Valkyrie Riders Cruiser Club

Since AT&T (AKA DirectTV) is canceling One American News channel in April, it gives me an excellent reason to dump my land line which is provided by AT&T. 

 I have the following concerns, interests. 

1.  Reliability.   My internet service is fiber optic and has been highly reliable.  It runs on the power lines of the local CoOp.  My AT&T landline has been very reliable (well it did short out once when I first got it installed about 10-12 years ago). 

2.  Connectivity:   The system has to connect to my current land line distribution system.  I have the land line running to several places with an OnQ distribution "thing".  Its a plug in type connection which uses the AT&T twisted pair from their box on the side of the house (well there is an isolation kind of thing in-between because on issue I had when first installed).

3.  The current system is all wires.  I want a device I can just plug into my router and plug into my OnQ distribution thing and I will have VOIP to everywhere I have land lines in the house (regular phones and security stuff)

Any reccomendations are welcomed. 

My search found this website which shows 1-VoIP as being the best choice.

I know I will have to pay for the service. 

https://getvoip.com/residential/ (https://getvoip.com/residential/)

This is all I've got, but it's probably not what you're looking for.   ;D

(https://media4.giphy.com/media/LakopvQtp9cPkI1Im6/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e47u9asj7vq15m195njpigou4yz3v8wzjxyjpvrntf4&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

I have phone power. Have had them for 15 years and always been happy.
https://www.phonepower.com/voiphome.aspx (https://www.phonepower.com/voiphome.aspx)

I've been using Callcentric for about 4-5 years now, (Callcentric.com). Not the cheapest, but definately one of the best for reliability / features, etc. Yes , I did some research before I started using them. Ported from Sprint (Local) to them, and I'm still using that number here in KC. I have a couple other extensions / DIDs with them as well.

I use pay per min for both incoming and outgoing.

Only real downside - their physical location is on Wall Street, and that is the only site they have. The only time that has been an issue was when NY was getting hit with a tropical storm and flooding like crazy.

Connectivity - you can use any ATA (I'm assuming the OnQ uses analog phone connection).

Back when I maintained a land line I used Vonage and was satisfied with the service, but that was well over a decade ago.

Suggest you take a step back and analyze why you need a land line still, and if you really do.

A decade or so ago I paid the one time $20 transfer fee to move my existing land line number to a Google Voice setup.

I get e-mails of any voice mails someone leaves on our old land line number, and I have an app on my phone that, should I wish to make or receive calls on the old land line number I switch my phone to take over that persona and can do so. I can use a website or the app on my phone to send or receive texts using the old land line number as well.

Best part is the price - Nothing other than the initial setup fee.

Thanks for the reply.  As to Serk's question why, the current security system I have uses a land line to notify the monitoring service of events.  This is mainly useful when we are away from the house for extended periods (AKA Road Trip, which is also one of the reasons I am somewhat skeptical of posting videos on my Rumble and YouTube channels the same day as making them). 

So, I need a way for the security system to contact the monitoring group.  When I purchased (built) the system, there was an option for a adding a cellular service option for monitoring.  Since it was one more electronic gadget to add to the system, I opted for the land line.   At that time, it was also the one way to get internet service where my home is located, AT&T.

Any chance the security system can be updated to use IP directly? Seems kinda Rube-Goldberg to carry a digital signal over VoIP just to convert it back to digital at the far end?

Serk, I shall check.   

One drawback is that I don't think its made any longer.  Last year, I think it was, I had an issue with two of the controllers (wall mounted keyboard devices).  They both failed at the same time (2 of 3).  Don't know which forum it was but someone had access to some spares for a good price (probably OEM prices).  I got two of them and installed. 

So.....   The other options, which sort of works on your "notion" is to upgrade the system now instead of waiting until it fails (I have two spare controllers now).  The it would be sort of a scramble. 

I have looked into "Simply Safe" as an alternative (don't really remember why I chose them) but..... That is an option also.

