On Wed, 11 May 2016 20:39:15 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 11 May 2016 19:14:10 -0500, Unquestionably Confused
wrote:

On 5/11/2016 7:04 PM, Don Y wrote:
On 5/11/2016 4:43 PM, wrote:
Today I got connected to internet telephone service for my home -
the old land line still has dial tone but only gets the "not
connected" message when used.


[snip]

The obvious other option is just to disconnect TPC from your
interface box (so YOU aren't trying to push signal OUT onto the
incoming line). Then, run a RJ11 cable from the VoIP gateway to the
nearest "telephone jack" inside your home. It will be wired to all
of the other, similar, jacks throughout your home.

If they made provisions for TWO lines to come into your home (often
on an unused pair of a 2-6 pair cable), then you can also try to
chase down the uncommitted end of that cable and use it as a vector
onto the "used" pair).

Again, disconnecting the phone company from your home AT the network
interface for the reason outlined above.

Taking into account the REN situation that Don mentions, his second
option is exactly what I did when we gave up our landline in favor of
our cellular phones. We bought a Siemens Gigaset which connects via
Bluetooth to our cell phones whenever we are in range (our model will
accept up to three cell phones and port them to the hardwired home phone
system. All we do is plug in a single RJ11 cable from the Gigaset to
the nearest telephone jack and we were done. The Gigaset gives us
incoming and outgoing call capabilities on all three lines through a
Panasonic cordless phone with FOUR extensions and an POTS or two
scattered throughout the house. We do not miss the landline at all.




Thanks for the ideas - much appreciated.
I'm leaning toward the cordless phone option ..
We have a 2-phone cordless now - buy another & a Y-adapter
or replace with a 4 phone set ...

Sometimes you can buy more extensions for the current phone. In my
case it was cheaper to buy a whole second phone with a base station
and a cordless phone, or maybe I bought that one first, but at least 3
extensions work with either base station (which has either a corded or
non-cordedd phone.)

One of the buttons to answer the phone is taking a little extra
pressure and I should buy a spare before they're all gone from ebay.

I just hate the idea of scrapping these gadgets every 5 years !

Absolutelyh

... my 3 home phones are all 20 years old & working fine.
John T.

I haved one phone that is 50 years old and working fine, though it's
hard to get to and rarely used, and another phone that's 60 or 70
years old and works fine. I'd put it in the living room but there's
no jack and hard to ilnstall. ...Wait, that must be why I bought the
wireless jack. But the phones I use are about 10 y.o.