Post by tim...Post by Mark CarverPost by Jack Harry TeesdaleMy landline operator has advised me that they will soon converting my
line to digital and i will need to plug my home phone into the
broadband router.
As i have several phone outlet points around the house will these
become redundant or could i instead connect the router to the
extension outlet circuit to maintain the connection to these other
outlets?
Presumably all these new fangled routers with a phone port will have
enough 'umph' (75 volts at 17 Hz ?) to produce a REN of 4 ?
as they will be mains, not line, powered, I don't see a technical
problem here (though there may be a marketing one)
Mine is rated at 3RENs.
It also has some sort of test it can carry out,
to determine the loading is too high.
And mine is separate from the router. It even
has a PDF user manual.
During my cutover, I was given a temporary phone
number, before the POTS number was "pulled" into
the VOIP system. (This is a courtesy from the VOIP
operator.) This temporary phone number was
available for a period of two weeks. And this
two week grace period, gives you time to phone
from your POTS phone, to a temporary phone
connected to your VOIP port.
Your setup during the two week grace period...
Legacy POTS New VOIP with temp number
| |
O-o O-o <=== cheap analog phone used
to test line quality
Holding the phone receivers on either side
of your head, you can "hear" the line latency
You can examine line quality, versus one of the
eight flavors of voice encoding. If there is a
problem with the hardware, you'll need every bit
of that two weeks, to resolve it, and ensure the
hardware is proven before pull.
For example, it took me a while to resolve my
"phone does not hang up" problem. When I would
hang up the cheap analog phone on my end, the
stupid VOIP thing did not drop the connection. This
can tie up the phone of the person you had just
finished talking to. It took me a bit of time, to
figure out how to stop that from happening (it's
just a setting in the config). The config can be
daunting, if you've ever looked at one, and if the
manual isn't very good.
On the "pull" day, the test phone number will
stop working, and you'll then set the details
of the POTS pull, into the box (as necessary).
Phone companies normally do database updates
at midnight, so that could be when your
phone number cuts over. The "precise" behavior
is for billing purposes.
Once you're on VOIP of course, you're fuxored :-)
Now you no longer have five nines reliability
in a phone system. Just about any digital burp
or fart could knock out the VOIP, and you'd
never know until you needed it. The nearest
phone box, could be quite far away (I've tested
the separate message recorder connected to
mine, from the grocery store payphone).
Some routers provided by an ISP and having VOIP
on them, they have a battery pack (optional, or,
provided). But this only lasts for four hours
or so, and is hardly a panacea. You could drive
the VOIP wall adapter from a UPS, if you expected more
of it. And depending on the tech, the box driving
the digital connection to your house might not have
power during a failure anyway. For example, mine
at the street corner, is line powered, and has a
power meter for taking meter readings on it.
So the phone company pays the power company for
the power used. They don't try to run the box
off -48V from the CO or anything. If there's
a pair in the fiber optic cable, it's not intended
for powering giant pieces of equipment. It could be
something as simple as a VF Order Wire (tech connects
his phone to it). Of course, techs today, contact
the CO using their cellphone, and order wires would
not be a priority today. (Available on equipment,
but not used.)
Even if you have a battery on your VOIP, it would
only work for the old ADSL, where there is no box
on the street corner to lose power. If the CO drives
a line direct to your house, as used to happen with
the original ADSL, then that battery in the VOIP box
makes sense. But with modern architectures, the box
driving your house is line powered, and it may not be
practical for them to put 48 hours of battery on it.
For most users, it just "drops like a rock" and no
dial tone. If you're having a heart attack and need
to dial out... good luck.
When the cable TV internet went out due to a fire
at the electrical substation, it took 12-24 hours
before the cable TV provider connected portable
generators to their street corner box. Then the phone
would come back. There was a Honda generator next
to the pedestal, and a guy would drive up in a
truck every once in a while and check the petrol
on it. The guy really seemed to be enjoying himself.
In a classy neighbourhood, such a portable generator
would be stolen as soon as the truck drove away.
Paul