Out here in rural (still, for now) Colorado we used to have one choice for internet connectivity other than satellite  which is spendy & throttled.  That was  DSL over twisted pair from our baby bell,  Centurylink (Previously Qwest, previously AT&T).  They knew it and abused us accordingly.  Very poor throughput, high cost and if you actually used what you paid for - 5MB/sec, actually deliver not more than 3 and if you use that, they THROTTLE you down to around 600k.  Everyone was and is pissed at them & looking to dump them.  There is no cable option here, or fiber or wired competition for CL.  Along came RISE broadband - microwave distribution if you are within a dozen miles of their towers and have line of sight.  They provide 25MB/s, don't throttle it, can deliver up to 50 with tuning and have VOIP as an option.  And with a VOIP/ISP package the cost is less than half of Centurylink, bandwidth more than 10X while uptime is somewhere around 99.9%.  Of course no LD charges on phone calls ever, calls are crystal clear and in actual use the wife telecommutes with video conferencing while I have all the bandwidth I need - eg no buffering on video streaming while I can download 1080P movies via torrents typically in 5 minutes.  I maintain two voice landlines, full featured.  Have the cell phones via T-Mobil for backup or if I ever need to contact RISE independently.  Has happened a couple times in over 5 years.  In the beginning there were occasional times when bandwidth would drop due to load.  Like evenings and weekends when the rugrats would load the system down with streaming and gaming.  Now RISE has expanded the infrastructure so I haven't seen that much lately in either actual use or benchmarking with speedtests.  Tests now around 38Mb/sec dwnld. Of course VOIP requires power - not self-powered like the bell network is.  No biggy, the cell phones don't require continuous power supply.  And I have backup power on the ranch as well as UPS supporting the server and phones if that goes down for longer than momentarily.  Also the VOIP system does not go through my computer(s) - it's independent.

I should mention, the house is wired with a twisted pair network, with several legacy phone hookups. Once the signal is brought in at the office, it's distributed over the existing network to extension phones, like yours.  Though that is now redundant as the standalone phones were replaced by a server phone with satellite remotes that only need charger sockets.  While the wife has her office on the first floor and needs a hardwired LAN cable to replace the wi-fi, router - computer so the microwave won't disrupt the signal.

So RISE has been a good ISP/VOIP provider for our situation.  If you are over a barrel with limited options as we are, could be for you as well.  Alternatively, if you have another microwave tech provider in your area, look into them if you have potential to receive their signal from a tower via dish antenna on top of your house.

Thanks for the info MarkT.   I shall look into it.   Your initial setup was similar to mine with Bell South providing internet service over twisted pair.  It worked but was really slow. 

And like you, my electronic stuff that keeps us connected to the world is backed up by a UPS.  Only the fiberoptic server thingy and the four port network is on the UPS and funny thing, when they installed the fiber optics interface device, they also added a UPS for their box.

And we have a standby generator so.....   We need the generator since we are in a rural area and we are at the end of the power line for the small town we live in.  So.... we are one of the last to get power restored.  It was about about 10 hours on Saturday/Sunday..   

I often worry about using the 20KW generator since I have no idea how clean the power is.  But, so far its been as expected.  I did have two circuit breakers open sometime during the last run.  They were 15 amp Arc Fault breakers... Will keep an eye on them

I know I digressed.   

Bill, when you back power a house with a generator, the preferred method, is to get everything up and running, but to knock off all your house circuits, then switch on the ones you want to power individually and slowly one by one (leaving all 220s off for the duration).

This is a big generator (6800w constant), but not one of those whole house Generacs that can even power some 220 (and are wired up to come on automatically).  Which sounds like is what you have.

This helps against brown outs, esp for things like refrigerators which have both a startup surge value, and then a lower run value.

I had some brown out troubles, with my earlier lower watt gas generators, when I just left the circuit box alone (although I left off all my 220 and high draw appliances).  

