Home Office Two Number Quandary

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fingal
Posts:8
Joined:Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:16 pm
Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by fingal » Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:51 pm

I'm a brand new Ooma Core user. I was excited by this new service yesterday. Today, not so much. I just spent an *exhausting* session with User Support. I think the technician was new on the job and she tried her best but in the end I had a throbbing headache, and am not sure I got the right answer. Their answer is I can’t do what I want. Here goes:

I have the Hub in my home office where the internet cable modem is. The hookup is modem – Hub – computer. I have my 2-line office phone hooked up to the phone port of the hub and my Ooma primary number is working great this way.

I have two Scouts, with the idea of using them for my bedroom and kitchen phones. I have a secondary number. My desire is to have the primary number (or secondary, I don’t care which) ring and be used in my office, and the other number ring in the bedroom and kitchen. So, one number will be the “office” number and the other will be the “home” number. I don’t care if both ring in the office but was hoping only one will ring in the other two rooms.

Can I do what I want? How do I accomplish this magic?

I have an office and a home land line coming to the house which I will be disconnecting, without porting either number. Both land lines have jacks in the office while the home land line is jacked into the other two rooms.

By the way, one Scout has been provisioned with the secondary number. Can someone tell me that I can do this, maybe with some creative wiring/splitters/etc?

Groundhound
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Joined:Sat May 23, 2009 9:28 am
Location:Atlanta, GA

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by Groundhound » Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:52 pm

Good news, it likely can be done. So that we can provide the best advice, it would helpful to know if you have DSL on any of the phone lines in your house. Also if there is any POTS line still active on your home wiring.

fingal
Posts:8
Joined:Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:16 pm

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by fingal » Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:13 am

Good news, it likely can be done. So that we can provide the best advice, it would helpful to know if you have DSL on any of the phone lines in your house. Also if there is any POTS line still active on your home wiring.
Great! Glad to hear it! No DSL, only cable modem. Two POTS lines still active. Both are jacked into my office (two jacks on my wall) and one is jacked into the kitchen and bedroom. I can disconnect both lines at the outside NID any time.

Groundhound
Posts:2711
Joined:Sat May 23, 2009 9:28 am
Location:Atlanta, GA

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by Groundhound » Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:03 pm

fingal wrote:
Good news, it likely can be done. So that we can provide the best advice, it would helpful to know if you have DSL on any of the phone lines in your house. Also if there is any POTS line still active on your home wiring.
Great! Glad to hear it! No DSL, only cable modem. Two POTS lines still active. Both are jacked into my office (two jacks on my wall) and one is jacked into the kitchen and bedroom. I can disconnect both lines at the outside NID any time.
Assuming you want the number that rings only on the Scout that as been assigned to it as a personal device to be in your office and your Ooma Hub is also in that office, and also that you did not choose the integrated landline option when you activated and are ready to disconnect your POTS lines, do the following:

1. Connect the wall ports on the Hub and the assigned Scout together via a short phone cord. When both are powered up the Scout tab should be blue.
2. Plug the splitter that came with your Hub into the Hub's phone port, and then connect a phone cord from one side of that splitter to an unused phone jack in your office (disconnect the POTS service at your NID). This should be the jack that had your home service number on it previously, not your office number.
3. Plug the other side of the splitter into either line 1 or line 2 input on your two-line office phone with another phone cord.
4. Connect the phone port on the Scout to the other input on your two-line office phone.

Hopefully you should now have your main number ring on all phones in your house, and the second number will only ring on your office phone on the line input connected to the Scout. You may not need another Scout unless you want to add a third number or want to extend the voicemail interface to another room.

fingal
Posts:8
Joined:Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:16 pm

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by fingal » Sun Jul 18, 2010 4:48 pm

Hopefully you should now have your main number ring on all phones in your house, and the second number will only ring on your office phone on the line input connected to the Scout.
Groundhound, you are spot on with my set-up and desire. Thanks!

Right now my main (office) number is assigned to the Hub and the second (home) number is assigned to the Scout, so I assume I need to call Ooma Support and get the phone numbers switched. Then I should be able to wire it as you describe.
You may not need another Scout unless you want to add a third number or want to extend the voicemail interface to another room.
I do want to have a voicemail interface on the kitchen phone also. How would I add in the second Scout to do that? Do I have Ooma Support set the second Scout up?

