more than just unplugging sensitive electronics.

So.. lighting can carry over phone lines, but the cheap surge suppressors we have still don't protect against a home that gets hit directly. If you're in an area like that (I am) you may want to consider lightning protection on your roof. I have considered it and I can see it installed on some of the neighbor's homes.

Scott

[StevenJohn]

I had ISDN before I got a cable modem several years ago. I used the 3Com ISDN "modems". There was two phone numbers on each ISDN line. I fed my house wiring with the 3Com units. Each and every time there was a lightning storm, the phone ports of the 3Com would get zapped. That's when I started using surge protection on the phone loop. Newer homes don't have a loop but need protection just the same.

You can think of the wiring in you home as the winding in a generator. All you need to generate electricity is a collapsing magnetic field. Several thousand volts is generated in the wiring when lightning strikes a tree down the street.

This summer has been very active here in East Tennessee. I try to unplug my hub and scout when I'm at home during a storm. I have surge protection on the phone lines and a UPS for when I'm away.

sj

[scottlindner]

You can think of the wiring in you home as the winding in a generator. All you need to generate electricity is a collapsing magnetic field. Several thousand volts is generated in the wiring when lightning strikes a tree down the street.

It can be collapsing or expanding. The change in the magnetic field produces the current, not just the collapse of a field.

I think where you're going is it's very common to have a magnetic field suddenly go away and that rapid change in the field causes a "spike" so to speak on the lines.

Scott

[StevenJohn]

You can think of the wiring in you home as the winding in a generator. All you need to generate electricity is a collapsing magnetic field. Several thousand volts is generated in the wiring when lightning strikes a tree down the street.

It can be collapsing or expanding. The change in the magnetic field produces the current, not just the collapse of a field.

I think where you're going is it's very common to have a magnetic field suddenly go away and that rapid change in the field causes a "spike" so to speak on the lines.

Scott

Yeah, the spikes are what I am most experienced with (ouch!), not the physics. I guess I should have used the word "changing" instead. It's been a long time since I was in school.

sj

[scottlindner]

Yeah, the spikes are what I am most experienced with (ouch!), not the physics. I guess I should have used the word "changing" instead. It's been a long time since I was in school.

It wasn't a fair fight. I have a BS EE so this topic was natural to me.

Scott

[bw1]

Just curous, bw1, from where is the surge coming from, lightning?
Thanks,

Wayne

Yes, lightning.

http://forums.ooma.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... ing#p11139

There have been a few customer RMAs where a Scout or Hub was disabled due to the voltage surge caused by a lightning strike. If you live in a lightning-prone area, I'd do as southsound recommends - make sure you have your ooma devices plugged into a high-quality surge protector.

Here's another post about connecting phone and wall ports to the same line:

http://forums.ooma.com/viewtopic.php?f= ... ning#p2244

The way that you have it hooked up should work, but I'm unsure if you'd encounter any future issues. I emphasized the "should" because we actually don't put the configuration you mentioned through any rigorous QA testing.

If you're looking to enable dialtone throughout your home AND use the Scouts, we've recommended in the past to use two separate pairs of phone wires (most homes come equipped with two lines). In this setup, you'd connect your PHONE port to one pair and the WALL port to another pair. Obviously the Scout would need to be on the WALL port pair as the Hub.

Here's perhaps a few things to be concerned with if you have the PHONE port and the WALL port connected on the same pair of wires (e.g. a single line) -- these are mostly conjectures:
- There's the possibility that you might encounter some sort of feedback loop that might affect your voice quality (since the Hub-provided dialtone loops back into the WALL port).
- Your Hub may become less resilient to noise, affecting your voice quality.
- Your Hub may become less resilient to power surges due to lightning strikes or other sources.

[dyhopper]

just wanted to say thanks to all of you guys for sharing your expertise. I didn't know how I was going to hook up my dish network DVR (to save myself $5/month), but I was able to get it going easily with this info. I currently just have it set up so that the phone and wall ports are both connected to the same line. I have a dialtone at every phone jack now, the DVR can call home, and the caller ID on dish is working. Because of the comments by BobbyB, and maybe a slight worsening of call quality (not on our side), I think I'll update this configuration to use the second pair of phone wires as recommended.
Thanks again!

[etremps]

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.

Hello, I too am a new user and spent a couple weeks browsing the forums before deciding to purchase Ooma. Here is how I have my system connected. I switched over from Time Warner digital phone, so the phone company leads were disconnected years ago, I simply needed to unplug the phone line from my cable modem. I have a splitter connected to a wall jack, and have both the PHONE and WALL plugs on the Ooma hub connected to the splitter. This supplies dialtone to all the jacks in the house and allows me to connect the scout anywhere I want. I have my scout connected to an unused wall jack using it's WALL port. The scout does not have a phone connected to it, and is funtioning as an answering machine.

My house phones are wireless handsets with a single base pluged into a wall jack in the kitchen (that's why I have an unused jack in the living room). I believe that the premium services such as instant second line, call screening, and the ability to press the envelope button to record the call only work for phones running from the phone jack on the hub or scout. So if I want to use these features, I need to used the hub (since it powers the phones). Or, I could move the handset base to the living room and plug it into the scout PHONE port.

My setup is working very well for me, and I am happy with it. My Directv receiver has no issues dialing out, and I am able to fax by using the *99, prefix.

First, welcome to Ooma.

There are others who have successfully set it up like you. I would just caution that you run your phone lines that are coming out of the hub and going to the wall, through a surge suppressor to reduce the possibility of surge damage.

Very helpful post!!
Is there a way to have this same set up with DSL? I have one phone jack that I get my DSL from. I currently have it with a splitter. One to the modem and the other comes from my hub’s WALL to link to the scout on the second floor. Is there a way to use this same DSL jack to heat all the jacks in the house?
Appreciate the help.