Can I attach several more wired phones to the Sonic setup?

Internet access discussion, including Fusion, IP Broadband, and Gigabit Fiber!
24 posts Page 1 of 3
by ankh » Sun Sep 06, 2020 1:05 pm
I have sonic fiber, and the installer disconnected several runs of Cat6 cable that served landline phones at various places around the house -- standard connection using the blue/white wire pairs, run under the house and then up to regular phone jacks.

I'd like to hook those back up -- as the volume of phone calls (mostly spam) has been increasing markedly and running to catch the phone call is becoming an annoying addition to our exercise plan.

Can I just punch the blue and blue-white wire pair into the whatchamacallit next to the splitter in the crawlspace where the glass fiber terminates? Or do I need to call a Sonic tech to do it for me? Or is it even feasible to do?
by chris.w » Sun Sep 06, 2020 4:04 pm
The quickest and simplest solution might be to install a cordless phone in place of the one you have now. If the cordless base comes with multiple handsets, you can locate them wherever it’s convenient.

However, if you want to be able to plug your extension(s) into the wall:

If the wiring to your wall phone jacks is intact, the key is to tie that wiring to the Voice (RJ11) port on your ONT. If the in-house phone circuit is terminated with an RJ11 connector (standard phone connector) somewhere near your ONT, all you need to do is plug that RJ11 connector into the ONT, and your wall jacks should go live. Depending on how you were wired up, pre-fiber, and what the installer removed, there’s a chance it could be that simple. If not, you may still be able to tie the phone circuit back together and terminate it with a connector at the ONT.

Alternatively, you could run a phone cord from your crawlspace into your living space, plugging one end of the cord into the ONT and the other end into a wall jack. All the wall jacks that are still tied to that one should go live, unless the wires in the crawlspace got shorted or grounded during the installation.

Either way, it sounds like a straightforward job, either for you or for a technician/electrician/handyman, and not something that Sonic would need (or want) to get involved in.

Good luck.
by klui » Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:21 pm
The ATA has a limited amount of power to drive other phones and Sonic only supports 1 phone. You should follow @chris.w's advice and use a cordless with multiple handsets. Our cordless serves as our primary land line. I had one other corded phone with its own power supply chained the ATA and while the whole system worked for the most part, sometimes the cordless would either disconnect abruptly during a call or the ATA would become unregistered more often than unexpected.

I've disconnected the corded phone in my home office and have relied exclusively on the soft phone there and it's worked so far, max registration changes not-withstanding.
by ankh » Sun Sep 06, 2020 10:06 pm
> only one phone

We have one cordless phone and three handsets in use, the base station plugged into the Sonic connector, which isn't enough that the residents of the household can always be within convenient reach of a phone. I guess I have to look into whether I can add more cordless handsets, or (sigh) buy a different cordless phone with more handsets bundled.

Bother.
by dane » Mon Sep 07, 2020 9:48 am
For Sonic fiber service using the Adtran 411 ONT, it out POTS pots voice with a REN of 3. This means three “typical” telephone devices could be connected. For more on the REN, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringer_equivalence_number

But modern devices often themselves have a lower than 1.0 REN. So if you want to get precise, determine the REN number for each device you have and add those up, and assure its 3.0 or less in total. So you might tally up something like:

Cordless base station: 0.8
Old phone in basement: 1.0
Fax machine 0.5
Corded phone in kitchen: 0.5

This would be a viable configuration.

But, good luck finding the REM required for each device, manufacturers seem really bad about consistently making that easily available. Assume 1.0 if you can’t find the info.

At home I’ve got one wired phone in the kitchen that does not require power - for emergencies and because I always know where it is, then a Panasonic cordless base with five handsets. Which should be plenty, but I can never seem to find one when they’re ringing! ;) I do have Panasonic’s battery backup for the base station, and an APC UPS for the router and main Eero WiFi. The other Eero unit will go offline when the power goes out, but WiFi works in the center of the house.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by ankh » Mon Sep 07, 2020 10:25 am
Thank you.
five handsets. Which should be plenty, but I can never seem to find one when they’re ringing!
Yep, thats why we want to revive several of our old phone jacks, for wired/findable phones.
one wired phone in the kitchen that does not require power - for emergencies
I think this is what I'm asking about. How is this connected -- wired to what where how? -- to the Sonic system? Does it function when the electrical grid is down, from the UPS on the Sonic phone gadget.
by chris.w » Mon Sep 07, 2020 1:45 pm
For what it’s worth, our Adtran ONT voice jack has been connected to the telephone circuit in our house, through a wall jack, since Sonic Fiber was installed, roughly a year ago. Our device usage is similar to Dane’s: a multi-handset, cordless phone, powered by PG&E (0.1 REN) and a corded phone that doesn’t rely on AC power (1.0 REN), mostly for use during during power outages (until the ONT’s backup supply runs out of juice, anyway). 1.1 REN usage is less than 3 REN capacity, so we should be good—and our experience confirms this.

How to square this with klui’s report? We may be comparing apples and oranges. If the ATA klui refers to in their post is the Analog Telephone Adapter that comes with Sonic’s resold AT&T FTTN and FTTH products, that may be the answer: the ATA may have a lower REN than the Adtran ONT, making (I was tempted to say RENdering) it unable to support multiple devices. klui’s observations may apply to resold AT&T installations, but not to Sonic Fiber ones.

(Dane: Thanks for introducing us to the REN. I was aware of the concept, but now I know its name and definition, I know the rating for the ONT, and I know what to look for on phone labels.)
by apl » Mon Sep 07, 2020 2:36 pm
For what it's worth, my ATA (from with the resold AT&T fiber) powers and rings two old (wired, with real bells and no external power source) phones with no problem.
by dane » Mon Sep 07, 2020 2:45 pm
ankh wrote:I think this is what I'm asking about. How is this connected -- wired to what where how? -- to the Sonic system? Does it function when the electrical grid is down, from the UPS on the Sonic phone gadget.
Ah, gotcha. It's pretty easy to "back-feed" the entire house from the ATA or ONT.

Here's how:

First, go to the telephone network interface box, open it up, and disconnect the "test jack". This disconnects your home's wiring from the AT&T telephone wires back to the CO. Here are the steps to open it with a standard flat screwdriver and an example of what the jack looks like when unplugged: https://imgur.com/gallery/lS3nZu6 Then shut the internal and external lids (leave the jack unplugged!), and now all of your household phone wiring is freestanding.

Second, plug the ONT or ATA's voice output jack into any phone jack in the home which was a working, connected jack. That connects it to all of the other jacks which were also connected to that same line.

Finally, plug a phone into any other jack which was also connected. You should get dialtone from the ATA/ONT.

How it works:

Basically the NID serves as a hub, or distribution point. You'll generally see all of the phone wires from around the home screwed down to it's pair of terminals on the right. (Or, in newer homes, they'll all be in a distribution panel, often in the master bedroom closet.) But either way, by disconnecting it from the AT&T telephone network, you can "back-feed" all the other jacks from a VOIP source device inside the home.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by ankh » Mon Sep 07, 2020 2:52 pm
OK, I think that's most of what I need. Now the house wires all go from phone jacks in the living area, down to dangling wires (used to be blue and blue/white pair connected) in the crawlspace where the Sonic fiber terminates.

So how do I get these disconnected dangling twisted blue/blue-white pairs reattached to something live?
24 posts Page 1 of 3

Who is online

In total there are 31 users online :: 1 registered, 0 hidden and 30 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 999 on Mon May 10, 2021 1:02 am

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 30 guests