damage to phones after isdn install??

hamiltron

Here's a strange one. I got ISDN installed a month ago. Straight away, one of the phones in my house started playing up - caller ID not working, signal fading, and it eventually died completely.

I tried another phone in its place and it was also dead. I thought it must have been a compatibility problem with the new line, but I tested both phones in another house with no ISDN and they are definitely marbh.

Oh, and another phone (a fax/phone) doesn't recognise when calls come in - it doesn't ring and doesn't accept faxes automatically.

Eircom have bluntly refused to accept that this could have anything to do with the installation of the ISDN line... but what are the chances of three phones coincidentally developing faults within a week of getting a new phone service installed?

Anyone else had experience of dying phones or any idea what could have caused it? It sounds like surge damage, but the phones weren't all plugged in at the same time, so there would have to have been multiple surges. And if there are surges, where are they coming from???

Thanks for any suggestions.

Hamiltron

steve-hosting36

Hi Hamiltron,

ISDN is a high-voltage technology, if you plug analogue phone equipment into digital lines they will get fried by the voltage (about 110v iirc)

Your ISDN install should have PSTN or POTS connections (two standard looking analogue phone jacks). These are converted to 'safe for analogue gear' by the ISDN box.

Hope that helps,
Stephen

Saruman

Eircom are a shower or muppets.. what do you expect?

hamiltron

Thanks for the tip Stephen. I should have thought of that.... Obviously I didn't plug a phone into the ISDN sockets on the ISDN unit (they are RJ45 anyway - not RJ11), but I was plugging them into the preexisting extra socket we had downstairs and into the main telephone point downstairs where the line actually comes into the house.

The thing is, if these sockets are unsuitable for analogue phones, why did the guy installing the equipment reconnect the line in the kitchen (which he knew had a phone connected to it at the time), and why is there an RJ11 (phone-type) socket on the main point downstairs? Also, the guy installing it didn't mention anything about not using the phone anywhere else but at the ISDN unit.

Thanks again,

Hamiltron

atgate

Hi

In my old house when the eircom guy did the isdn install he took the original line from where it entered the house and looped it back to the analogue port on the isdn box effectively keeping all my analogue points analogue (all 5 of them). So I didn't have any problems with those ports. CLIP (caller ID) on isdn lines only show the incoming number, they don't carry the time/date information.

Alas, the install went too smoothly for me - it was when I started using the mini-vigor modem that my problems really started - it made a total mess of my PC, I couldn't wait to trash it. The happy ending for me is that I moved to a 2 way cable area and my life became complete.

If eircom left dodgy points in your house I'd go after them for some free phones or rental credit - they can well afford it with the rentals they charge!

atgate

hamiltron

You poxy git! Two way cable... how many people have that in Ireland?

Anyway, do you mean that the guy used one of the analogue outputs of the ISDN box as the source connection for the rest of the phone points in the house? That did not happen for me, and would explain a lot...

I thank you all for your informative replies. I have a bit of follow-up to do on a letter I sent to Eircom last week.

Cheers,

Hamiltron.

Occidental

Hamiltron,

If the only line you have coming into the house is ISDN, then yes, you're analogue phones will have to loop back through the phone connection on the back of your ISDN box.