Also, I have added double surge protection for every piece of electronic equipment in my house, and I have never had any trouble or lost anything, even when the power company power goes on and off and brown out all by itself.  Which can be very worrisome when it happens.

 

Thanks Jess,

Its a whole house 20KW generator.  I have, what I shall call surge protection on important circuits.  Like TV and stereo, ect.  And I have some stuff on UPS. My NAS is on a UPS.  Its timed for connection after losing power (there is a period of no power as the generator starts) and the generator connection.   On return of external power it just switches over.

The main equipment (stereo, TV) is powered through a surge device.  Its a Monster Power HDP-1800.  Some time, not associated with recent power outage, one of its (the surge suppressor) outputs failed.  It is about 10-12 years old. 

Strange things do happen with electronics.

I like to have my satellite receivers on UPS as well - it takes them about 3-5 minutes to boot back up. If I had cable TV boxes, I'd do the same thing. Where we lived in NC , we were on a main powerline heading into the nearest town, but that did nothing about the little blips that were just enough to reboot things....

I was pleased and somewhat impressed when the installer came in and installed the "modem" for the fiber optic network system.  They included a UPS which, for brief power outages, should prevent the "modem" from have to shut down and re-boot. 

Did some searches and investigations and since PhonePower showed up on a couple of the searches and on here, I did some research. 

Cost is interesting.  the service costs are as follows (yearly):
Annual Home Service $99.95
Regulatory Recovery Fee $35.64
911 Recovery Fee $11.88
FSLS Recovery Fee $$11.63

So, annual cost is $159.10

The recovery fees are interesting.   Must be to recovery the fees the federal, state and local governments would miss out on.   

Monthly cost would be $13.26 which is about one quarter of what I currently pay. 

Now to see how it will interface with my OnQue system (which appears to be obsolete  :D )

I should mention, the UPS units I have powering the office and the home theater massage the power before supplying it to the users.  Meaning the power output is provided by an inverter through a sine wave generator from the battery backup which is charged by the input power.  So if it isn't 60Hz 120v incoming, doesn't matter, it is on output.  No brownouts seen by my computers - while my frig, thermostat, furnace, dishwasher, garage doors, compressors, wired power tools and stove are old school - the mic, A/V, office, welders and water heater aren't.  BTW I never turn off the computers.  It's better for their longevity to remain on, rather than thermally shock their IC's with repeated power cycles.  This paradigm has worked for me for decades; learned it long ago and my computers seem to be happy with it.  Of course it's politically incorrect for the woke green world we are in - but they aren't paying to replace my assets.  While I am paying that and my electric bill.

My backup power is a 7.5kW surge, 6.8 steady 220v gasoline unit I bought at Costco 20 years ago.  I installed a master breaker for the house - built before code required it.   Pull the breakers for loads too big for the generator like the spa, compressor and water heater.  The generator can power the whole house besides them, thru the panel, including the freezers, laundry, furnace, well, lights, A/V, range, mic,  office and even the MIG / TIG / arc welders.  OK we haven't used the oven on b/u power.  Or 2 of the big loads like weld & range at once.

We used to lose power like monthly from our co-op power company.  Got tired of that, lost power with every ice, wind, or big snow storm.  Wouldn't you know it, after I set up the backup, they fixed their infrastructure and now we lose power maybe a cpl times a year and then for only a cpl hours or so.  Even so, with power out our house is the only one in the area with lights.  What's up with that - must not be Boy Scouts.

Regarding the inverter and your setup, I did not do that specifically but I always though the UPS was supposed to be an "auctioneered" system where there was a DC supply from the AC power and then the battery, sort of auctioneered but I have not checked the exact operation.

I setup our house for a backup generator by having a separate feed but the Kohler 20KW just interfaces to the main circuit with its own "switch". 

