Connecting to existing phone wires

[Mac0730]

I have my Ooma connected to the existing phone lines. It was working fine. I had ATT fiber installed and the tech removed the old phone wires, box and cut the wires from box to house.

Now any phone connect to a jack is not working. Is there a way to fix this?

[Robek]

Either invite the AT&T technician back to fix the home's internal wiring, or else go wireless. Ooma offers cordless accessories, such as the Ooma Linx to connect with wired telephones, or the Ooma HD3 handset. Other users have also recommended Panasonic telephones with cordless handsets.

[kevin_anderson_dbq]

AT&T should not have even touched the phone system, especially remove wiring or the actual phone company network interface demarcation box (which I assume is the "box" you are referring to). Vendors are not supposed to touch other vendors equipment (telephone, cable, etc) except to actually make an authorized cross-connect (or in the case of going to VoIP phone, isolating the no-longer used telephone company's drop from your house.

Where the telephone company phone wire entered your house, is there still a transformer block where all the interior phone wires come together? It will look like this: https://content.instructables.com/F7K/X ... 444da35a5a
As long as you still have one of these, and all they did was disconnect the incoming phone wire into the house and not tear these wires apart, then potentially your interior phone wire should still be intact.

You might have to explain more about what you actually mean in your terminology, about how you had phone working before you switched to fiber, or about what exactly At&T did in order for us to sort what how to help you.

[Mac0730]

I will attempt to explain further. The tech removed the wires from telephone pole to house and the box outside (network interface). He cut the wire coming from the box into the house. When I switched to Ooma, I unplugged the passthru from the interface to insid3 house. The transformer block is still intact.

The inside lines were working until the outside line was cut. I assuming this create a short in the system.

I’m thinking, if I disconnect the outside line from the transformer, the system may work again.

Hopefully this explain more.

[kevin_anderson_dbq]

The changes that the AT&T tech made that you describe should not have cause your inside wiring to stop, as you had already isolated the outside phone line from the inside wiring. So if there is a "short," it because the tech made some other change inside the house that you did not observe.

Was AT&T the previous telephone provider? If so, did they possibly add a phone connection from their own fiber-to-phone crossover box, in hopes that you would take on their phone service? If so, and that is now connected to to your phone block, it too will need to be isolated from that phone wiring, same as you did before.

I presume you tested Ooma with a phone directly connected to your Telo to make sure that is still working, and that part is well?

[Mac0730]

Tech didn’t touch transformer block. AT&T was previous provider a number of years ago. WOW and Comcast were also provider until I cut the cord. The Ooma is working, I have a Uniden base unit with expandable handsets, they are working. I also, have 3 handset that used the phone lines (fax machines, etc).

[kevin_anderson_dbq]

Okay. You may be right that the remnant of wire from after they cut it is what is left to test, as they might not have made a clean cut. Either remove it at the block, or you could just strip it back at the exposed cut end, and make sure the wires are not touching each other.

[Stelcom66]

Was the junction where all of the inside house wiring outside? Glad it's working now with the cordless system. If the junction to connect all of the jack wiring was outside and the connection to inside the house was disconnected, that would in effect disable the jacks. Or, as was suggested, if the 2 conductors were touching (shorted) because of the cut that would cause the line to go 'off hook' and there would be no dial tone in the house. I wonder what transformer you're referring to?

With Ooma, if the line was shorted unlike a line from the central office (not sure about cable co. lines) the caller wouldn't hear a busy, but instead ringing then voicemail. Without a 'buttset' (Test phone with clip leads) it would have been difficult to troubleshoot. Mentioning this because to reconnect the inside wiring you'd just need to disconnect the feed outside (is there was a short, you'd have dial tone again) and/or create a new junction for the wiring inside the house.