Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

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bmccollum
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Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

Post by bmccollum » Wed Jul 28, 2010 7:18 am

My parents have had both telephone service and DSL service provided for numerous years at their home via AT&T.

They just purchased & installed an Ooma Telo device. They've submitted a request to have their long-standing home # ported from AT&T to Ooma.

Once that's done, I'd ideally like to drop over to their house & connect the Ooma device to their wall jack in order to distribute the dial tone throughout their entire home to all of their phone jacks.

I did this easily at our house a few weeks ago w/our new Ooma Telo, but it was a different scenario since we have Cable broadband service and not DSL.

I've read some info. on Line1 + Line2 splitters and other stuff, but I'm still unclear as to how (once their home phone # is successfully ported to Ooma from AT&T) to safely distribute the dial tone from Ooma into a wall jack located near the Ooma as to get the dial tone to all other jacks in their house. Their DSL service will of course switch over to a dry-loop DSL after the porting is complete, but what I can find on here doesn't seem to state that you can just simply connect a phone cord from the "Phone" port on the Ooma Telo to a wall jack w/the fact in play that the DSL service is coming into the house via that same wall jack.

Any specific step-by-step instructions / info. on how to accomplish what I'm desiring to accomplish would be greatly appreciated!

BeachGirl
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Re: Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

Post by BeachGirl » Wed Jul 28, 2010 8:06 am

I have this exact same question and situation. I've been using the first version of Ooma for a year now and just got the telo upgrade. When I had my DSL dry loop configured they installed a faceplate with two jack connections and rewired the second connection with the green data pair of wires for the DSL.

In my network box from the phone company the original wires (blue pair) has the plug that was providing both DSL and phone unplugged now.

The jacks in the house are all wired to the single phone faceplate with blue and orange pairs.

So - I plugged in the Ooma telo - and everything works fine.

But I plugged in a phone into several of the house jacks and "nothing".

So - do I need a splitter?
Or - should I plug in the connection in my network interface box - do the lines need some sort of power to work?
Or - give up?

My issue is that the telo handsets don't have a great enough reach from where I have the telo located and I like where it is located so I would just use regular phones in those locations.

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southsound
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Re: Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

Post by southsound » Wed Jul 28, 2010 8:22 am

The configuration that BeachGirl describes should work - so instead of changing things, I'd recommend doing some troubleshooting. DSL works best when it is totally separated from the ooma dialtone - so having the DSL signal on a previously unused pair (green/white) is great. What might be happening in BeachGirl's configuration is what is being fed to the home's wall jacks. Are you feeding the home jacks with a cord from the Telo's PHONE port? The WALL port is only used if you are integrating your landine (almost always a bad idea) and has no other purpose. It should be left empty. The output from the PHONE jack mimics the signal that used to come from the Telco. It has talk battery (to make the voice circuit work) and provides ringing current for up to the equivelant of 5 old-style Bell 2500 desk sets with mechanical ringers. That equates to more modern phones and cordless base stations than you want to know. You can check the total REN by adding up the REN numbers on the label on the bottom of your phones.
BeachGirl wrote:When I had my DSL dry loop configured they installed a faceplate with two jack connections and rewired the second connection with the green data pair of wires for the DSL. This is ideal! Great job, DSL installer.

In my network box from the phone company the original wires (blue pair) has the plug that was providing both DSL and phone unplugged now. Again, this is just as it should be.

The jacks in the house are all wired to the single phone faceplate with blue and orange pairs. Most likely blue/white on line 1, orange/white on line 2. You will be using the blue/white or line 1 connections for your phones. Make sure that the ones at the voice jack on your double plate are also wired this way.

So - I plugged in the Ooma telo - and everything works fine. Good news! Means that your DSL is isolated and available at your double plate.

But I plugged in a phone into several of the house jacks and "nothing". Again, the jack that feeds the home's wiring should come from the PHONE port on the Telo (or hub)

So - do I need a splitter? Nope
Or - should I plug in the connection in my network interface box - do the lines need some sort of power to work? Nope.
Or - give up? A very big NO. You are very close to success!

My issue is that the telo handsets don't have a great enough reach from where I have the telo located and I like where it is located so I would just use regular phones in those locations.
bmccollum wrote:Any specific step-by-step instructions / info. on how to accomplish what I'm desiring to accomplish would be greatly appreciated!
The description of what was done at BeachGirl's home should serve as a great tutorial. What you want to accomplish is to have the DSL on a clean pair. Most easily, you could use splitters, but they are expensive (about $5 a pop at some stores, more elsewhere), they sometimes don't work well, and they confuse people who aren't sure why they are there (mom or dad when cleaning, moving furniture, etc. I would remove the wall plate near your parent's DSL modem and see how it is wired and how many pairs are available. Moving to an unused pair should be fairly easy. We can guide you through what to do at the Network Interface Box as well. If they live close, why not snap a picture of it showing the wiring and we can jump in with details.
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tommies
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Re: Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

Post by tommies » Wed Jul 28, 2010 4:48 pm

southsound wrote: The description of what was done at BeachGirl's home should serve as a great tutorial. What you want to accomplish is to have the DSL on a clean pair. Most easily, you could use splitters, but they are expensive (about $5 a pop at some stores, more elsewhere), they sometimes don't work well, and they confuse people who aren't sure why they are there (mom or dad when cleaning, moving furniture, etc. I would remove the wall plate near your parent's DSL modem and see how it is wired and how many pairs are available. Moving to an unused pair should be fairly easy. We can guide you through what to do at the Network Interface Box as well. If they live close, why not snap a picture of it showing the wiring and we can jump in with details.
Yes, a pic of the NIT and a pic of the wall plate (back side).

Every time a Line1 + Line 2 splitter is needed, a two-jack wall plate is a better solution. One is for DSL, and the other is for the ooma dial tone.

The ideal solution is moving the DSL signal to line 2 (orange pair) and disconnect line 1 (blue pair) at the NIT so the ooma dial tone can be distributed to every other wall jack (untouched.)
tommies

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lbmofo
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Re: Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

Post by lbmofo » Wed Jul 28, 2010 5:13 pm

tommies wrote:The ideal solution is moving the DSL signal to line 2 (orange pair) and disconnect line 1 (blue pair) at the NIT so the ooma dial tone can be distributed to every other wall jack (untouched.)
I'd say so too.

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lbmofo
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Re: Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

Post by lbmofo » Wed Jul 28, 2010 5:16 pm

southsound wrote:...you could use splitters, but they are expensive (about $5 a pop at some stores, more elsewhere..
Fry's seems to be cheapest as far as physical stores.

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highq
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Re: Powering Entire House W/Dial Tone (DSL Broadband)

Post by highq » Thu Jul 29, 2010 12:06 pm

lbmofo wrote:
southsound wrote:...you could use splitters, but they are expensive (about $5 a pop at some stores, more elsewhere..
Fry's seems to be cheapest as far as physical stores.
I see $3.45 on EBay, Item 180504930169.

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