Phone fixes

We had been struggling to connect our TiVo over our newly installed Vonage VoIP service so that the TiVo could update its programming, but, alas, we discovered the Vonage service doesn't support modem passthrough (see last week's Gearhead).

We solved our problem by installing another phone jack and doing some rewiring to connect that jack to the regular phone line that comes with our DSL service.

Note that SBC doesn't offer "naked" DSL yet. This is something that, for the foreseeable future, is just as well because it is far more likely that the DSL connection will have a problem than the plain old telephone service (POTS) line.

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We had been struggling to connect our TiVo over our newly installed Vonage VoIP service so that the TiVo could update its programming, but, alas, we discovered the Vonage service doesn't support modem passthrough (see last week's Gearhead).

We solved our problem by installing another phone jack and doing some rewiring to connect that jack to the regular phone line that comes with our DSL service.

Note that SBC doesn't offer "naked" DSL yet. This is something that, for the foreseeable future, is just as well because it is far more likely that the DSL connection will have a problem than the plain old telephone service (POTS) line.

We're going to remove long-distance from our POTS line and, every service we can, and just keep it for emergency (as in no power) and TiVo use. Actually TiVo, we are told, plans to offer support in a future version for operating completely over TCP/IP, though we have no idea when this will be available.

Someone suggested that we try a power-line phone jack rather than "hard" wiring back to the regular working phone line from the jack near the TiVo. Nice idea except . . . .

We checked out the RCA Wireless Modem Jack Model 926, which is available in many consumer electronics stores. As we said, in theory, using a power-line phone jack sounds great but it turns out that the 926 can only handle fax transmissions.

Of course, the maximum signaling rate for fax machines is 28.8K bit/sec but will fall all the way down to 9,600 bit/sec, which means that unless your PC or TiVo can tolerate really slow links, products like the 926 will not work.

If you're looking to get around your TiVo-(or any other modem device)-over-VoIP problem by using this kind of device, make sure you buy the RCA 930 or the Phonex Easy Jack (see Gearblog for links ).

The Phonex Easy Jack looks like one of the best overall choices because one base unit can support up to eight remote telephone units (but for a single line only), and you can have multiple base units. Each base unit is "paired" with each of its remote units so that the connection between the base and the remote is private, which makes the Phonex Easy Jack ideal, for example, for apartment buildings. As far as we can determine none of the RCA products support this privacy feature.

Even though we had the TiVo problem solved we thought we should take a look at the wireless phone jack system anyway. We've got a building that is some distance from the house and we've always wanted a phone down there so we had all the excuses we needed.

We purchased our gear from Radio Shack. It cost perhaps $5 more than schlepping down to Best Buy (which would have cost us $5 in gas and at least 40 minutes that we didn't have to spare) for the RCA equivalent.

Surprisingly the Radio Shack Wireless Phone Jack offers the same pairing feature along with multiple remote units but we can't find any documentation on how to carry out pairing.

The system is truly plug and play. We plugged the wireless jack base unit into the line and a telephone into the base unit's handset jack, we wandered down to the building and plugged in the remote unit. It worked. There's at least 350 feet of cabling that also carries X-10 (remember our irrigation project?) and power-line Ethernet connections, and now a phone line, as well! The fun just keeps on coming!