Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

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dinks100
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by dinks100 » Mon Apr 19, 2010 8:11 am

Sometimes a picture helps.
I have a small house so Diagram A is the way my phone jacks are wired, bigger homes are more likely similar like
Diagram B.
Disconnect wires where shown leave all else connected.
Hope this helps.
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lbmofo
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by lbmofo » Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:20 pm

If you originally had more than 1 wire connected to the screw terminals, no worries. We'd just connect them back together using the scotchlok connectors shown at the end of this post. If you forogt what color they were, still no worries because most likely they were all L1 pairs.

Here is what my NIB looked like before ooma, did yours look about the same before you disconnected the wires from screw terminals?

Image

As you can see, 2 wires were connected to the screw terminals; so 2 sets of L1 tip/ring wires from 2 Cat 5 wire bunches were feeding phone jacks in my house.

Cat 5:
tip/ring
L1 white-blue/blue-white
L2 white-orange/orange-white
L3 white-green/green-white
L4 white-brown/brown-white
L5 white-slate/slate-white

From your previous post, it seems you have the older quad wiring as well:
tip/ring
L1 green/red
L2 black/yellow

Do you have 2 or 3 wire bunches leading into the house?

Let's say you got 3 wire bunches. Then use the 3 wire butt splice to connect all L1 tip wires together and then connect all L1 ring wires together. This ought to make most of your jacks live if not all. For the jacks that aren't live... likely they were wired as L2; just need to wire them back to L1. When selecting a jack to feed back Telo's "phone" dialtone as well as to test whether dialtone distro worked, I'd pick jacks that you knew for sure worked when you had landline.

IDEAL 85-950 2 wire butt splice scotchlok connectors from Home Depot
Image

IDEAL 85-925 3 wire butt splice scotchlok connectors from Home Depot
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tommies
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by tommies » Mon Apr 19, 2010 4:16 pm

kayembee wrote:Thanks for the information. But since all the wires are disconnected now and I have no idea which wires need to be put back on and where, I think I just need someone else to come in and do it and be done with it. I hate that I have to spend the money to do so. I have spent weeks trying to get this to work.

I just wish it was as simple for me as it has been for others. Unfortunately that was not the case.

Thanks!
It's not difficult as you're afraid, all the wires with the same color needed to connected together, (but not to the terminal screws.) In the pic. shown by lbmofo, there are two (2) cables coming out from inside the house. In this case, two '2 wire butt splice' is need for each line. You probably don't care about L2 & L3, so just two 'x wire butt splice' are needed, where 'x' is the number of cables coming out from inside the house.

For the record, you need to connect all the solid blue wires to the same 'x wire butt splice', and all the stripped blue to another 'x wire butt splice' where 'x' is the number of blue wires. This will connect the two innermost of all the wall jacks together and will allow the dial tone to distribute from any jack to all other jacks, which is not working for you right now.
Today when I was leaving for the office I happened to look at the wall jack in my kitchen area where I had my cordless phone main station hooked up. I noticed that the outlet had more than the standard 4 wires that everyone on the site has been telling me. I counted 6 connectors. I am wondering if the other jacks in my house have six connectors as well. Not sure if this is part of my problem or not. I am going to check that this evening. Didn't have time before I left for work.

This means your house is blessed with 3 lines, where most of us have 2. It must be a very nice house.
tommies

Solie
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by Solie » Fri Apr 23, 2010 2:28 pm

I read this thread and I am still kind of confused.
I am going to spec my situation and may be someone out there can help me.

I had land line and DSL thru ATT. Got Ooma and disconnected the land line. Ooma works fine and Internet & wireless hub are fine. but I can connect ONE phone to Ooma. All other phone jacks in the house are dead. I DO NOT have cable modem.

The phone cable that comes to each phone jack box has 4 pairs of wires.
1-Blue and white
2-Green and White
3-Orage and White
4-and other pair color I can not remember and white.

