You've Dropped Your Landline — Now What? 635
smurphmeister writes "My wife and I recently moved up to the world of cell phones, after taking our sweet time to make sure this whole newfangled technology was going to stick around. We moved the old landline phone number to her phone, so we're disconnected from the pole. Now the question is, what to do with the copper already in our house? My first thought was an intercom system, but that just seems so old school! So what ideas do you all have for what to do with the 4 little wires running to every room of my house?"
What do you do with extra copper? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/cu/cu.asp [metalprices.com]
Xlink (Score:5, Informative)
Get one of these:
http://www.myxlink.com/index.aspx
And keep the legacy landline handsets in the house. This way, no matter where you are in the house, whether or not the cellphone is with you, you can still make/receive calls - leveraging your cell minutes.
You can probably integrate that with an Asterisk VoIP system and get additional things like intercom, room-to-room dialing, etc.
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:2, Informative)
Heard a noise at night? just go to the tablet on the wall, scan the cameras, and alert the authorities if necessary.
Re:Cat-6 (Score:5, Informative)
That probably won't work. The old wiring would be stapled in place.
Convertor for VoIP (Score:2, Informative)
Get a stand alone adaptor for Skype/ other VoIP system (SIP?) and hook in your old landline phones to that. Cheaper internet calls out, emergency and incoming calls to your mobiles. Best of everything. And fairly easy to convert back to being wired into the normal telephone network!
Emulate your landline with Cell Phone Dock (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:2, Informative)
Leave it for 911 service (Score:5, Informative)
Depending on which state you live in, the phone company may be required to provide a "soft dial tone" so that you can continue to make free 911 calls with a land line phone. In this case, it would be extremely foolish to remove or mess around with the phone lines. In an emergency, you may not be able to 100% rely on your cell phone to have a charged battery, get signal, etc. If your wife starts having a heart attack, you may not have time to run across the house and grab a charger if the battery is dead or reset the phone if it freezes.
Save it for 911 (Score:3, Informative)
Plug your old corded phone back in, so you can still call 911 in an emergency when the power is out and the cell towers are either down or jammed to capacity. AFAIK, all local phone companies in the US are required to still connect 911 calls, even if you're not paying for service.
Re:A few thoughts (Score:5, Informative)
From the modules in ubuntu 9.04:
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed, usually only 2x single pairs, hardly enough to be usable at all for any sort of Ethernet network.
Anyone who's stupid enough to start fucking with the copper in their house should be aware that they actually don't own the copper. I know here in Australia, if you touch that copper, even though it's inside your house, you are liable for quite hefty fines from ACMA (Australian Communication & Media Authority). There's also the issue that if you have destroyed the line to the telco's joint out the front you will have to drop between $5 000 and $20 000 from your house price (depending on the distance & local contractor rates) to have a new lead-in installed. Although I doubt you are actually not connected to the joint out the front, telcos usually won't do that unless they need the pair you're sitting on, they like to keep in-place services for future customers. So now you've got a set of 50v live wires that you want to play with? Not exactly dangerous, but I wouldn't be plugging anything into it that's not approved for telecoms use in your country. If you do disconnect this, it goes back to vandalism of telecommunications equipment, hefty fines, etc.
All in all this is one of the most monumentally stupid things I've heard of someone wanting to do. Leave well enough alone and install some Cat-V/Cat-VI cabling (I'd recommend Cat-VI so you can run a gbps network). It will improve, rather than degrade, your house price and you don't end up with huge fines.
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:5, Informative)
In my state in the U.S., there is a box on the outside wall of the house. The copper on the house side of that box belongs to the customer. I don't know what the laws are in other states, but I think they are similar.
Re:Free Electricity? (Score:3, Informative)
The power gained from doing that would be about enough to charge 1 AA rechargable battery in a day.
Not worth it.
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone who's stupid enough to start fucking with the copper in their house should be aware that they actually don't own the copper. I know here in Australia...
I can't speak for Oz, but here in the US you own all the copper past the box. That's why they have different types of service plans. Some cover the line all the way to the phone (and even include the phone in some cases) while cheaper service plans only cover to the box. The phone company didn't pay for the copper to be put into the house, you did or the original owner of the house did initially. The cable company also tries to claim ownership over the coax in the wall too (which they don't own), but just try to get them to come an remove it if you use satellite.
Re:Landlines are great (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Xlink (Score:4, Informative)
I have an Xlink BTTN and I love it. I am no longer running around the house wondering where I left my cell phone, because it's in its charging cradle right next to the Xlink. The only major draw back to this device is that text messages are not forwarded to the landline so my friends texting me while I'm at home tend to get ignored until I leave the house. I'm not sure how you would actually forward them however, since I know the landline phones in my house couldn't deal with it..
