Connecting Internet Phone System To House Wiring

[rmarien]

I installed a Vontage Internet Phone system using a Linksys Broadband Router. Their directions tell me to disconnect the wires from the Network Interface Unit which I have done. However in my NIU the wires were all individually connected and three wire bundles go into the house. Now that they are disconnected, I cannot use the wiring in the house for the Vontage system. I suspect it is because the wires disconnected do not make a closed circuit, but I am not sure since the Vontage help desk said that all I needed to do was disconnect the wires.

Can someone advise me on were to go from here without calling in an electrician?

[suemarkp]

I think you need to do the following: Take the wires that were all on one screw in the phone NID and connect them together, but don't connect to the phone NID screw. Do the same with the wires that were under a second screw (but don't connect them to the other set of wires you just connected in the previous step).

You should end up with 3 blue wires connected together and 3 white wires connected together. None of these should touch the phone NID screws. If you had wires on more than 2 screws, then you need clarify what you phone NID looks like and where things went. Also, do you only have one phone line (number)? Do you have a desire to have any phone use the telco system, or do you want them all to be Vontage VOIP? I assumed you want all VOIP phone.

You can buy round phone wire "connectors" that you just pull the wire over and they connect. Use those, and you won't have to strip wires. Be sure to get ones that can take at least 3 wires.

[mdshunk]

See pic of the UR type connectors Mark wrote about:

[Jacksnap]

You mentioned Linksys Broadband Router. Did Vonage supply this router? What happens if you lose AC?

[bmwpower]

Then he's got to use his cellphone.

With VoIP, you can choose to not cancel your landline, but you would need to separate your landline phones from your VoIP phones.

[rmarien]

You all have been extremely helpful. My wires are in bundles with wires having red & white, blue & white, orange & white, green & white, brown & white, etc. I am gathering that if I bundle like colors that the circuits will be connected letting the signals from the VOIP to travel through the circuits. This wiring is over 25 years old so that is why there are so many colors.

Thanks again.

[mdshunk]

True. Just connect all of the like colored conductors from each cable together and you'll be all set. Obviously, don't reconnect anything to the NID box.

[Jacksnap]

Reason I asked about the AC loss was that I have VOIP through my cable company (TV & IP) and the cable modem is combo VOIP & IP. The modem has a self contained UPS with one removable battery installed and space for a second. The one battery is good for 2 to 3 hours. There is no router involved in a non-networked installation.
Since I have a large network in-house, a wireless router is used for wired & wireless IP access on my property. The router has no function or tie-in to the VOIP/telephones.
At last check Vonage puts you in a 'SOL' position when you loose AC. If a landline is needed, say for 911, then installation of a UPS can keep the VOIP up and running.

[rmarien]

I have connected everything according to what we have discussed, yet when connecting the router to the telephone jack in my office, it doesn't propagate to other telephones. Other phones on the house wiring remain dead. Is there someting I can do to test for continuity? If not what is the best way to troubleshoot the problem? Vontage and the resellers don't have a clue.

[mdshunk]

Even though we've related what to do, can you describe the connections that you've made? Perhaps something got lost in the translation, and if you repost exactly what you did, maybe we can spot the flaw.

[rmarien]

First I installed my router and got it working in a stand alone mode with a telephone connected directly to the telephone 1 port of the router. Then I went ot the NID and disconnected the wiring from the house to the NID. I spliced all like wires (3wires each) using the connector you all recommended. I did have one gray & white wire and one gray wire which I connected as well. Once that was completed, I shut the entire network down, connected the port 1 to the telephone jack in my office. I brought up the cable modem, then the broadband router. After they were signaling everything was ready, I brought up the network. When I went to other telephones in the house, they were still dead. I then put a replicator plug into port 1 and plugged in a telephone and connected the other jack into the phone jack. The telephone on port 1 works but the other telephones still do not work.

Did I miss anything?http://www.selfhelpforums.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[mdshunk]

That sounds right. Do you have a long cord to try your VOIP setup in another jack besides the one in the office? Perhaps there's something wrong with the jack in the office.

[rmarien]

Not right now. This jack is the jack that I have been using all along though to send faxes and telephone usage. I feel like I must have missed something when I took the wires off. It is almost as if the wiring is no longer connected. I do have three other phones on the house wiring.

[Jacksnap]

Then I went ot the NID and disconnected the wiring from the house to the NID. I spliced all like wires (3wires each) using the connector you all recommended.
Something is not clear here. Exactly what wires inside the NID did you splice together?
The telephone port on your router/modem should feed your NID. Then take the telephone cable, that you just ran from the router/modem to the NID, and connect it to the telephone cable that feeds your house (after disconnecting the your local telephone providers wires). You have to figure out the color matching because, even though there are standard color combos, it does not mean they were followed.
To simplify.... all you are doing here is disconnecting the wires that go from the NID into your house and connecting them to the telephne wire on the telephone port of your router/modem (via the jumper between your router/modem out to your NID).
Jack/retired teleco

[suemarkp]

What jacksnap said is the correct way to do this if you don't want any local telco phone. But I couldn't tell if he wanted both VoIP and local telco service or not.

Since you've already removed the wires from the NID, things could be complicated. Are you sure you joined the wires in the same order as they were connected under a nut in the NID? If not, I think you need to go to each phone jack and see what wires are actually being used from the wall into the center two wires on the phone jack. Colors could be meaningless with wires this old.

Can you verify that the incoming telco wires to the NID are still connected to it, or otherwise NOT connected to your wire bundle. If you still have a live telco line, connecting a phone jack to the two lone telco wires should verify you have the correct pair. These again are the wires you don't want connected to any of the VOIP wires.

If we number the wires in a wall mounted phone jack as 1,2,3,4 (left to right), you need to see which wires are on locations 2 and 3 (these are all that are used for one phone line). What wire on the first phone jack is on location 2 needs to attach to all other jacks location #2. Then repeat for the wires on location #3.

Finally, you could try adding the wall jacks one at a time. But since you have one working jack and a bunch of dead ones, I think you have broken wires or wrong wires and not something shorted out. Looking at each jack individually is probably the quickest course of action.