# Second phone line in a pre-wired home?



## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

I know I bought a home that is pre-wired with 2 phone lines. Unfortunately, I don't know how to use the second phone line. There seem to be 8 jacks in the control panel in the closet which all seem to be parallel connected to the same line. 

Is there a way to switch the wires somehow in the control panel, or do I have to go "outside" somewhere? 

In the panel outside, I see some wires that look like cable wires, but nothing that looks like phone wires, but of course I don't know much about wiring, so I may be mistaken. 

Any ideas with this bare minimum information?


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## funhouse69 (Mar 26, 2007)

Could you maybe take a picture for us? 

Without seeing anything the basics are that a single phone (Not a phone system) only needs a single pair or wires (so two wires) That being said a typical phone jack has 4 pins in it but some people will even use an RJ45 (regular network connection) which will have 8 pins. 

How many wires are going to the 8 jacks? If they are in parallel then they will all be sharing the same phone line. 

Most 2 lines phones are wired to use a single connection so all 4 wires are used but some of them don't and you have to run two different connections. If you want to use this as a separate connection completely then you will need to either move the wires going to that specific jack on one of the ends but not both. 

Typically and this all depends on how they wired it but usually the Blue and Blue / White are the Primary phone line / number and then the Green / Green White are the secondary phone line / number. 

No matter what color the wires are the fact remains that the two middle pins in the jacks are line 1 and the outer 2 are line two so however they are wired at the block color wise doesn't matter as long as they are going to the right pins. 

Again this is the basics, I hope this helps a little bit.


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## funhouse69 (Mar 26, 2007)

I also found this that shows the pin outs a little more and in this instance they show the second line as the Orange / Orange White so I guess it all depends on how they wired it.

http://www.lanshack.com/wire_phone_jack.aspx


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

funhouse69 said:


> Could you maybe take a picture for us?
> 
> Without seeing anything the basics are that a single phone (Not a phone system) only needs a single pair or wires (so two wires) That being said a typical phone jack has 4 pins in it but some people will even use an RJ45 (regular network connection) which will have 8 pins.
> 
> ...


Pics attached. Any clues from the pics?


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## funhouse69 (Mar 26, 2007)

Honestly the pictures don't really help that much. You mentioned you have a single phone line in the house how. If you plug a phone in each of the jacks do you get the dial tone? If so then all of the ports are wired the same. 

Now the next question is where does the wire that is connected in to the back of the jacks go? Does this go to a block inside or outside of the house?

If you order another phone line from say you phone or cable company they should assist you in getting this figured out however phone companies these days don't really deal with "Inside Wiring" so that means that they might charge you a little more. I've seen a little more flexibility from cable installers. 

If however you are looking to do this yourself like adding a second vonage line then you will have to figure out this wiring yourself. 

Based on what you are showing me in the pic it looks like you are capable of having a total of 4 phone lines and not just two so the wiring is there assuming that the wires coming off of the 8 jacks also have all 8 wires in them running to the jacks in the various rooms of the house.


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

funhouse69 said:


> Honestly the pictures don't really help that much. You mentioned you have a single phone line in the house how. If you plug a phone in each of the jacks do you get the dial tone? If so then all of the ports are wired the same.
> 
> Now the next question is where does the wire that is connected in to the back of the jacks go? Does this go to a block inside or outside of the house?
> 
> ...


I tried plugging into all the jacks and I get a dial tone. I even tried to call from the phone to my cell and I get the same caller ID :-(

Frankly, I just moved into the house and I don't know much about the wiring and how it is set up. The builder did refer me to the installer for an earlier problem I had, but the installer was not that helpful, and I don't blame him. It has been 5 years since the community was built, so he may not know off the top of his head how this thing is wired. (I had questions about the data part of the pre wiring earlier)

Two out of the three pictures I attached are from a box outside the house, but I have absolutely no idea what happens between that box and the control panel in the house. Also, since the second line is not active yet, it is hard to do any troubleshooting without some sort of signal meter.

I just ordered DSL without phone line (naked DSL) on my second phone line, but I do not want to disconnect my current phone line before that line gets activated. I just don't know how to switch from the current line to the second line and am trying to avoid a $75 charge for someone to come in and just flip two wires, potentially 

I guess I will call the installer and see if he can help.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Go to Radio Shack or Wal-Mart and get a two line adapter. Also, if you are getting DSL, you may find that you'll need to install need DSL traps.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...Product+Type/Adapters&fbc=1&parentPage=family


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

Cholly said:


> Go to Radio Shack or Wal-Mart and get a two line adapter. Also, if you are getting DSL, you may find that you'll need to install need DSL traps.
> 
> http://www.radioshack.com/product/i...Product+Type/Adapters&fbc=1&parentPage=family


I do have a two-line adapter. So you think that the same jack has a capability to have two lines? That would be awesome!