Power goes out here about three or four times a year.  Last one, 10 hours, was the longest since we have lived here.  As far as houses with backup power, our house is at the end of the "towns" circuit/system.  The folks across the road, are powered from the local CoOp.  We the town's power goes out, we are "lite" up as are the houses across the road.  Sort of funny to drive down the road toward town and see power on one side of the road and not the other.

Still looking at the Phone Power system as being my best option. 

I was chatting (text) with someone at VOIPLY about their system.  The question I asked was basically, can I have more than one phone connected to their system.  The answer is no.  Not sure why since I always thought the phones were just individual devices paralleled on the phone line.

So, in doing a search it appears that to have more than one phone connected to the VOIP service requires a special "modem". 

I will contact Phone Power next to verify.   Seems strange when all I have to do with a "normal" phone line is add phones (same number all ring at same time).

Or it might be I was not clear on the "number of phones" thing and they thought I wanted separate numbers. 

I found this website.  Item number 4 is the relevant item.

What I had forgotten about was that the incoming phone lines to the house have voltage present.  This is used, in older phones, for phone ringing. 

I have a distribution system made on On-Q.   I will have to check to see if it is self powered or powered by the phone line.  It would be the issue. 

https://www.whichvoip.com/articles/multiple-phones-around-the-house.htm (https://www.whichvoip.com/articles/multiple-phones-around-the-house.htm)

I currently have 4 phones on 4 DIDs with my current VOIP company, using 2 ATA's (2 phones/extensions on each ATA).
It did take some planning so each extension was on it's own set of IP ports, and it even works through my current double NAT internet connection.

In the past I have had one backfeeding the house phone wiring.

My VOIP provider is Callcentric . www.callcentric.com (http://www.callcentric.com) . They are a BYOD company (Bring Your Own Device) - I've heard of other customers using Raspberry PI's as a PBX, or using Asterix (same idea). I'm sure something could be put together utilizing your On-Q system if it can accept one or more analog phonelines.

Thanks scooperhsd.   

Just so happens I have a couple of Raspberry PI's not being used.  :D

Will contact them and see.


Short story about the PI.  The company I worked for (until I retired) had some TVs with reminders and other stuff at my plants access portals.   One of them broke so the information that was sort of needed to be presented was not there.  I did a search, found that a PI could be wired to do the job and had a windows program to make something similar to "Powerpoint".   Total cost about $80. 

Replacement network connected "blackbox" several hundred.   Only issue was could not be on the net but an SD card worked.  Loved those Pi's .

Reviving a post from last year.   

Last year when AT&T - DirectTV dumped OAN I thought seriously about dumping my landline.  Got lots of good information but decided not to, for technical reasons. 

Now, given one year later and having a $59 AT&T phone bill and now having AT&T - DirectTV dumping Newsmax, I did signup with 1-VOIP as a basic way to test the system.   I have a new phone number 803-500-XXXX which I will be testing over the next month or so to see how it all works.

The hope is that, in March, I can dump AT&T and their $59 per month phone bill for one that is about $14 a month.   I will be informing then why when I do.

What a coincidence - when we put MIL into the Assisted living / memory care unit, they suggested 1-Voip as the voip company to use for room phones (they have multiple ethernet ports in every room), MIL's phone bill with them is right at $13 per month unlimited incoming / outgoing calls - MIL prefers to use her cell phone ( a Jitterbug Flip phone using Lively as the carrier - they ride on Verizon). I'm not sure if MIL can even use her room line, since you have to dial all calls out as 1+ area code + number, and it is hard to get her to understand this.

Very informative and I understand her needs.     Thanks for the feedback.

There are three major steps in this process.  

First, I have to replace my 5 port ethernet Router switch in the "equipment room" with a 7 8 port router switch so I can adde the VOIP telephone interface.  

That came in today.  Will connect it this afternoon.  Waiting for the Kohler guy to be informed (it connects the generator's monitoring system to the web).

New router switch and old router switch.