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:5, Informative)
Re:A few thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe not ethernet but one could run Phonenet with the copper wires and use Appletalk over it.. *hhrrrrr*
Re:Emergencies? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Emergencies? (Score:4, Informative)
The problem with cell-phone 911 is that, while it does figure out where you are and connect you to the local emergency dispatcher (most of the time), it doesn't connect you to their 911 system, only to their non-emergency line. So the dispatcher can't really see your GPS information without involving the mobile carrier. And, as an added side effect, in big emergencies (e.g. floods, etc.) the dispatchers are more likely to ignore their non-emergency line in order to keep up with the calls coming into the 911 system, so you could effectively lose contact with them simply because you're on a mobile phone.
Re:Easy: get a landline (Score:2, Informative)
Plus, when you make a 911 call from a land line, your address pops up on the screen.
Since cell phone companies have been able to put off any attempt to actually make them implement E911 (which we are paying for, BTW), they won't have any friggin' clue where you are. This is especially bad in a place like Pennsylvania where you need to know what township you are in at all times if you make a 911 call from your cell phone.
Re:Sir, step away from the wall jack ... (Score:3, Informative)
Why a PBX? If youre that serious then run your own wire. For existing wire you can buy a little VOIP box that will run through you existing wiring and ring your analog phones. I got one of these [dlink.com] for 5 dollars when I first gave up on a land line. Ive since gotten rid of it and do cell-only, but it works.
Re:Free Electricity? (Score:5, Informative)
Ah yes, my tongue can attest to that.
Note to self: do not hold bare telephone wires with mouth when reaching for a new RJ11 connector to crimp on.
Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Informative)
Galaxy Quest does actually qualify to a surprising extent... not only is it a basically a Star Trek parody, but it's probably a better Star Trek movie than a couple of the actual Trek movies. It's not at the level of Star Trek itself, Red Dwarf, etc., but I would say it does qualify. If you haven't seen it I rather recommend it.
Re:A few thoughts (Score:3, Informative)
Drywall?
Unscrew wall plate.
Pop off any nearby staples securing the line to a stud.
Pull.
Low voltage (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:3, Informative)
NO FAX! Here are more bluetooth cell/POTS bridges (Score:3, Informative)
That's apparently a good one: Pairs with up to 3 cellular phones (plus a landline if you buy the appropriate model). Searches for a free trunk or lets you select the outgoing phone. Lets you switch between calls on different cellphones ala call-waiting. Forwards caller ID info to the POTS phones on incoming calls. Supports pulse dial as well as tone so you can use antique phones.
Here's another one (only two lines): Cell2Tel [cell2telgateway.com]
A third one is Dock-n-Talk which can be connected either by wire or bluetooth (with an extra-cost adapter).
There are also both handset company and aftermarket docking cradles for some phones (example: Cell Socket). Unlike a bluetooth types (which pretends to be a headset as far as the phone is concerned) the direct-connect types are only for a particular cellphone model so you lose your investment when you switch handsets.
= = = = =
NO FAX / modems / satellite pay-per-view uplink:
Note that cellphones, with or without POTS adapters, will NOT carry high-speed modem signals. No FAX, 56K modems, satellite pay-per-view connections, etc. (Those require the full 64K-equivalent DS0 signal to carry their bandwidth, while the cellphones use a lower bit rate and run a voice-optimized CODEC.)
Same is true of VoIP adapters (i.e. Magic Jack), but for a different reason: While the software and POTS card/dongle could convert to/from DS0 byte streams with A-law or u-law CODEC, the high-speed modems also require a very accurate (Stratum-III) clock synchronized with the phone system's clocking. While your DSL or whatever may use this clocking for its hop to the net, it isn't forwarded to your computer. (Maybe once Synchronous Ethernet is deployed this will change.) Even IEEE-1588 isn't good enough for this timing.
Re:So, i guess you don't have DSL? (Score:4, Informative)
Extended power outage, due to any number of different reasons.
The telco CO will have a huge array of batteries to supply -48VDC to all of their switching gear in a very uninterrupted fashion, and a diesel or natural gas generator which will start up shortly after the power goes out. It will probably also have redundant capacity for long-distance links, allowing them to reroute things in the event of a cable cut somewhere.
The cell tower may, in fact, have none of these. No or limited batteries, no generator, and no circuit redundancy. In a lot of cases, you'll just have to wait until Verizon (or whoever) rolls into town with generators.
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:2, Informative)
Anyone who's stupid enough to start fucking with the copper in their house should be aware that they actually don't own the copper. I know here in Australia...
I can't speak for Oz, but here in the US you own all the copper past the box. That's why they have different types of service plans. Some cover the line all the way to the phone (and even include the phone in some cases) while cheaper service plans only cover to the box. The phone company didn't pay for the copper to be put into the house, you did or the original owner of the house did initially. The cable company also tries to claim ownership over the coax in the wall too (which they don't own), but just try to get them to come an remove it if you use satellite.
