New phone won't detect the line

Quiet_thought

Hi,

I'm looking for a little help. I bought a new landline phone yesterday. It's BT graphite 3500. Anyway, I did as the instructions said and charged it for 24 hrs. Then I plugged in the phone line. It says no line! I checked the cable to see if that was at fault but it's fine. I have an eircom phone line if that makes any difference. The phone I already had was a BT one too, so I didn't think it would be a problem. Any help would be great!!
Thanks

Solair

The problem is most likely that BT, for some weird reason, wire RJ11 connectors on phones incorrectly, with the line carried on the wrong pins (matching those on a BT phone plug). The line should be on the middle 2 contacts if the RJ11 connector is wired correctly.

Basically, you will need to purchase a BT to RJ11 (Irish) adapter and use the original cable that came with the phone.
Large DIY shops usually stock those adapters.

There's no reason why the phone won't work here, but you can't replace the cable with a standard RJ11 to RJ11 (Irish type) phone cable.

If you connect an Irish phone cable it may either just not work at all or, if there's some weird cross connections between pins short the line out.

This does not apply to all phones sold in the UK, most have their cables wired in the normal RJ11 format so you can simply swap the original cable for an Irish one, however *some* BT branded phones are just a bit weird.

Bare in mind that BT doesn't actually make phones, rather it just has them made under its brand by various companies so your old BT phone and the one you bought could be totally different.


So, even if you are using the cable that came with your previous BT phone, as the wiring is not standardised in the UK for RJ11 connectors, there's no guarantee that the old cable will work with the new phone.

Electrically, the phone is compatible with an Irish line. If it has text messaging (SMS) facilities, you'll just need to programme in the eircom SMS centre settings and it will work fine.

If you still have no dial tone when using the original cable with an adapter, you should return the phone as it must be faulty.

Quiet_thought

Thank you so much!
The cable that came with the new phone didn't fit in the phone socket so I just used the old one. Obviously I'm not very smart when it comes to these things
I'll pick up one of those converter things today, hopefully that'll work.
Thanks again!!

Solair

No, BT are not very smart to use an internationally standardised conector, RJ11, completely incorrectly. If they are not going to wire it correctky, they shouldn't us it. This causes problems in the UK too when someone replaces a phone cable only to find that it mysteriously doesn't work.

Since RJ11 connectors have been used on pretty much every phone, modem and fax machine sold in Europe since the 80s, the plug, originally a US design, is the most common telephone connector on the planet and people expect it to work consistently, but BT just has to be awkward!

They even ripped off the Western Electric (AT&T) RJ11 design They made a big, crude and ugly white plastic version of it to ensure that UK folk couldn't easily connect non-UK phones back in the 1980s



At least P&T/Telecom Eireann just adopted RJ11 off-the-shelf. In the long run, it turned out to have been a very sensible decision.