(https://i.postimg.cc/jS8GTwZs/IMG-2145.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/BjKhcvry)

Next two steps are to install a new telephone distribution board in the On-Que cabinet. And then hook of The VOIP blackbox.

On-Que is how I distributed the phone line since at the time I had AT&T as an Internet service provider and the Internet came in on a twisted pair that was "vectored off" in a black box under the house.

The On-Que distribution "device" I have is pictured below.   As you will note the phone line comes in on the left side (designed for multiple lines) and there are several distribution points.   It has an "overload" protection device and a special connection for the Security System.  At present I do not know why it's special.  I also do not know if all four wires that go to the security system's telephone connection are needed.  

(https://i.postimg.cc/tgXsVfjq/IMG-2128.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/gxTzCgjQ)

Oh... since the system was installed some 10 plus years ago, I don't know if I did what it says on the left side of the security interface "Turn off SW1 to interface security".   It's still on and the security interface still works.

Oh, and one more thing, I have no idea how it works but we had a telephone outage several months back.  Don't know the exact cause but the "landline" was dead.  Not working.  Several minutes after I noticed that (or got a call or saw it somehow). I got a call (mobile phone) from out security monitoring group telling me the landline was down.  

I don't know how they knew but....

Sorry to be pedantic, but using the right terminology can be important sometimes, you're replacing the switch, not the router.

...at least the devices pictures are switches, not routers.

And the new one is an 8 port switch, not 7... :)

Thanks Serk. I always called them routers but you are correct they are switches.  And when communicating at a technical level the correct terminology is very, very important.   Switches they are.

Regarding the ports, It does say eight (8) for the new one and the old one says five (5).   So.....  I did not count the input as a port but, I guess in the overall scheme of things, it does not work like that.  There is no real "master" input.  Just a device that allows network communications to happen between connections.  I guess that is why it's called a "switch".     

Swap out has been completed.  All appears normal.  Now to let it "soak" for awhile.  Should not be an issue. 

Gotcha, kinda makes sense to not count the uplink port, but as you said, there isn't a specific one, and it's not 100% required, depending on the use case of the switch...

Luckily swapping out an unmanaged switch is generally pretty quick and easy, just power up the new one, move the cables over as fast as you can and Bob's your uncle...

I'm sure you know, but they can be chained together as well. Eventually you'll have a performance hit, but especially with GB Ethernet you're likely not coming close to utilizing the full bandwidth anyway...

I tend to get a little carried away on such things, this is my primary switch:

(https://i.postimg.cc/g2BVc6JL/image.png)

There are also several 8 port GB unmanaged switches at various  points in the house to distribute the wired network further out (TV in the living room, my work office, the spousal unit's work office, think there might be one or two more in there somewhere.)

The blue box in the upper left is the back of another 8 port GB Ethernet switch that's dedicated to the DMZ side of my network, outside the firewall/router...

Serk,

Two things,,,,, Bob's your uncle.   Long time since I heard that.   :D :D :D

Second thing, linking them together crossed my mind.   

I was sitting here thinking of all the "hardwired" stuff I have (like it better than wireless if possible to do that).

And yes Bob's your uncle.

Thanks for the reminder of an interesting phrase. 

In this day and age, Bob maybe considered your aunt by some.  Personally, I won't go there.

I have "only" a 16 port GB switch that I route all ethernet (except the one to my mesh router) through. Multiple 5 and 8 port switches where there is a concentration of devices. All of them are unmanaged (only the 16 can be), because I haven't looked into it and it's working well enough for now. Some of the 5 and 8 ports could just as easily be 10/100 instead of GB, but unless I setup VLAN on the 16, it just doesn't seem practical / necessary.

