Question For Bazza..

[Fidgits]

phone points.

Now, how difficult is it to add a phone point?

For instance, a house having 1 downstairs, and you want an extension upstairs...

Is it a DIY job? is taking a spur easy or difficult? are there any pitfalls?

[Fargo]

diy job..

either buy an extension and just run that to where you want, or buy the cable, buy the box etc and install it that way,,

i THINK there is a limit to how many points you can have, RIN numbers or something..

[Fidgits]

Yeah, i was going to do a quick and dirty extension at first, but wanted to put in a nice looking, proper 'spur' and box at some point...

[Chris.S]

most of the diy kits are pretty straight forward, come with all instructions on how to connect. i put one in last year, took me no more than an hour to route the cable and connect

[MrADeveci]

Don't need to be an electrician for that mate .........

It's just an extension of two cables, within the phone cable ........... very easy !

Just get the stuff from a diy store ....... and it's done ! B)

[Fidgits]

well, i am pretty handy with the electrics - but i remember phone lines being 4 wires - and i just wondered if there was an issue with spurring a parallel socket - but these DIY kits sound like they do the job..

[MacRS200]

You need a slave socket and some phone cable.

You need to wire connections 2, 3 & 5. I usually use White/Blue to 2, Blue/White to 5 and Orange/White to 3. 2 & 5 are the speech pair and without 3 the extension won't ring.

Fargo is right the maximum you can have is a REN (Ring Equivalence Number) of 4. The REN is printed on the bottom of the phone, you can have as many sockets as you want but the total REN of all devices cannot exceed 4.

Easy :D

[Rodders_UK]

diy job..

either buy an extension and just run that to where you want, or buy the cable, buy the box etc and install it that way,,

i THINK there is a limit to how many points you can have, RIN numbers or something..

←

The REN (Ringing Equivalent Number) value is to do with the number of phones on the circuit mate, not the number of points.

A domestic installation supports a max REN of 4.

[Fargo]

ah its REN, knew it was something like that.. and yeh now youve said it i remember now..

[Damer]

Concur with the rest, dead easy.

From main line box I have run extensions to study and kitchen, and managed to run broadband off extension too. On modern lineboxes you can remove a half cover to hard wire in rather than having double sockets.

But yes system is limited by REN Number, I think the max is 4 REN. Each phone sould have its REN rating on the back.

Amazing what you can remember from 12 months working at a BT call centre while on enforced"gap" year from Uni.

[Lexus Jim]

dead easy, put one in nearly every room in my house. There are 6 wires in std telephone cable, you only really need 2 but I connected them all up anyway. You may need a telephone wire connection tool (plastic one from DIY shop about 90p, I've aquired a proper BT one which is the mutts nuts).

Have a look here:

http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/U..._telephone.html

[MacRS200]

dead easy, put one in nearly every room in my house. There are 6 wires in std telephone cable, you only really need 2 but I connected them all up anyway. You may need a telephone wire connection tool (plastic one from DIY shop about 90p, I've aquired a proper BT one which is the mutts nuts).

Have a look here:

http://www.wppltd.demon.co.uk/WPP/Wiring/U..._telephone.html

←

You need three wires or the extension will not ring out, yours work cos you wired them all. You can use 2 wires if you're stuck but you need a master socket on the extension with a ring cap.

Also remember that there is no such rating of less than 1 on REN so in practice you can usually have more than 4 phones connected. It will not damage the line it just means that the exchange cannot provide enough current to ring all the phones. The way to find out is connect em up and try.

[lexus boy]

youll need to get an idc tool as well

bt screw connections in, joe public has to use idc tool...logic there..lol

[D8Bun]

[ Do what most of us do, lol, run an extension cable up the stairs under the carpet. The pitfalls of this are: Nasty lump under carpet,

Any uncovered cable , gets tripped up on !

The upside to this is: Not much DIY involved! ( massive Bonus) !!

No paying plasterers to fix where you chased the

Cable into the walls!

Hope this was helpful. :)

[AMH]

Oh no - Ian and DIY - remember your last play with electrical strings in the car ?

Quick everyone - make all your call before Ian messes with the UK phone network - I can just see the headlines now ... :duh:

[Mr Morse]

In the days of DECT phones and wireless home networks I'm surprised anyone needs more than one socket

[Fidgits]

In the days of DECT phones and wireless home networks I'm surprised anyone needs more than one socket 

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ahh... if your interested...

Tis because i work from home (and before you say 802.11), i have my 4 port adsl router for my broadband connection, which i need to run off my UPS - which also needs to support my primary machine, so in the event of a power cut (which happens far too often around here) the key machine and my VPN connection stays live... and i dont get any corruption either here or on the server.

And andy, so i blew a couple of fuses, and a very expensive cradel...

[Mr Morse]

In the days of DECT phones and wireless home networks I'm surprised anyone needs more than one socket 

←

ahh... if your interested...

Tis because i work from home (and before you say 802.11), i have my 4 port adsl router for my broadband connection, which i need to run off my UPS - which also needs to support my primary machine, so in the event of a power cut (which happens far too often around here) the key machine and my VPN connection stays live... and i dont get any corruption either here or on the server.

And andy, so i blew a couple of fuses, and a very expensive cradel...

←

I also work from home - NTL cable modem & wireless router and 3 DECT handsets. Thankfully never had a single power cut though......reminds me too much of Africa :duh:

[rhosneigr]

Mr Morse, I also have NTL Broadband and at present am running a desktop connected by cable to the set top box, I'm thinking of a laptop with wireless connection, what would I need to connect to the set top box.

[MacRS200]

DECT phones, hate the bloody things.

Kids pick em up, wander off somewhere put it down. Phone rings and can you find a handset to answer, no chance.

Going back to wires, that's the answer

[Mr Morse]

Mr Morse, I also have NTL Broadband and at present am running a desktop connected by cable to the set top box, I'm thinking of a laptop with wireless connection, what would I need to connect to the set top box.

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Do you mean your desktop connected to the cable modem? All you should require is a wireless broadband router and another cable to connect the modem to the router.

[Fidgits]

In the days of DECT phones and wireless home networks I'm surprised anyone needs more than one socket 

←

ahh... if your interested...

Tis because i work from home (and before you say 802.11), i have my 4 port adsl router for my broadband connection, which i need to run off my UPS - which also needs to support my primary machine, so in the event of a power cut (which happens far too often around here) the key machine and my VPN connection stays live... and i dont get any corruption either here or on the server.

And andy, so i blew a couple of fuses, and a very expensive cradel...

←

I also work from home - NTL cable modem & wireless router and 3 DECT handsets. Thankfully never had a single power cut though......reminds me too much of Africa :duh:

←

Yeah, powercuts really suck.

In the short term, I am just going to leave the router in the lounge with the wireless access point - and run it wirelessly, probably as you are doing..

But ideally i will get the phone point in the office so i can connect the test bench via RJ45 and have the router running off the UPS..

[MacRS200]

You will need to run the modem off UPS as well!

[Fidgits]

the router is the modem.

[TheDon]

can you not get a power booster to up the ren rating? im sure i have seen one.

Also if your gonna run and extension why not do it in CAT 5 Cable, that way you can slowly upgrade your house as you can use cat 5 cable for phone or networking. plus 100 meters of cat 5 is about £15 !