Phones bought in UK - Will they work in Ireland?

peejay1986

Recently moved back to Ireland from the UK. We brought our phone (BT Graphite 1500) over with us but when we tried using it here (replacing BT phone line with standard RJ11 line). However, we're not getting a dial tone from the phone anymore. We had intended to use this with a VOIP router, but no joy. Even tried it at a neighbours working phone point and it's still not getting a tone.

Is there any reason why it shouldn't work? I thought the only real difference was the BT phone line, which I replaced.

Any help would be great.

Xantia

British telephones use the outer 2 wires on the RJ11 connector that goes into the phone.
They also have no ringing capacitor (1.8 micro Farad) in the phone - it is installed at the master wall jack.

To convert between the two you will need a BT to RJ11 adaptor with ringing capacitor included
You can plug in the BT plug at one end and there is an RJ11 plug coming out the other end.

Try Maplin - VD36P
http://www.maplin.co.uk/bt-us-adaptors-12492

peejay1986

Thanks Xantia.

My girlfriend is actually heading over to the UK for the weekend and we've a £60 Tesco voucher to spend. We were going to use that to buy new phones. What I'm wondering now is - how do I know if these will be compatible with RJ11 lines? Would any be 'plug and play' when brought back to Ireland or would they all need the adapter regardless?

These are the two we're considering. Probably leaning towards the cheaper as it seems the colour screen is the only major difference. I think.

http://www.tesco.com/direct/gigaset-c610a-twin-telephone/211-0046.prd?skuId=211-0046&pageLevel=

http://www.tesco.com/direct/gigaset-a400a-twin-telephone/211-6139.prd?skuId=211-6139&pageLevel=

Any advice would be brilliant. Thanks.

Solair

In general yes, they should work no problem by simply changing the UK phone cord for an Irish RJ11 to RJ11 cord.

In general with international brands like Siemens Gigaset, you should be fine!

ALTHOUGH :

Some phones, particularly slightly older BT branded ones can have the RJ11 socket on the phone wired up as if it were a BT plug - i.e. the line's carried on the wrong pins on the RJ11 socket on the bottom of the phone. So, if you stick in a normally-wired cord (like an Irish one) it will not work.

In that case you have to use the original phone cord and a BT to RJ11 adaptor.

Some older UK phones required a ring capacitor in the socket and used 3rd wire ringing. In general, that's not as big a deal as it used to be and most of them will be happy enough on an Irish line with just wires.

The old weird wiring on some UK phones will cause as much hassle for someone in England trying to connect them to a VoIP adaptor or cable modem as it will to an Irish person plugging them into an Irish line.

Most phones are made for a pan-European market anyway these days, so they are generally all quite happy with 2-wire lines & various forms of Caller ID.

1) Try sticking an Irish phone cable into it and see if you get a dial tone and if it rings when you call it from your mobile - if it does, you're sorted - no fiddly adaptors required.

2) If you get no dial tone or the phone doesn't ring - you need a UK > IRL adaptor and the original cable.