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Thanks Murphy. That's exactly what I want to do. Have a great day!

Greetings, murphy, et al. My question is so similar to the OP's I thought I would inquire within this thread. I have a friend with four desks in a small office with three lines of phone service from Comcast Business. Moving forward, they may wish to eliminate the fax line so they'll just use two lines. Each desk has an identical two line analog phone. They publish one main number ending in -2526. An incoming call to -2526 can be answered on Line 1 of any of the four phones. If Line 1 is engaged, a new incoming call to -2526 rings on Line 2 and can be answered on any of the four phones. Occasionally they want two office phones to join in the same phone call and that works fine with more than one phone picking up the same line.

We are trying to recreate this functionality affordably with ooma and port the existing numbers over to new ooma service.

1.) Can we use Telo with a four way splitter to feed Line 1 to four analog phones simultaneously?
2.) Can we use Linx and an Instant Second Line with a four way splitter to feed Line 2 to four analog phones simultaneously?
3.) Since we need "trunk hunting" feature -such that if Line 1 is engaged, a new incoming call to Line 1 will ring on Line 2- the Linx Instant Second Line should not be a Private Number, is that correct?
4.) If they wish to keep their traditional fax machine, is there a reliable way to accomplish Line 1, Line 2 and faxing?

As simple and unusual as the system is, it has worked well for this small office, yet they're eager to leave Comcast. How is this scenario best structured in ooma and would you expect it to work well? Thank you very much.

Are the analog phones ancient or modern? i.e. do they have real bells or electronic bells?
A Telo supports a max REN of 5. Electronic bells are usually in the 0.1 REN range. The Telo doesn't supply enough ring current to drive real bells. The REN number is on the phone's label unless it is so old that REN didn't exist yet.

1. Yes
2. Yes. I think Instant second Line is a Premier feature.
3. Correct
4. I last used a FAX in 1995. There are companies that provide FAX service via a computer. Faxing works best when connected to the Telo's phone jack. It doesn't work very well through a Linx. Email works a lot better than faxing.

I have a Panasonic 4 line cordless phone system with 8 handsets connected to 2 Telos, a Verizon landline, and a Google phone. That's in my house, not a business. I also have 3 two line desk phones connected to the two Telos.

Thank you very much for your prompt feedback, Mr. Murphy. I am encouraged that I am on the right track and this plan will work. The existing two line phones are just a few years old, so I don't think REN will be a problem- and frankly, being in one small room, not sure we really need all telephone sets to ring! I guess the remaining question is simply service reliability. I personally have been with ooma practically since the beginning, 2006, and I can hardly think of any service that has been more reliable or valuable. Thank you again!

I have been with Ooma since 2009. The only problem I have had was when my modem started dropping up to 17% of my outbound packets. That made a mess of my outbound audio. A new modem fixed the problem.

Following up to this discussion of using a Telo, a Linx, and four hardwired 2 line analog desk phones...

Can you help me think this through?

With ooma Telo connected to phones' Line 1 and ooma Linx to phones' Line 2. If Line 1 is engaged and a separate caller calls Line 1, Line 2 will start ringing on all four desk phones, including the desk phone with which the original caller is still talking on Line 1. I suppose this is tolerable, or perhaps the Line 2 ringer setting could be turned off on the most used desk phone.

But when a second call comes in for Line 1 already in use, does Line 1 phone call have to include the call waiting interrupting beep? Or can this be turned off?

This office currently has a "trunk hunting" ambiance such that an existing call is not intruded on by call waiting. A second incoming call on the main number just rings on other phones. We need to recreate this setting, if possible. Thanks!

Perfect, thanks Murphy! My ooma set up here at home office has Linx configured as Private Number and the checkbox for Telo device call waiting indication does not appear- which makes sense now. Overall, this solution is looking really good. Thanks again!

Hello again Murphy, et al. I have the hardware and account set up. Could you help me iron out a remaining question?

As a reminder, we have:

-Telo with a four way splitter to feed Line 1 to four analog 2 line phones simultaneously
-Linx and Instant Second Line with a four way splitter to feed Line 2 to four analog 2 line phones simultaneously

If a junior member places an outgoing call, intending to use Line 2, he presses Line 2 on his analog desk phone, and gets a dial tone from Linx.

Next, a senior member needs to place an outgoing call. If he chooses Line 2 on his analog desk phone, he would join the preexisting call of the junior member. If he chooses Line 1 on his analog desk phone, he gets a dial tone from Telo.

Is the senior member's dial tone on his Line 1 phone button provided by the Line 2 service kicking in? I had been thinking Telo was "always Line 1" and Linx was "always Line 2."

In real world use, I guess which line it is doesn't really matter. I doubt these older, inexpensive phones have a line in use indication. Thus if any other phone is in use, I need to find out which analog phone line button, Line 1 or Line 2, is already engaged before choosing an outgoing Line button on my desk phone.

As a work around we might ask junior members to try to initiate new outgoing calls using their Line 2 button.

Any observations or suggestions regarding this scenario? Thank you.

Do you have Premier service?
If you do set the Linx up as a private line in your online account.
That will yield two online accounts accessed by using their respective phone numbers.
The two lines will be unique and will not interfere with each other.