I'll admit it was a REALLY good feeling when my ISP upgraded me to the point I needed to upgrade my DMZ switch from 100/Fast Ethernet to GB Ethernet...  :cooldude:

It's more like the devices are only capable of 100 Mb - my ISP is 500 Mbps down AND up (Google Fiber, and my speedtest are showing over provisioned to 570 Mbps+ down 750 Mbps+ up)

I contacted 1-VOIP today to check on the status of my order.  I got an email about doing the 911 setup for my new number but I never got a message about the order of the communication device (black box).

Spoke to a lady who was very nice and let me know my order had not been processed and she did not know why (maybe it was a Friday).   So, she put the order through and I got confirmation it is being processed a couple of hours ago.

We shall see if that is an indication of their service abilities.   So the black box should be in Friday along with most of the other parts I need.  So. this weekend will be setup weekend. 

damn it  my head hurts   Just being a simple lawyer I know not to mess with that stuff

(unlike Jess)  I have always been of the opinion that a surge protector, not just a power strip is a cheap investment to save electronics


I used to have a box that cleaned the power, cant remember what it was called but it protected from con ed shorting the voltage or spiking it, but it was not a battery UPS,   That is going 20 yrs back and it is long gone.  Like MarkT I do not EVER turn off my computer unless leaving for vacation.  But my  386 is never turned on unless I am looking to copy a file from the small solid floppy disc that was a case I had in the 1990's
Yes I have a 386 at work, used to play air combat with the joystick during lunch

SImplesafe is good because you can attach the wireless water sensors   That saves you if the water heater spews a leak or pipe under the sink breaks    Also one under the basement triple water filter set up

The sign alone is a good deterrent  ;)

OSS, a 386, I think I have one somewhere.  Stopped working about four or five years ago.  Still have the drives and the cabinet (with all the parts). 

Those were fun times, building, loading the software......   Fun times. 

We dumped our computer museum before we left NC.

I have a hard time parting with my electronic stuff, especially the hard drives.   I guess I could just take my sledge hammer to them but.....   gee whiz all the stuff and things and.....

I finally had to start doing something with my museum. Getting into virtualization helped a lot, when one moderately old computer can easily run all the things I had running on a dozen old computers and not break a sweat, hard to justify all the space and electricity the old ones were taking up.

Once I copy everything off (Either just the data or P2V the entire computer into my VMWare farm) I remove the hard drive, donate everything BUT the hard drive to Good Will, then take the drive to my land for some plinking...

BTW, those hard drives have some powerful rare-earth magnets in 'em, might consider opening 'em up to harvest the magnets first if you're into that kind of thing. I mean some real finger blistering ones if you're not careful.

I had forgotten the magnets were that powerful .....   We shall see.   I only have seven or eight laying around.

I spoke with the Security Monitoring Company today.  We have been using them for 10 or more years.  I am pleased with their service and responses.

Turns out they do not recommend using a VOIP system for communications with them (in place of the current landline twisted pair that is going away).  They said that there two many instances of dropped calls, mishandled "tones'.  So, I asked if they had an alternative and they did.

While the alternative is similar to the VOIP systems in how it connects, the system they recommended is useful for security systems that have not only access monitoring but also video monitoring and other monitoring activities.   And of course it connects via the net.

This will add some additional costs to the transition away from AT&T but they will all be recouped within the first six months of the transition. 

I am lucky in that my internet connection is provided by a company associated with the local Electric CoOp.  I think the CoOp was running fiber to all their substations and got this company to work with them to install fiber for their customers.   I lucked out. 

We shall see how this all works out.   It's almost fun.

One tidbit that has sort of bothered me but I never had a need to figure it out.  That is the way a telephone line has its individual connections identified.  The common phone cable used in the past with phones that had ringers (you know the old style) had four wire cords. 

My system has that as well (Security system) but the rest of the house only uses two wires. 

They are "Tip" and "Ring".   I always thought that the "Ring" meant just that "powering" ringer.  Not so.

It appears the names came from the beginning phone connectors that used what I called "Phone" plugs.  These were 1/4" things and were used by headsets back in the day and stereo also. 