About 10 years ago, I had 2 phone lines.Main house phone was connected to Blue-White pair. Child line was connected to Green-White pair. Other wires were left alone. I had ATT discontinue my 2nd line 10 years ago. But I never disconnected any wire pairs.

Is there a way to get dial tone to my phone jacks?.

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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by lbmofo » Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:06 pm

Welcome Solie!

This is a good read.

From your post, you must have dry loop DSL and your wires are probably like this:

tip/ring
L1 white-blue/blue-white
L2 white-orange/orange-white
L3 white-green/green-white
L4 white-brown/brown-white

If I were you, I'd go to the NIB box and disconnect L1 from the screw terminals (clip off the copper tips from L1 and let them hang loose) and connect L2 onto the screw terminals instead. This way, your DSL would come into the house through L2.

Then, where you connect the DSL modem, either convert that wall jack into a 2 line wall jack or plug in a 2-line splitter similar to this:
Image

Modem plugs into L2 and then connect ooma's "phone" port to L1 and you would have dial tone throughout the house (those jacks that are wired for L1).

If you have an ooma Hub, you can even combine the "phone" & "wall" port before feeding into L1 jack so your ooma Hub would work anywhere in the house when plugged into a L1 wall jack.

To combine the "phone" & "wall" port feeding back to the wall jack, you can use a regular duplex splitter/adapter similar to these (also handy in hooking up a phone right at the device while feeding dialtone back to jack on the wall):
Image
Image
Image
Last edited by lbmofo on Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

tommies
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by tommies » Fri Apr 23, 2010 4:34 pm

lbmofo wrote:Welcome Solie!

tip/ring
L1 white-blue/blue-white
L2 white-orange/orange-white
L3 white-green/green-white
L4 white-brown/brown-white

If I were you, I'd go to the NIB box and disconnect L1 from the screw terminals (clip off the copper tips from L1 and let them hang loose) and connect L2 onto the screw terminals instead. This way, your DSL would come into the house through L2.
One caveat, of the wire(s)/L1 that previously connected to the screw terminal (probably blue ones), if there is just one wire connected to each screw, you can trim the exposed copper and let it hang loose like the above post.

However, if there are two or more wires, which are connected to the same terminal screws, you need to keep these wires connected together (they shall have the same color) If you don't, some of the jacks in the house will not have working dial tone (disconnected)

You can use the unused terminal screws (for L2 previously) or use the 2-wire or 3-wire butt splice (picture earlier in this thread).
tommies

Solie
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by Solie » Sat Apr 24, 2010 5:47 pm

Thanks for the replies. I am afraid to touch the NIB. It is very complicated Bacause

History:

Originally, When I bought the house, the demarkation point consisted of 3 small terminals and the old 2 pair (green, red,black and yellow). I recabled one side of the house with cat5 cable for tel. Blue pair was the house line. In 2000, I ordered 2nd phone line, then Pac Bell came and ran a brand new cable from street telephone pole to the house and Installed a new NIB. I asked Pac bell to give me the 2nd line in Orange Pair. They did.

Then I went to each jack and connected only ONE pair wires to each jack. Blue pair for line 1, Orage pair for line 2.
When I canceled 2nd line. No wiring was touched. Now each jack is connected to only 1 pair, Blue or Orange.

Question:

1. I believe my naked DSL still comes thru Blue pair. Would I not lose total DSL connection if I disconnect that blue pair? at NIB as some one suggested?

2. There is a Brown pair in the cat 5 cable that runs to most house tel jacks that is not connected to nothing. I can see it is free in the NIB too. Can I use this brown pair to distribute dial tone? If so how?