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## HighVoltage (Nov 27, 2007)

Most homes are prewired with at least 4 conductors for phone but they may not have jacks with 4 or more contacts to support a multi-line capable phone.

Does the jack have at least 4 contacts? If so it may be that the other two contacts are not hooked up. Even if it only has 2 contacts, you could pop out the jack from thew wall, remove the 2 wires for the primary line and substitute in the other pair for your second line. Very simple operation.

Here a site with some basic info with pics to help identify what you have:
http://www.ablecomm.info/wiring.htm


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## mikep554 (Feb 14, 2007)

Are you actively paying the phone company for two lines? If not, no matter how your house is wired, you will not have two phone lines. You need to call up your phone company and ask them to activate a second line.

Most phone jacks have four electrical conductors (some less cheap ones have six). Only two are used for one line of phone service, so a four-conductor jack can support two lines. However, the second line will be on the pair that your phone does not use. A normal phone is wired up to the middle two conductors. The second line will be wired to the conductors to the outside of the middle two, but you either need a two-line phone that will connect to all four, or a splitter that will have one jack connected to the middle two conductors, and one jack that is wired to the outer two.

However, if you aren't paying your phone company for the extra line, all of those extra pairs of conductors aren't connected to anything to anything back at the phone company central office. No matter how your house is wired, you can't get a second line without the phone company activating it.


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

mikep554 said:


> Are you actively paying the phone company for two lines? If not, no matter how your house is wired, you will not have two phone lines. You need to call up your phone company and ask them to activate a second line.
> 
> Most phone jacks have four electrical conductors (some less cheap ones have six). Only two are used for one line of phone service, so a four-conductor jack can support two lines. However, the second line will be on the pair that your phone does not use. A normal phone is wired up to the middle two conductors. The second line will be wired to the conductors to the outside of the middle two, but you either need a two-line phone that will connect to all four, or a splitter that will have one jack connected to the middle two conductors, and one jack that is wired to the outer two.
> 
> However, if you aren't paying your phone company for the extra line, all of those extra pairs of conductors aren't connected to anything to anything back at the phone company central office. No matter how your house is wired, you can't get a second line without the phone company activating it.


I have ordered a DSL-without-phone service in addition to the DSL-on-phone that I already have. I assume that once that gets activated (should be done by the time I reach home today, or latest by tomorrow) I will be having two active, paid lines from my phone company.

Since I can see the 4 wires connected to the back of the control panel, I assume they are "hooked up" to each jack, so I could simply disconnect my current DSL-on-phone service and start using the new naked DSL.

Right?


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

HighVoltage said:


> Most homes are prewired with at least 4 conductors for phone but they may not have jacks with 4 or more contacts to support a multi-line capable phone.
> 
> Does the jack have at least 4 contacts? If so it may be that the other two contacts are not hooked up. Even if it only has 2 contacts, you could pop out the jack from thew wall, remove the 2 wires for the primary line and substitute in the other pair for your second line. Very simple operation.
> 
> ...


I assume you are talking about making the changes on the control panel, but unfortunately the "jack" is simply a circuit board with 8 seemingly parallel connections. There is a white connector at the back which has 4 pairs of wires coming in but I cannot "re-wire" them because they are connected to the PCB.

Hope that makes sense ... for a blurry idea of my set up, see my earlier post with picture attachments.


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## curt8403 (Dec 27, 2007)

lifeislife said:


> I assume you are talking about making the changes on the control panel, but unfortunately the "jack" is simply a circuit board with 8 seemingly parallel connections. There is a white connector at the back which has 4 pairs of wires coming in but I cannot "re-wire" them because they are connected to the PCB.
> 
> Hope that makes sense ... for a blurry idea of my set up, see my earlier post with picture attachments.


you appear to have Cat 5 network cable instead of regular phone lines, and it also appears that you do not have Plain old Telephone Service, but rather some computerized version like a VOIP service


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

curt8403 said:


> you appear to have Cat 5 network cable instead of regular phone lines, and it also appears that you do not have Plain old Telephone Service, but rather some computerized version like a VOIP service


I do have Cat5e cabling in the house, but I have Plain Old Telephone Service coming in to the house, which provides me DSL, and then I am running Vonage VoIP service. But the Vonage service is not hooked up to the home wiring, it is simply running off my router.