I think I'm excited once again. :D

Groundhound
Posts:2711
Joined:Sat May 23, 2009 9:28 am
Location:Atlanta, GA

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by Groundhound » Sun Jul 18, 2010 6:26 pm

fingal wrote:Right now my main (office) number is assigned to the Hub and the second (home) number is assigned to the Scout, so I assume I need to call Ooma Support and get the phone numbers switched. Then I should be able to wire it as you describe.
You can modify my directions slightly without making the change with customer service (except as noted in my last sentence at the bottom of this post). Instead of splitting the phone port on the Hub, use the splitter on the Scout's phone port with one side feeding the jack for your home and the other side to your office phone line 1 or line 2 input. The phone port on the Hub would be un-split and go directly to the other line input on your office phone. Be aware that a number of folks have noticed a hum on the outbound call side of the Scout (heard by the other party) so you will need to ask if others can hear a hum on Scout connected calls, YMMV.
fingal wrote:I do want to have a voicemail interface on the kitchen phone also. How would I add in the second Scout to do that? Do I have Ooma Support set the second Scout up?
In this case you will need to also split the wall port on the Hub and connect one side to the Scout wall port in your office and the other side can be fed through the same jack as you're feeding from the Scout's phone port by means of yet another splitter, and at the other end you would connect the other Scout's wall port to the jack and then the kitchen phone to that Scout's phone port. That Scout would be sharing the the same line as the office phone (Hub) since it is a shared device, so if you still want the Hub line to only ring in the office you will need to follow my original instructions after having Customer Service switch the numbers.

shaklee3
Posts:7
Joined:Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:01 pm

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by shaklee3 » Sun Jul 18, 2010 7:39 pm

Groundhound, can you explain how I can do a similar setup just as you did with the OP? My setup is also an office with two physically separate phone jacks, one for the office line and one for the main line. The main line also connects to a jack in the kitchen. I want to be able to have the ooma hub/scout in the office where the cable modem is, and have only my fax line ring in the office, and my home line ring on my remote phone plugged into the jack in my kitchen. Do you know how I'd do that with a hub and scout?

Groundhound
Posts:2711
Joined:Sat May 23, 2009 9:28 am
Location:Atlanta, GA

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by Groundhound » Sun Jul 18, 2010 8:07 pm

shaklee3 wrote:Groundhound, can you explain how I can do a similar setup just as you did with the OP? My setup is also an office with two physically separate phone jacks, one for the office line and one for the main line. The main line also connects to a jack in the kitchen. I want to be able to have the ooma hub/scout in the office where the cable modem is, and have only my fax line ring in the office, and my home line ring on my remote phone plugged into the jack in my kitchen. Do you know how I'd do that with a hub and scout?
I'm going to make the same assumptions I did for the OP, no DSL, no landline integration, POTS disconnected at the NID. Fax typically does not work with the Scout, so your fax line would need to be the primary account number on the Hub. Get customer service to switch which number is the main shared number if necessary. You would connect the Hub's phone port to the fax machine (there's more info about getting fax to work but let's start with the connections). The Scout would need to be setup as a "personal device" in my.Ooma with the second number (for voice) assigned to it. You would then connect the Hub and Scout's wall ports together with a phone cord and the Scout's tab should turn blue. Connect the Scout's phone port to the jack that previously was for the main line (the line that also rang in your kitchen). If you need to also use that line in your office use a splitter to the Scout's phone port to provide dialtone to your office phone and also feed that main line jack. The kitchen phone should now work on the Scout's dialtone.

shaklee3
Posts:7
Joined:Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:01 pm

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by shaklee3 » Mon Jul 19, 2010 6:41 am

By POTS disconnected at the NID do you just mean that I'll disconnect the wires going to my cable modem that currently do my digital phone? I have comcast digital voice right now. And no landline integration is correct. Thanks.

Groundhound
Posts:2711
Joined:Sat May 23, 2009 9:28 am
Location:Atlanta, GA

Re: Home Office Two Number Quandary

Post by Groundhound » Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:21 pm

shaklee3 wrote:By POTS disconnected at the NID do you just mean that I'll disconnect the wires going to my cable modem that currently do my digital phone? I have comcast digital voice right now. And no landline integration is correct. Thanks.
If you were running dialtone throughout your house from your CDV service, it is likely that the POTS connections in your NID have already been unplugged (I'd double check to make sure), in which case you would just need to unplug the phone cord from your Comcast modem. The key is that before you try to extend Ooma dialtone in your house wiring, you must remove other voltage sources. Even though you don't have POTS active from the local phone company, if their line is not physically disconnected at the NID it can still feed voltage in your house wiring and possibly damage your Ooma equipment.

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