In the USA the telco's and cable companies do not own the copper in your house passed the initial connection spot (the gray box on the side of your house for telcos, and the main connection to the coax splitter for cable companies) unless you have a maintenance contract, even then they do not own it per se, they just request that you DO NOT touch it, as they have techs that are for that purpose. This can vary from state to state, but that is the general governing 'laws' of who owns what in the US.
Re:Save it for 911 (Score:2, Informative)
Yes: Removing it may cut your house resale $ (Score:4, Informative)
Just leave it alone.
In particular: Removing it may lower your house resale value. Keep it in place.
(See other posts below about things like cellphone adapters to make it live so ordinary phone instruments or antique phones will work in the house.)
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah sure...
http://80211n.com/80211n-speed.html [80211n.com]
Site is run by Broadcom, they make and sell 802.11 chipsets. They say real world throughput is about 160Mbps (link speed means about as much as a politician's word). Real world speed on my wired LAN is ~980Mbps. In what world is 160Mbps "almost as fast" as 900+Mbps?
Simple physics, wireless simply can't compete with wired for speed. Wired is also switched, wireless is shared. More than one stream on the network and they all suffer.
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:3, Informative)
It's not that they own it, it's that in Australia you have to have a cabling license, a registration to install cabling in order to install, terminate, connect, disconnect any kind of data cabling for telephone, computers, alarms, etc.
Oh, and you can't install your own Cat5 to run your home LAN either, same rules apply, you've got to get an electrician.
But it's not just existing cabling you can't change, you can't install new cabling either.
Generally the first jack (closest jack to the outside box), and everything before it is what the telco is responsible for. The "Network Boundary Point", and everything on their side is their responsibility; sometimes that may be on the outside the building.
You own everything else, you just aren't allowed to touch it yourself.
If you're willing to pay, you can get a licensed cabling installer to disconnect the jack at the NBP from your other jacks and to re-terminate your existing cabling in a manner that permits you to plug Ethernet devices into it (provided it's Cat5)
Of course, this is not free... and when you get the bill, you may wish you had just gotten a new install of Cat6 cabling done, while you were paying.......
Re:Sir, step away from the wall jack ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Sir, step away from the wall jack ... (Score:4, Informative)
Sure you can do that. The poster I was replying to seemed to want to know why VOIP was better than a regular phone line.
You don't need to replace the jacks or re-terminate any runs though. You don't even need to change anything at the junction box either. A RJ-11 connector, which is what a phone line will use, will fit into a RJ-45 jack just fine. I have done that several times. As long as you don't pull on the line and leave it alone, the contacts are still made with the right pins. It works.
Take the money you were going to spend on all the outlets, which is $4-$5 per outlet at the cheapest (not including labor costs), and buy a CAT5 patch panel. Take the incoming phone lines and connect them to the appropriate pins on the patch panel. Use a long length of wire and and connect it to Pin 1 on each port one after the other. Do that several times and you have your pairs to connect the incoming lines to it. Now you have Line 1 & Line 2 on the patch panel. If you connect a POTS phone to a port on that panel, you will have dial tone and it will work. Then just use standard patch cables ($1 a piece or less) to connect each port on that patch panel to the existing patch panel that was distributing ethernet. If you have more than two lines, just dedicate one group of ports to Line 3 & Line 4, and another group of ports to Line 1 & Line 2. Heck, you could even create a couple of custom ports if you want, or even a custom cable for a specific room to give them just the right lines they need.
In any case, it is much cheaper and easier than converting all the jacks, re-terminating the runs, and modifying the existing patch panel. Other than an RJ-45 jack being bigger, I doubt that the new owner would notice anything. He can still plug his POTS phone into the jacks quite easily, and as long as it works, why should he care about the "wierd" outlet? As long as you do the work right at the junction box, the phone company should just be able to connect the lines to the telephone junction box on the outside of the house and it should work without any further intervention.
Re:Use the line to pull other lines into your outl (Score:3, Informative)
In New Zealand you can do your own wiring (eg install a new power socket or light fitting) provided it's your home and you follow NZ ECP 50 (Electrical Code of Practice).
You may not do anything inside the switchboard - that requires a registered electrician.
You may not do any of the above for reward (own home or near relative is fine).
You ARE allowed to do any ELV (extra low voltage) wiring yourself. ELV wiring is not regulated. ELV in NZ is defined as below 50V AC or below 120V DC.
Telephone networks in NZ operate at ELV, so you can legally do whatever you like, but Telcos reserve the right not to connect your dodgy work to their own network.
Data cabling and AV cabling is all ELV.
The wiring standard, AS/NZS 3000, requires segregation between your ELV wiring and mains voltage wiring.
In this post, ELV has nothing to do with rugby.
Re:Yes: Removing it may cut your house resale $ (Score:2, Informative)
Lost electricity, cell phones ran out of juice. Before that, though, the emergency responders had allocated or saturated the cell capacity.
Land lines stayed up for a month while we had no appreciable cell service or electricity.
Unfortunately, Verizon has started using the home owners electricity to "power" the land lines.
What a cluster....