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## HighVoltage (Nov 27, 2007)

curt8403 said:


> you appear to have Cat 5 network cable instead of regular phone lines, and it also appears that you do not have Plain old Telephone Service, but rather some computerized version like a VOIP service


Cat5 and Cat3 are now used for POTS (Cat5 is overkill).


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## HighVoltage (Nov 27, 2007)

lifeislife said:


> I assume you are talking about making the changes on the control panel, but unfortunately the "jack" is simply a circuit board with 8 seemingly parallel connections. There is a white connector at the back which has 4 pairs of wires coming in but I cannot "re-wire" them because they are connected to the PCB.
> 
> Hope that makes sense ... for a blurry idea of my set up, see my earlier post with picture attachments.


No, I am talking about making changes at the wall jacks where you wish to access the 2nd phone line from.

Most homes these days are pre-wired for 2 lines however they may not have RJ14 jacks at the wall. Many homes will be constructed with RJ11 jacks which only support a single line. You can re-wire an RJ11 to make use of the 2nd line (in place of the original 1st line) or install an RJ14 jack to make use of both at the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJ11,_RJ14,_RJ25

http://www.lanshack.com/wire_phone_jack.aspx


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

HighVoltage said:


> No, I am talking about making changes at the wall jacks where you wish to access the 2nd phone line from.
> 
> Most homes these days are pre-wired for 2 lines however they may not have RJ14 jacks at the wall. Many homes will be constructed with RJ11 jacks which only support a single line. You can re-wire an RJ11 to make use of the 2nd line (in place of the original 1st line) or install an RJ14 jack to make use of both at the same time.
> 
> ...


No, I do not need to get the phone line at any room. I am going to be using the phone line purely for DSL, and I have my DSL router and home networking router both inside that control panel, so I can light up all the network ports (4 rooms, at least) from the control panel.

So I have Incoming Phone Line -> DSL router -> Home router -> 4 ports going to 4 rooms.

I really have no need for a phone line (that's the point of the whole effort) for phone purposes.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Now we are getting somewhere. In most new prewire installations, two Cat5 cables go to each wall outlet, where the outlet has two RJ45 jacks. One jack is usually used as a phone jack, while the other is used as a "communications" (i.e. ethernet) jack. I would assume that your lines at the communications panel end have RJ45 plugs on them and are plugged into the jack panel. If that's the case, you can unplug all the lines from the jack panel. Run a conventional phone cord (with RJ11 plugs at each end) from one of the now vacant jacks to your DSL modem. An RJ45 cable should run from the modem to the router. You can then connect a cable for each desired room to one of the four output jacks on the router to provide hard wired service to four rooms. If you are using a wireless router, so much the better.
I have a similar installation with wireless router. I needed more than four hard wired lines (to support two HD DVD players, a Nintendo Wii, and three computers that don't have wireless adapters, so I have a 5 port switch connedcted to one of the router outputs. I also have three computers and three TiVo DVR's with wireless adapters. I do have two phone lines: one is hardwired for POTS and the other is a fax line. Everything works just fine.

As an afterthought: RJ11 plugs fit nicely in the RJ45 jacks. The center pair of the RJ45's normally connect to line one of an incoming phone service and the next outer pair would be line 2.


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

Cholly said:


> Now we are getting somewhere. In most new prewire installations, two Cat5 cables go to each wall outlet, where the outlet has two RJ45 jacks. One jack is usually used as a phone jack, while the other is used as a "communications" (i.e. ethernet) jack. I would assume that your lines at the communications panel end have RJ45 plugs on them and are plugged into the jack panel. If that's the case, you can unplug all the lines from the jack panel. Run a conventional phone cord (with RJ11 plugs at each end) from one of the now vacant jacks to your DSL modem. An RJ45 cable should run from the modem to the router. You can then connect a cable for each desired room to one of the four output jacks on the router to provide hard wired service to four rooms. If you are using a wireless router, so much the better.
> I have a similar installation with wireless router. I needed more than four hard wired lines (to support two HD DVD players, a Nintendo Wii, and three computers that don't have wireless adapters, so I have a 5 port switch connedcted to one of the router outputs. I also have three computers and three TiVo DVR's with wireless adapters. I do have two phone lines: one is hardwired for POTS and the other is a fax line. Everything works just fine.
> 
> As an afterthought: RJ11 plugs fit nicely in the RJ45 jacks. The center pair of the RJ45's normally connect to line one of an incoming phone service and the next outer pair would be line 2.


