fttn - only one phone?

[ichristie]

Hi,
I guess wasn't really sure what to expect with phone service now that i'm upgrading to fttn.
I thought my phone setup, baring technology difference, would look similar to what I have now.
My phone adapter arrived. It looks like I have to plug the adapter between the modem and the phone.
Trouble is we'd like -
a) to have more than one phone.
b) locate main phone (with answering machine) in a different location than my modem. Which I'm guessing will go in my basement like its predecessor.

What are my options?

I.

[dherr]

Personally I am using the Sonic suggestion since I already had a Panasonic DECT phone. The one phone plugged into the ATA is really just a base station for the two handsets. But I did also isolate my inside wiring so that each phone jack is connected in parallel and is *not* connected to anything else. I can plug my ata phone wire into any wall jack and thus "power up" all the jacks in the house. I am not sure of the official name for this but "backfilling" has been used in this forum so you can search for that. And note that I can also have a phone at the same jack the the ATA is "filling" by using a regular phone splitter.

[bobrk]

I did a thing where the adapter is plugged into the nearest phone jack, and this powers up the other jacks so you can plug your phones into them. It's called "backfilling" and it works great.

[ichristie]

I did a thing where the adapter is plugged into the nearest phone jack, and this powers up the other jacks so you can plug your phones into them. It's called "backfilling" and it works great.

intriguing! I will try this out as soon as at&t is done hooking me up.
thanks all!

Update: "backfilling" is working great!

[lewellyn]

I actually just called support about this, as I was expecting that I could provide my own ATA (or, in my case, a Grandstream phone where this would be Line 4…) once I saw that I was shipped an HT701, in addition (or instead of?) the HT701. I was floored to find out that "you only can use one phone" is the official answer.

However, it looks like the Comm Portal has a thing to "Add Keys" and you can select various devices… I'm afraid of messing things up, so I'm not playing with it, but is my assumption that we can DIY it with another SIP device feasible? (And, now, thinking about it, I'd probably prefer to just stick to something like a Grandstream DP715 rather than hooking up an analog POTS DECT set to an ATA, in the first place…)

Keep in mind that the "backfill" suggestion won't work in my case with a SIP VOIP phone, as it's only got an Ethernet jack. Think of it as a phone with 4 built-in ATAs.

This and one other limitation (will be posted to the appropriate forum) are making me really second-guess my decision of going with Sonic. I had always heard how technology-forward the company is, and this was just utterly unexpected.

[kgc]

I was floored to find out that "you only can use one phone" is the official answer.

You can use more than one phone behind the ATA and, as others have noted, you can safely plug it into existing wiring if you are sure it is disconnected at the MPOE.

[lewellyn]

I was floored to find out that "you only can use one phone" is the official answer.

You can use more than one phone behind the ATA and, as others have noted, you can safely plug it into existing wiring if you are sure it is disconnected at the MPOE.

I haven't actually owned a POTS phone in a while. I'm going to have to actually go purchase one to use with the ATA. I moved to SIP devices long ago (my first pure-IP phone was the Grandstream BT101… hard to believe it was discontinued almost a decade ago already!), so unless I make an investment in replacing all of my devices, I'm limited to one phone on my Sonic number (and that's providing I actually go grab a DECT handset or something for the ATA).

And as this is new construction, my demarc is actually in my apartment; the apartment RJ11 jacks have nothing punched down to them as the AT&T fiber just got put into an ONT in the can today. (I was slightly amused that "FTTN" is apparently synonymous with "Fiber to the closet next to the bathroom" nowadays.) So while I know that punching down RJ11 from the ATA and bridging to all the jacks would work, I don't have any POTS devices to actually hook up to them.

But my goal is to actually leave the RJ11 completely untouched, if possible. This meshes with my ideal situation of not replacing my current telephony hardware, and also not duplicating it. I was extremely hopeful that I'd be able to use my existing devices with Sonic when I saw that it was all SIP, but aside from that hint in the Comm Portal (which I'm still hesitant to touch), all I'm seeming to gather is "we can't let you use your own SIP equipment with the SIP account we provisioned for you."

I'm not even hoping to use my mobile SIP dialers; I just want my RJ45 devices to work. Even just one of them… Note that I'm not even asking to not pay the ATA rental fee. If I could use my own devices, I'll still rent the unused ATA just to make sure everyone's happy.

[Guest]

[quote]

I'm not even hoping to use my mobile SIP dialers; I just want my RJ45 devices to work. Even just one of them… :( Note that I'm not even asking to not pay the ATA rental fee. If I could use my own devices, I'll still rent the unused ATA just to make sure everyone's happy. :lol:

I wonder if you could use something like an obihai adapter as a bridge/proxy and connect that to Sonic's ATA phone jack then setup all your IP phones to use the obihai adapter? Of course this would require you to purchase the obihai adapter (obi110 is ~$65 on Amazon) and setup everything and may not be the solution your looking for.