How Do I Hook Up... my digital phone service (Vonage)? Newsletter Signup

April 12th, 2008 by Joe Chianese

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Using your Phone Jacks with Vonage (Home Wiring)

To use the phone jacks in your house with VoIP digital phone service, there's really just two steps.

The first step involves disconnecting some wires connected to your home, while the second step is connecting a telephone cable from the phone port on your TA to any phone jack in your house. Yup, it's that simple.

The wires outside of your house that I'm talking about are extremely important. If you don't disconnect them, you run the risk of destroying your phone adapter! But before that, you'll get dropped calls, weak volume, distant dial tone, and choppy audio.

You may not be familiar with the term, but those wires that come in from the phone company and connect to your house utilize the DMARC. Short for demarcation point, the DMARC is the termination point from the telephone company's wiring to your home's wiring. Simply, its what connects the landline telephone service to your phone jacks. Realize that even when you terminate service with your old telephone company, those wires are STILL connected! The only person who will disconnect them is you!

You will find a pair of wires in the DMARC. You'll need to disconnect them before plugging your TA into a phone jack in your house. If you don't, the DMARC passes a slight electrical signal into your home wiring, whether or not there is a call in progress. This electrcity is strong enough to damage your TA and render it useless. I can't stress enough how important it is to disconnect the DMARC before using your home wiring with Vonage or similar services.

Disconnecting the DMARC goes a bit beyond the depth of this How-To, so I will refer you to the Michigan Telephone website. Visit How to Distribute VoIP Through out a Home for the most in-depth, accurate description of disconnecting the DMARC. Its a good read, but a long one - so take your time!

That wraps it up for our Vonage Digital Phone Service How-To. I hope you've found this guide to be helpful.

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