Phone issue - Model HT801

[pmoudakis]

I am having problems with my phone connection again. It keeps disconnecting itself during phone calls for no reason. This morning it disconnected me 3 times in less than 15 minutes. This has been happening more frequently lately - also it recently stopped functioning totally without my realizing it until I went to make a call and had no dial tone. I rebooted it and the line came back up, but I have no idea how long it had been down. This is downright scary to realize that I cannot rely on having phone service when I need it. I have the Model HT801 ATA unit which seems to have some problems. Can I get the Model 802 to replace this unit which is making me very uneasy? Please advise.

[cfoss1]

I have the same model and it also disconnects to the point where we have no dial tone.
I have to disconnect the power, and wait for the three lights to return before we have dial tone.

[ngufra]

if you need it replaced, you should contact sonic customer service, not the forums.

Can you register your cellphone to your home phone line?
That way even if the ATA keels over, the line would still work from your cell phone.

[david.c]

This type of problem can happen if there is any abnormal power issues or power outages. Its also common to see issues if the ATA is backfed into the homes internal wiring which is why we do not recommend that type of setup.

In your case its sounds like either the internet connection is intermittent and needs repair or the ATA is faulty. We can easily send out a replacement ATA to test and see if that was the issue.

I am going to send you an e-mail so I can work with you directly on fixing this problem. If e-mail does not work for you can reply here and let me know.

Thank you,

[klui]

This type of problem can happen if there is any abnormal power issues or power outages. Its also common to see issues if the ATA is backfed into the homes internal wiring which is why we do not recommend that type of setup.

What do you mean by backfed? I have an HT802 and have experienced unexpected disconnects and device not registered.

We used to have a Leviton phone patching expansion board (47609-EMP) connected to the ATA so I could use 2 phones. Sonic support recommended we don't use it. Having just one phone with 5 handsets connected, the disconnects have subsided quite a bit but we still get device not registered on occasion. The last was probably 2-3 months ago. The ATA is connected to an old reliable pure sine wave APC UPS. The second phone had its own power adapter and has REN 0.4A, ringer equivalence of 0.7B. The simple Uniden phone provided by Sonic has REN 0.7A, ringer equivalence 1.0B.

An issue with the HT802, and probably HT801 is if there is a power outage or if my modem reboots, the ATA doesn't retry authentication after the modem comes back on line. One has to reboot the ATA via ***999 or power cycle manually. I know it doesn't do it automatically because the last time ATT upgraded my modem a month ago I forgot about it, went to sleep, and when I got up the ATA still wasn't registered.

[david.c]

Backfeeding an ATA would be having a phone line run from the ATA to a phone jack. This can allow other phones to be plugged into other phone jacks throughout the home but the ATA can only push out so much power so this type of setup does not always work.

In your situation the phone system you are using may be having other issues than the ATA's power output.

We have seen success with a phone system that uses a base station with multiple wireless handsets. This is because the ATA is only providing one device with phone service as intended and the base station is then splitting that signal to the other handsets.

At this time I am not sure what is causing problems with the Leviton phone patching expansion board (47609-EMP) since it is not a Sonic device.

[klui]

OK. I understand what you mean now. The Leviton basically acts as a telephone patch panel where you can connect multiple phones to it. The layout has a 110 punch block for the source of the phone connection and RJ45 jacks where you can connect up to 7 physical phones. The 110 block would terminate to the ATA where the phone normally connects.

The entire device is contained in a PCB that is much more reliable than an old house's phone wiring system. My house has had its old phone wires ripped out and replaced by around 25 Cat6 drops. A normal patch panel is used to connect patch cords to the Leviton.

Currently our Panasonic cordless base station with 5 handsets connects directly from a network patch panel to the ATA with an RJ45-to-RJ11 patch cord. Our Panasonic has a REN of 0.1B. Personally speaking, after seeing the behavior of the HTxxx devices, I'm not surprised that it does not have the ability to allow more than one phone connected. The Leviton worked fine when we had ADSL/POTS from Sonic over a span of 4 years. Then experienced intermittent disconnects and other issues after we upgraded to FTTN and now FTTH for the past 6 where we used the Grandstream 801/802. Our 801/802 combo was replaced probably 2 times besides the FTTN-to-FTTH migration.