AboutEric Miller Expertise I have over 10 years worth of experience in the telecommunications industry. I can give helpful information on virtually all aspects of telecommunications from residential installations to full size commercial installations. I have extensive experience in working with telecom media from CAT3 cable to fiberoptic cable. Be forewarned, hardware and software is not my thing, but I will give it my best to answer your questions.
Experience I have over 10 years worth of telephony experience, most of it in installation. I have extensive experience working with dial tone. I also have extensive knowledge in the installation/termination of all low-voltage cables, from CAT3 voice grade cable, to outside plant cable, to fiberoptic cable. I have used all types of test equipment ranging from CAT5 cable testers to OTDR's. I have experience in working with digital keys systems and PBX's.
Education/Credentials I have been BICSI certified. I have held certifications in digital key systems, voicemail, and other external equipment. I have held numerous certifications covering the installation of low voltage cable, including fiberoptic cable.
Expert: Eric Miller Date: 1/2/2008 Subject: (re)configuring a phone jack
Question I have two phone jacks installed near my computer. My computer is plugged
into he "live" one. I'd like to plug my phone into the other, but it is not active.
How do I configure it so that it will work with my phone?
Answer Hi Chris-
I probably should warn you before we get started that while connecting your phone jack to the same computer jack sounds like a good idea, you can't use both the phone and the computer at the same time. Since both devices use the same dial tone, you won't be able to receive calls when your on line either. If you're not concerned with that, let's get started.
Probably the easiest thing to do is to "tie" the two jacks together with a piece of telephone cable or data computer cable. Both cables/wire can be picked up at your local Lowes or Home Depot. To make a phone jack "hot", you need just one pair of wires. If you open your phone jack, and I'm assuming the jack is of the ordinary phone jack variety, you will see two sets of screws on the jack with different colored wires going to them; red, green, black and yellow. The set of screws we're concerned with is the red and green screws. Those are the "hot" screws.
Prepping your piece of wire/cable is very simple. You'll need to strip off the outer plastic jacket revealing the inner wires. Depending on the type of wire you picked up, the telephone wire will have either 4 or 8 wires in it and the data wire will have 8 wires in it. We're just going to use one pair or two individual wires. Once the outer jacket is off, pick either the red and green wires out of the 2 pr telephone wire or use the two blue wires in the telephone or computer wire. You'll have to strip the insulation off those individual wires revealing the solid copper wire.
On the jack, loosen the red and green screws and wrap the wires you just stripped around those screws and re-tighten. You'll repeat the same process on the "dead" jack. That should "jump" your dial tone from your live phone jack to your "dead" one making both jacks active with dial tone. All that's left is to connect your phone and talk away.
If the phone jacks are a considerable distance apart (more than 20 feet), the wire/cable needs to be ran either under the floor through the crawl space or basement or ran through the walls into the attic. Both methods involve drilling through walls and floors and involves much more in terms of installation and time.
I do hope I was able to help. If I can answer anymore questions, please let me know. Have a Happy New Year! Thanks for the question.
