- How Two-line Phones Work
- How to Install Multiple Phones in Your House
- How to Add a Phone Extension | Today's Homeowner
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Mindi Orth began writing in as a technical writer for a consulting firm. She has experience in business documentation and has authored training and instructional materials. Skip to main content. Advantages and Disadvantages Using two separate telephone lines offer the most flexibility because you can send and receive fax messages and telephone calls at the same time. Troubleshooting Check the phone line and verify proper cable placement if you cannot send or receive fax messages.
References 2 The Phone Source: About the Author Mindi Orth began writing in as a technical writer for a consulting firm. Accessed 15 January This is no longer the case. When you order phone service to your house, the local phone company installs a network interface device , a sturdy grey plastic box usually mounted either in your basement or on an outside wall. You can do your inside wiring yourself, or you can pay the local phone company or a third party such as an electrician to do it for you.
Doing residential phone wiring is easy, however, and the local phone company's charges for this service are steep. Even if you have to buy wire and modular jacks, you're going to come out way ahead if you do your own work. Installing extra lines can be a problem if you rent an apartment in a multi-unit building. The wiring between the network interface device and the apartment is not the phone company's responsibility, so you'll have to work out with your landlord who's going to do the in-between wiring if you need additional lines.
Your landlord may not want you to do the wiring for fear you don't know what you're doing; but the landlord may also object to picking up the tab if the phone company does the work. Whose responsibility it actually is probably depends on your lease.
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I once had a deadbeat landlord who I didn't even bother approaching when I needed a second line installed. Instead, I just ran my own wire out thru a hole I drilled in the window frame and down a six-story fire escape in the alley to the basement, where I had the phone company representative install an ordinary residential network interface device for me next to the big panel. When I moved, I just unhooked my piece of wire and rolled it up for my next wiring project, and then I spackled over the hole I had drilled.
The landlord was none the wiser. This page is mainly about installing additional phone lines, which is one of the most common phone wiring tasks in this age of modems and fax machines. What's described here are the color coding conventions for phone wiring, and how to make the connections. It's assumed that you know how to use a screwdriver and a drill. It's also assumed that you have at least a rudimentary understanding of electrical safety.
Phone wires carry low-voltage electricity, but you probably already know better than to do your wiring barefoot on a wet floor, for example. If you're touching the wires when the phone rings, you can get a substantial jolt; enough current goes thru to ring the old-type mechanical ringing devices consisting of a heavy clapper and some rather large bells, even though most modern phones no longer require so much current. Best policy is to disconnect your house at the Network Interface Device see below before working on wiring.
Even a small shock can interfere with a pacemaker, according to one person who wrote to me. Also, for everybody, it's a bad idea to work on your phone wiring during thunderstorms. In most residential phone wiring, the cable contains four individual wires. Most phone wire installed in the U.
How Two-line Phones Work
The kind of wire shown above has recently become obsolete. For all new telephone wiring projects, you should use Cat 5 cable. All of the Cat 5 wire I've seen uses the following color coding:. In either case, the important point is this: In the vast majority of cases, the other two wires go unused-- but if you choose, you can certainly use them for a second line i. This means that if you are installing a second line for a fax, modem, etc. Assuming that everything is wired properly thruout your house i.
For ordinary phone equipment such a modem, however, you have to convert a "Line 1" jack to a "Line 2" jack.
One way you can do this is with a plug-in adapter, but the method described here involves swapping around a few wires in the jack. This has always worked in the past…thanks in advance! How do I add a jack in the kitchen using the same wire? My computer is in the basement and my phone lines are upstairs. I have not been able to use my fax machine due to this. I have a wireless system can you tell me what to do and the necessary supplies to get from the hardware store.
How to Install Multiple Phones in Your House
Thank you so much. Hi Dand, The color of the insulation on each wire in a phone cable is used to identify which wires are which on both ends of the connection. The wires are the same otherwise and can be interchanged as long as you use the same two colored wires on each end of the connection. For example, if you attach the red and green wires to the terminals in a phone jack, you need to attach the red and green wires to the terminal on the other end of the line as well.
Usually the red and green wires are used for the first phone line in a house, yellow and black for the second line, and blue and white for the third. Hi and thank you for your time. I have an existing jack in my livingroom with a phone cord plugged into it.
How to Add a Phone Extension | Today's Homeowner
I want another phone in the livingroom and would like it to have its own jack that I will connect to the baseboards. Are you saying that I can simply 1 remove the cover from the existing jack 2 Take 10 feet or so as needed of extra phone wire and stip it to display colored wires; 3 combine those added wires to the existing wires so there are 2 red wires going to the one screw and 2 green wires going to the existing greeen screw 4 strip the other side of the added phone wire and attach those wires to the new jack?
And, if so, do I put the black line under the red; and, the yellow under the green? My network interface had a small grounding wire going to a cold water pipe. I think it was connected to the yellow unused terminal.
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However, in everything I read online or on paper about wiring makes no mention of a grounding wire. What do you think? I tried the above method of running a cable from an existing jack to a room that has no jack but my internet failed. My intent is to have the existing jack still function work while I run a wire to a room that has no jack. We want to hear from you! In addition to posting comments on articles and videos, you can also send your comments and questions to us on our contact page or at While we can't answer them all, we may use your question on our Today's Homeowner radio or TV show, or online at todayshomeowner.
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