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What about 2-line phones
We have two phone lines coming to the house... my number and wife's number. When we re-built the house it was wired so that both lines come into each phone jack and our (cordless phones) are 2-line. We plug the cable from the jack into the phone's "Line 1/2" socket. When the phone rings we push "Line 1" or "Line 2" depending on which lights up.
It that going to work with the Arris gateway if I take the phone cable from the wall in my office and plug it into the gateway? There is no documentation I can find on how this all cobbles together on the Xfinity site.
(For my office I'll have to get a simple splitter so I can run one cable to the Arris and one to my office phone.)
CCAndrew
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Al8041
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5 years ago
Are you thinking about someting like this 3-way splitter where I pop this into the wall jack and take L1 to Tel-1 and L2 to Tel-2 on the Arris and plug the office phone into L1/L2? Does that sound right?
https://mailanc2.net/urls9296/1rqvo
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Al8041
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5 years ago
I never got an acceptable answer to this.
If i dump the ATT landline and switch to Xfinity phone, how do I handle a home with two phone numbers? The house is wired such that one twisted pair handles both numbers into a 2-line cordless phone.
Would I have to get new handsets that talk wirelessly to the Arris gateway?
How does this all work. Is it written down anywhere?
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BruceW
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In conventional POTS home analog telephone wiring, one pair (two conductors) carries one line. Homes are usually wired with two pairs (four conductors), so that if two lines (telephone numbers) are desired each pair carries one of the two lines. In classic Bell color coding the pairs are red/green and black/yellow, but many color variations exist.
Are you quite sure your phone jacks are not wired with four conductors? If there are only two conductors and they are truly carrying two lines, you have a very unusual setup for home phone wiring.
Comcast offers no wiring guides AFAIK, but you'll find lots of info at https://www.google.com/search?q=home+telephone+wiring.
If you could furnish the model numbers of one of the two-line phones, we'd have a better idea what's involved here.
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Al8041
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Are you saying that I can just sign up for Xfinity phone service, they will tranfer the two numbers from ATT to Xfinity, and all I have to use is a simple splitter (see pix in previous post) into the Arris gateway? Will that work? Sounds too easy to me. I wish there was a way to test it.
If you drop ATT and xfer a number to Comcast, ATT cancels your account and if you want it back with that numbrer it is a major issue with their system... they have to start a whole new account. They are the worst company in the world to deal with.
This happened to me a few years ago when we signed up for Xfinity, they xfered the numbers from ATT... but when the tech came out to hook up he said the wiring in the house was too old for high-speed internet so we hired a compay to re-wire the whole place with "home runs" etc. Paid $900 for the job. It was a pain to get our old numbers back to ATT... we were without a land-line for about two weeks. Since then I'm being very careful about what I do. We have kept ATT for the past several years since we moved to Comcast.
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Al8041
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Thanks so much for coming back to me.
We have a two-lline base station... Panasonic Kx-TG9321 (which is rather old) and some cordless/wireless extensions in the house, each with a "line 1" and "line 2" button.
The phone line out of the wall and into base station is a RJ-11 or RJ-14 (not sure which) with four color wires: red, black, green, and yellow. It goes into the "Line 1 & 2" jack on the base station.
So, if I signed up for the Xfinity phone services (and dumped ATT land line) how would I connect that red-black-yellow-green RJ-14 cord to the Arris gateway, which has both "Tel 1" and "Tel 2" jacks on the back? Maybe using a splitter (see pix in previous post in this thread?)
Here is another question. I would not be adverse to buying new phones for the house if that would be easier. Does Xfinity sell phones? I'd want one base and 5 extensions if possible
(One technology I'm looking at is dumping the land-line (ATT) and using our two cell phones with a new Panasonic base and extension phones called Link2Cell. I don't know much about it.)
Do you think there is anyone at Xfinity I can call who understands this stuff. I'm a software engineer so I know a bit of tech, but not much about POTS!
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Al8041
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CCAndrew
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BruceW
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Usually RJ-11 refers to a one line, two-conductor plug and jack, where RJ-14 refers to a two line four-conductor plug and jack.
On some Comcast gateways the Tel 1 jack is actually a Tel 1/2 jack -- one jack carries both lines (4 conductors). If your gateway is like that, you could connect both lines to your home wiring with a single four conductor modular base cord. If the Tel 1 jack only carries one line you'd need to hook up both Tel 1 and Tel 2 to a splitter like the one you posted and then connect a four conductor modular base cord from the splitter Tel 1/2 jack to a wall jack to energize your home phone wiring. You'd need to disconnect that wiring from AT&T first!
Comcast doesn't sell home telephones AFAIK. And finding a Comcast rep or even a tech who understands home phone hookups is a bit of a long shot.
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BruceW
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I believe your understanding is correct. You can certainly connect the base unit directly to the Comcast gateway if you'd rather not mess with the house wiring hookup (there are a few diagrams in the Panasonic KX-TG9321 Operating Instructions under Getting Started /
Setting up). Sadly, I know of no way to test this ahead of time.
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Al8041
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5 years ago
Thanks for the easy-to-understand explanation. The problem is that there is no way to easily test it.
Is this how it would work?
I would tell Xfinity to transfer my two numbers from ATT to Comcast.
When someonce calls me, the incoming signal gets sent from the telephone network over to Xfinity who puts it out on the fiber/cable coming into my gateway. From there the gateway will send the signal to the base station that is plugged into it... and the base which will determine what number is being called and will ring all the phones showing "line 1" or "line 2" on the handset screen (like it does now.) I push either the line-1 or line-2 button to answer the call, like I do now.
Seems to me that I don't have to use the house wiring. I could just direct-connect the wireless base to the gateway and leave the base next to the gateway (I have room.)
Is any of the above true? 🙂
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