But phones used them as well it seems.   And that is where the identifier names came from.   "Tip" was identified as the "tip" of the phone plug.  This is usually the "signal".   The "Ring" was the part next down or the "ring" part of the phone plug.

The chart, today, identifies "Tip" as Plus and "Ring" and negative.  So just in case you wondered...

Did get some parts over the last two days that will allow me to reconstruct the phone extensions in the house. 

Today my new phones came in.  I have some phones (wireless) but I wanted to keep them connected to my AT&T Landline while I tested the new VOIP system (which should be in this afternoon).

In doing so, I had to retire (not destroy but "retire") my 20 plus year old landline phone.  Still operational but the new VOIP system will only handle one of these types of phones (at least that is what the pictures showed).  So, it will be held in storage as a memory of the past. 

(https://i.postimg.cc/mrs8K8pX/IMG-2152.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/CRcGqHgk)

Update February 5, 2023

According to the USPS the 1-VOIP "box" will be arriving tomorrow.  According to their website it's a "plug and play" device.  So, I just have to plug it into a power source, then the network switch and it's ready to go.

So I can test it with my OnQ board  I wired one of the telephone outputs from my current OnQ device to the input of the new OnQ device.  This was to make sure I got the wires right.  Not really sure if "Tip" and "Ring" as actually different connections but....  It worked. 

The picture below shows the new device on the bottom.   I will  wire the VOIP box's output to the input of the new OnQ device to makes sure it will all work.  Then I will start transferring the wires once the security system interface gets here and it is tested and verified workable. 

(https://i.postimg.cc/yNvSLK9m/IMG-2153.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/2qL65P0y)

The 1-VOIP device arrived today.  It came with a power supply (micro USB cable with AC plug in adapter) and a network cable.   The instructions were simple.  Connect the cables to the appropriate connections and then connect the phone and then power it up, wait five minutes. 

Did that, no issues works as expected dialing in and dialing out.  It is identified as a "local" number so local calls do not require a "1". 

First picture is the black box.
(https://i.postimg.cc/bwspnCdh/IMG-2155.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/Mn2C2YyP)

Second shows the black box and phone.  And yes it is working through the OnQ system.   

(https://i.postimg.cc/GpRRfcqc/IMG-2156.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/tsB8ZGKf)

Security black box will/should arrive on Wednesday and I should get it all up and running a few days later.  After a week or so of testing, we will then drop AT&T's phone service.   

Just in case you were wondering, when we built the house we had to get AT&T internet (twisted pair and slow) and AT&T telephone service.   Within the first months of operation, we had an event where the phone lines apparently were energize way beyond normal voltage causing some melting of "things". 

The picture below is of the AT&T box where the wires came into the house of internet and phone.  I think they were on the same set to twisted pairs... 

The black marks are the melting points.

(https://i.postimg.cc/jSSqqqyZ/IMG_2470.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/7fjrmks2)

You should check that about not needing to dial 1+ Areacode + [7digit number]. 1-Voip is in OK and I specifically asked them about this ( since I am a LONG time Callcentric customer).

The 1-VOIP number is listed in the town in which I live.  So, I did verify I did not need to dial a "1" before calling my home phone from the 1-VOIP device, just had to dial the 10 digit number.

If I wanted to call my cell phone from the 1-VOIP device I would to use a "1" before the area code since my cell phone's number is listed in some other city.  I did verify this both ways.

I sure hope POTS don't make a comeback... Since we've moved into our house (Built in 1997, we moved in in 2007) I've used most of the previously existing CAT-3 wiring as pulls to replace with CAT-5E and more recently CAT-6!

I used to maintain a VOIP phone, went to a single station higher end cordless phone set with multiple satellite units around the house.

Now we don't even have that, just our cell phones and the Internet. (Funny how things turn around, we used to run Internet over our phones, now we run out phones over the Internet.) My house is a semi-dead spot for AT&T cellular, so they sent me a micro cell tower, plugs into my Internet and accepts AT&T cell phones and reroutes the calls (Voice and data) over my Internet connection...