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southsound
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by southsound » Sat Apr 24, 2010 9:46 pm

Solie,

Let me echo the welcome of the others. We'e glad to have you on board. Now to some answers. I'll post them in red for clarity.
Solie wrote:Thanks for the replies. I am afraid to touch the NIB. No reason for fear here - consider it an adventure! Phone wiring is pretty easy and we can walk you through it in no time at all. It is very complicated Bacause

History:

Originally, When I bought the house, the demarkation point consisted of 3 small terminals and the old 2 pair (green, red,black and yellow). I recabled one side of the house with cat5 cable for tel. Blue pair was the house line. In 2000, I ordered 2nd phone line, then Pac Bell came and ran a brand new cable from street telephone pole to the house and Installed a new NIB. I asked Pac bell to give me the 2nd line in Orange Pair. They did. This kind of contradicts what you said in an earlier post - I think you said line 2 was on Green pair. Not a problem - I'll let you sort it out.

Then I went to each jack and connected only ONE pair wires to each jack. Blue pair for line 1, Orage pair for line 2.
When I canceled 2nd line. No wiring was touched. Now each jack is connected to only 1 pair, Blue or Orange.
True - but both pairs still appear at every jack (except for the old ones still wired with 2-pair [quad] wiring).

Question:

1. I believe my naked DSL still comes thru Blue pair. Would I not lose total DSL connection if I disconnect that blue pair? at NIB as some one suggested?
That is correct - see... you already know more than some of our experts. You need to avoid using the blue pair for supplying dialtone because it is what carries your DSL. The only place you will want a jack connected to your blue pair is at your DSL modem. You can use a 2 jack plate there to have one jack for the modem and another to feed dialtone to your other jacks throughout the house. For that second jack and all others in the house, you will want to use what ever color your second line was on - remember, we had some confusion there - orange or green. It doesn't matter, as long as you figure it out. You will want to rewire every jack (except the modem jack) using that pair for the red and green terminals (tip and ring). If you have any of the old wiring still in use, then you will connect those wires (red and green) to the second line pair in your NIB using scotchlock connectors. You should also unplug the 2nd line plug from its jack in the NIB.

2. There is a Brown pair in the cat 5 cable that runs to most house tel jacks that is not connected to nothing. I can see it is free in the NIB too. Can I use this brown pair to distribute dial tone? If so how? You could, but at least some of your jacks are already using either the green or orange pairs. Why not save yourself some work?
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Solie
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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by Solie » Sun Apr 25, 2010 12:46 am

Thank you Southsound, for the welcome, for the complement, and for the clarity of your response.
Yes, I admit that I had contradictions, My 2nd line was on Green pair and not orange. See, I am getting old.

I think I got it now. Don't look like I need a splitter after all. I will use a 2 jack plate where the DSL modem is connected. Connect Blue pair to jack 1 and DSL modem. Connect Brown pair to jack 2 and connect that to Ooma Tel Phone port. I can use a phone dupler (like the last pic that Ibmofo provided in this thread) if I want to connect a telephone here. Then in other rooms where there is CAT5 cable, connect the brown pair to the jack. No need to touch the NIB mess that I have at my place.

Do I have everything covered?

There is a DSL splitter between the Blue pair and the DSL modem.The Ooma Wall port is connected to the Phone port of the splitter. What this connection is for? Do I still need it? Come to think of it, do I even need the the DSL spliter? Now that I have naked DSL.

No knowing cabling, and being sloppy, in the past, I have left the unused wires just hanging in the tel jack box.How is the best way to handle these loose wire ends so they will not cause interference or static on the phone voice connection.

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Re: Still Cannot Distribute Dial Tone Throughout House

Post by lbmofo » Sun Apr 25, 2010 1:41 am

Solie wrote:I believe my naked DSL still comes thru Blue pair. Would I not lose total DSL connection if I disconnect that blue pair? at NIB as some one suggested?
If most of your house jacks were L1s, and if you had DSL, I was suggesting that you switch DSL from L1 to L2 at the NIB. This would be sensible since it requires the least amount of work in rewiring jacks inside the house to distribute dialtone.

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