Ok I got my Vonage phone and now I need help hooking it up to my existing phone in my house. I tried unplugging the cable that feeds the house from SBC then I hooked the line to an existing plug near the adapter thinking I could back feed the system but that didn't work. So what do I need to do to get this to work properly?
Thanks for the help, Rich
That should do it. Does it work if you plug a phone into the adapter itself?
Wayne
Yes the phone works fine when plugged into the adapter, but the other phones don't when I tried the back feed, so I figured it was like a hub where I might need a cross over cable to go the other way? Seems to me it should have worked but didn't. I'll do some more testing and see what I find out.
Thanks for the helpful response, Rich
Ok little more testing, it works if I use line one but not line two. Do I need to enable line 2 or is line one the only one active unless you get an upgrade?
oh well at least I know the back feed works!!
onward
It is only a single line phone? So why would line 2 work?
Wayne
You would have to get a business type 2 line service to have it work as a 2 line system
Wayne
If you mean by "line 2" the second jack on the Vonage modem, I don't think it does anything.
Yes it seems to be inactive unless you upgrade to add a fax machine or another line! Ok now I have a one to two jack plugged into the wall with one line going to one phone and the other line back feeding Vonage into my existing phone system and all is working as expected.
Thanks for everyone's responses, Rich
Why did you expect the second line to work?
Question for those using Vonage, how good is the service in terms of voice quality, connection reliability, etc?
It has been great for me, so far. I dropped SBC and am saving $32/ month in doing so!
Rich
what's going to happen when you have a power outage and need to report it via your phone?
I have never reported a power outage in the past, but I do have a cell phone if I wanted to call someone to tell them something that they probably know. If there is a power outage I would guess that I wouldn't be the only one experiencing it and I'll let the chicken littlies of the world do the reporting! LOL
Rich
"Charles Spitzer" wrote in message news:ceufio$o4o$ snipped-for-privacy@transfer.stratus.com...
We have a small business. For $38/month we get another incoming line (pick your area code), extras like call-waiting, caller-id, voice mail, and (here's the best part) all the outgoing long distance we can eat.
Before this, even with the best deal we could find (about 3c/min) our LD bill was over $200/month.
And the $38/month is all. No excise tax No sales tax No line access fee No universal access fee No 911 fee No Al Gore tax No Mosquito Control District tax No fuel surcharge
Quality is indistinguishable from a regular land-line.
If the Congress wants to start dicking with VoIP regulations, they're gonna have ME to deal with!
You could also connect both your cablemodem and your router and your Vonage voicemodem to a UPS pack.
My cablemodem is 13 watts, and my router is on a small wall wart probably less than 15 watts. I can't imaging the Vonage voicemodem consuming any more than 25 watts. At 53 watts total, you'll get many hours of talk time during a blackout.
not if the box on the street is out. i'd doubt that it has a ups or generator.
Actually, many fiber nodes (the box which converts and splits the fiber optic distribution backbone into 1 or more coaxial cable backbones for customer distribution) are UPS backed, and most cable companies will dispatch techs during blackouts to sit there in a truck with a generator until power is restored.
Well, less UPS than rows of chest high batteries. Which is why all equipment (well, most) in a CO runs on 48VDC.
And these batteries are why your phone can ring in a power outage. That power comes from the phone company, not your house. note the lack of wall warts on your phones. Actually I lie. Last blackout, it took me a minute to recall where the phone that doesn't draw power was (cordless and a deskphone/machine both need AC. One's on the UPS now).
My take is if you have a cell and coverage, you're covered. If the power outage takes out cells, then perhaps COs are down. So perhaps that ham license will come in handy :)
911 is an issue for VOIP.
I wasn't referring to equipment at the CO's. If the COs are down, pretty much everyone is S.O.L. I'm talking about vonage internet phone.
The coaxial cable which enters a home is connected to a coxial backbone, which gets it's power and digital signal for both broadband and cable TV from a pole or pad-mounted node.
The node converts coaxial cable to fiber optic cable, which doesn't go to your local CO it goes to the cable company's switch, which is battery powered just like a CO.
But the individual cable nodes scattered throughout the towns, villages and cities and developments are UPS backed and in the event of an extended blackout, the cable company will dispatch techs with generators.
[snip]
Actually most modern designs for cable companies outside plant include battery backup protection at regular intervals on the poles - usually lasts a couple hours. When you get on back to the headends those definitely have battery backups and generators there, of course.
regards, Mark
Very true - I've never had any outages with my Vonage during power failures after I put the cable modem, router, and Vonage adapter on a UPS!
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