That is *exactly* as I have it now. But I am currently on DSL-with-phone-service and I have ordered a new DSL service with no-phone option. That is going to get activated on the second phone line, but at this point I don't know how to use the second phone line. I have the DSL modem's phone wire coming in from one of the jacks in the control panel, but all 8 jacks seem to be in parallel.

I have two a 2-line adapter which I will try later today to see if I can get the second line to "show up" on the second jack of the adapter, but I am not sure how it would work.

How can I test the second line connection on a pre-wired control panel?


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Once the line is activated, plugging your modem into the line 2 jack on the adapter is all you'll have to do. I don't understand why youare having bare DSL come in on the second line. All you really needed to do was have line 1 changed from phone to bare DSL. There is no difference between the lines. If the phone company has dedicated bare DSL lines, the installer can change the connections at the pole. However, if you want to have the capability to switch back to telco for phone service, I can then understand leaving line 1 as is. In that case, it would be a simple job at the central office to reactivate the line.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

I agree with Cholly. All you need to do is shut off your voice service and be done with it (unless they "can't" do it). If they insist on using the second pair, ask them to hook it up to line one on the outdoor box. Make it their job to keep track of which pair is which as they're good at that kind of thing. Changing your house wiring to accommodate the telco isn't really going to help anyone. Note that Vonage does not recommend using the house's wiring for your VOIP service if that's what you had in mind.


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

Cholly said:


> Once the line is activated, plugging your modem into the line 2 jack on the adapter is all you'll have to do. I don't understand why youare having bare DSL come in on the second line. All you really needed to do was have line 1 changed from phone to bare DSL. There is no difference between the lines. If the phone company has dedicated bare DSL lines, the installer can change the connections at the pole. However, if you want to have the capability to switch back to telco for phone service, I can then understand leaving line 1 as is. In that case, it would be a simple job at the central office to reactivate the line.


Of course that was the first thing I asked at&t to do. They said they cannot just take off the voice. They have to cancel my line and only after it is de-provisioned, I can start a new order. That would have meant about 1 week of down time.

Who lives in this day and age without internet access at home for one whole week? ;-)

So I decided to place a new order, and only after ensuring that the second line is activated and I can use it, that I would cancel my existing phone line.

And my question here was simply to check if the second line is activated and that I can use it. If there were a phone service, I could have hooked up the phone and called my cell phone to see the caller ID and if it were different I would know that it is the second line.

But in this case, the second line is not going to have a dial tone, I presume. Also, unless I disconnect the line 1, I would not be sure if the DSL modem is picking up the internet connection through line 1 or line 2.

Can I go to some part of the modem configuration to see which line the DSL is active on?


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

harsh said:


> I agree with Cholly. All you need to do is shut off your voice service and be done with it (unless they "can't" do it). If they insist on using the second pair, ask them to hook it up to line one on the outdoor box. Make it their job to keep track of which pair is which as they're good at that kind of thing. Changing your house wiring to accommodate the telco isn't really going to help anyone. Note that Vonage does not recommend using the house's wiring for your VOIP service if that's what you had in mind.


Right, at&t told me that cannot just "shut off voice" on my current line. I would have to disconnect this line, wait for it to be de-provisioned and only then get a new line (naked DSL) started on that line.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

lifeislife said:


> Right, at&t told me that cannot just "shut off voice" on my current line. I would have to disconnect this line, wait for it to be de-provisioned and only then get a new line (naked DSL) started on that line.


That strikes me as a a bit of BS. It's not that they CAN'T do it -- they just don't WANT to do it. I'd ask to speak to a supervisor.
If they are insistent, you shouldn't have a problem. Connect your modem to line 2 as previously suggested. If it works, you're in business. You shouldn't have a dial tone on that line since it will be dedicated DSL. The only real issue is the fact that you'll be holding off on deactivating line one. Since that line also has DSL, there might be an issue, but I kind of doubt it.


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## lifeislife (Jul 23, 2004)

Just an update - line has not been activated yet :-(

Also, I have to re-register, and I cannot get the same email address as my first phone line's email address. Also, there is no email transfer process provided from old_email to new_email :-(

And I do not want to go to comcast for internet ... so I am sort of stuck with at&t for DSL :-(


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