I guess I get a little paranoid which is why I kept the "telephone" for so long.  AT&T's political speak and the $65 a month phone bill for landline local service drove us over the edge.

We are lucky in that the internet service we have is fiber optic supplied via the Newberry Electric CoOp's power lines.

I was keeping the old school system because it was old school and rarely failed.  But.....   

Soon, everting will be tied to the fiberoptic net.   We do have cellphones so there is redundancy there.

When I built the house (12 years ago) I wired ever where with CAT-5 and also the standard four conductor phone wiring (I think that is CAT-3 but back then it was "phone wire".).

Ran HDMI cables from the bookcase to the TV between the two and the TV behind its wall in the bedroom.  The best HDMI cables I could find.   Ran the power to the walls behind the TVs as well.   Couple of years ago, heard a loud "pop" and the TV in the great room died.  Had to run a new power cable on the wall.  Not real obvious but..   When I get the next TV I will find out what happened.   

Wednesday the last "piece" of hardware came in.  It's a black box (well it's really white) that takes the place of the twisted pair telephone line for communicating with the alarm monitoring service. 

It uses the internet as well.  It appears to be almost "plug and play".  Will find out in a few days when I speak the the Tech at the monitoring company. 

The blackbox is meant to allow interfacing with older security monitoring systems without a lot of hassle and also appears to allow for easy upgrades as needed.   

As soon as it has been connected and verified and tested for a week or so. I shall send a "letter" to AT&T dropping the twisted pair phone line. 

Will let you know how it works out in the install. 

The hardware that interfaces the alarm system to the network has been installed and, working over the phone with my alarm monitoring company, the gentlemen who knew what he was doing and me got the system up and running.

Besides some changes to the security system settings (last one was "dial tone detect") the system was verified to be communicating with the alarm monitoring company.   

This is the last step in dumping AT&T.  I will not dump them until we have had a week or so of operations under the new system.  This will include some testing to verify operation. 

In case you are wondering it's called Bat-Connect.   A small computer designed to do a lot of stuff if programmed properly (not by me but by the Alarm Company). 

It will allow the expansion of my current monitoring system if I so desire and.... maybe more. 

My last post in this thread will be when I "DUMP AT&T". 

I still have to transfer some phone connections from one On-Que board to the new one with the VOIP connection.  I do test it daily for dial-tone. I make a call to my cell on occasion, to verify voice ops.  I have not received a "marketing" or "call from a foreign nation, wanting to sell me a subscription to Spectrum or someone wanting to help me get more Social Security funds on the network phone. 

On Wednesday, I was notified that the process of porting my current AT&T phone number to my new VOIP system will take place between 9 and 5 CST next Wednesday. 

As soon as that is accomplished  and phone number forwarding tested, I will drop AT&T.   

Funny thing (and it is one of the reasons I still had twisted pari telecommunications from AT&T) on Wednesday we had a brief period of network failure.  Lasted about 10 minutes. 

In the three or so years we have had this particular network service we have lost service twice (this being the second time). 

Number was ported satisfactorily this afternoon (I checked it several times during the day).   Calling my old number rings on the new phones.

Old phones (I have one of those phones that allows you to have one or two "extensions" connected to the main phone) showed "no line".  No dial tone when phone turned on.  I did not check but I assume the line was disconnected from the main switching system.  I did not check for line voltage but might tomorrow.

Connected the wire from the phone that was connected to AT&T to the VOIP box (it has two jacks to support two phones).  That took some effort because I failed to flag the wires in the distribution box.

The OnQue distribution system is not, at this time, in the system.  I had some initial issues with it so I have bypassed it.   

So, right now all phones work as intended.  Next step connect AT&T and drop service.  Might have been already dropped when I ported the number but I do not trust them....