• We will be performing upgrades on the forums and server this weekend. The forums may be unavailable at times. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to make the forums even better.

phone has 5 lines?

Status
Not open for further replies.
iwirehouses said:
There is a 4 conductor phone jack in an office. The phone connected to that jack has 5 lines. How is this possible?
Click to expand...

It is not directly connected to all 5 lines.

It is connected to a customer owned phone switch which allows selecting which line the phone will use.
 
iwirehouses said:
There is a 4 conductor phone jack in an office. The phone connected to that jack has 5 lines. How is this possible?
Click to expand...
With digital phone systems, you could have a billion "lines" appear on the face of the phone, and have it only need one pair. That's all done through the programming of the switch in the phone room.
 
Ok, got it. So what I really needed to know was how to hook up another phone. I went to the jack, put in a splitter, and ran a second line to a second phone. Only line 1 would work, and actually, when I hit line 2, it turned off all the phones in the room. Would this be accomplished via programming the switch, the phone, or some other means? Or are we just using the wrong phone? The phone has 4 modular jacks for 4 lines, where as their existing "5 line" phone only has one modular jack. Would I ned to run a dedicated line from the switch?
 
Last edited:
iwirehouses said:
Would I ned to run a dedicated line from the switch?
Click to expand...
You need to know a bit about the system, but yes, that's how you do it with a "system" type phone. Then, you need to set up the TN's and DN's for the phone in the switch programming, and get all the features that you want on that phone programmed. It's reasonably safe to say that you might be in over your head on this one, other than running the cable and installing the jack.
 
iwirehouses said:
I went to the jack, put in a splitter, and ran a second line to a second phone. Only line 1 would work, and actually, when I hit line 2, it turned off all the phones in the room. Would this be accomplished via programming the switch, the phone, or some other means? Would I ned to run a dedicated line from the switch?
Click to expand...
Depending on the manufacture, more than likely it has to be ran dedicated to a switch port and programmed. Basically all you can do is pull the wire, then call the vendor to do the rest. They are not going to instruct you how to do it.
 
There's a lot of information on the net on how to program many systems. Many of the complicated systems, like Nortel's Meridian, have a whole "ecyclopedia set" that goes with them. It's usually in the phone room in businesses that have bigger systems like that.

You too can be a M-A-C daddy!
 
Alright, I agree, in over my head. I am only familiar up to a typical 3 line residential phone. Thanks everyone. Your always there when I need ya. :)
 
Just a note on paralleling smart phones; generally you cant, which is why the splitter test didn't work for you. As Dereck noted, each pair requires wire to the PABX.

How much wire? Depends, most modern digital systems are one pair, but some older analogue systems require two pairs to each phone.

One of the most popular PABXs ever made was the Panasonic KXTA series, often called 'hybrids', these need two pairs to the system phones. The normal pair is straight POTS, the next pair out supplies power and carries data. You can use a splitter to add another ordinary phone to the normal pair and it works, though strictly you should set the PABX setting that says "and theres a parallel phone on this line"

Programming we'll leave to another day :)
 
mdshunk said:
There's a lot of information on the net on how to program many systems. Many of the complicated systems, like Nortel's Meridian, have a whole "ecyclopedia set" that goes with them. It's usually in the phone room in businesses that have bigger systems like that.

You too can be a M-A-C daddy!
Click to expand...

IMHO If you walk in not having a clue and try to do some programming on a NT Meridian system you will be in for a rude awakening trying to go thru those books to find what you are looking to do.
 
NEVER wire in a second phone on a PBX unless you KNOW what you are doing. a local correctional facility wanted a second phone in a room and had maintenance wire it up. they plugged in teh phone while the other one was plugged in and blew 2 phones worth about 1k each PLUS the digital handset board in the switch. total cost to repair was 4 grand. i had quoted dthem a whoile 175.00 to run the outlet to a new port, heck it was just across the hall, and that was too much for them!
 
mkoloj said:
IMHO If you walk in not having a clue and try to do some programming on a NT Meridian system you will be in for a rude awakening trying to go thru those books to find what you are looking to do.
Click to expand...
Very, very true. Luckily, I have a clue, and a few to spare. My response was more tongue-in-cheek than anything. I'd certainly hope a guy, when sitting face to face with a Meridian terminal for the first time would think better of it.
 
Last edited:
I used to program M1 systems. Some of the 'professional assistants' had 28 lines to their phone, with rollover non ringing lines to other assistants - all on 1 pair of cat3. I still have the Meridian manuals, over 100 pounds of them. Some people wanted to do some of the strangest things with their phones.

Im glad I am an electrician now. The PBX techs are getting to be a thing of the past thanks to viop.

~Matt
 
TOOL_5150 said:
I used to program M1 systems. Some of the 'professional assistants' had 28 lines to their phone, with rollover non ringing lines to other assistants - all on 1 pair of cat3. I still have the Meridian manuals, over 100 pounds of them. Some people wanted to do some of the strangest things with their phones.

Im glad I am an electrician now. The PBX techs are getting to be a thing of the past thanks to viop.

~Matt
Click to expand...




The way I have seen some voip work there is more job security in it than in maintenance of the almost bullet proof performance of traditional PBX's.
Somebody has still got the be the man behind the mist with Voip too.
IMO If a tech keeps up on the way things are headed they should be alright.
If they are stuck in their old ways they might have something to worry about with the younger crown moving in.

As for that 100 lbs of books you have, it is all on disc now and NT has pretty much stopped including books with new products, they were including them on CD's but now all I believe you get is a www address.
Makes searching for things easier than thumbing thru books and bouncing from book to book.

Just out of curiousity did you used to have to load the overlays from a floppy?
 
voip

voip

it's funny how things come and go and come around again. a few years back a lot of what they call "centrex" around here was being installed. this is a system where each handset gets its own line back to the phone company and all the intercom and transfer functions that KSU's perform was done at the phone company's switch. There is still a lot of this out there in government offices and other "campus" sites. Then analog and digital KSU's displaced a lot of these installations and the switching was done locally in the client's premise. Now VOIP is the latest thing and everyone is throwing out the KSU's they bought in the 90's to upgrade to VOIP. Once again, the telcos are back involved in the off-premise management of intra- and inter- office calling.
 
lakevillejake said:
most digital phones cannot be tapped this is a security feature. line will go dead if you try to tap
Click to expand...

Boy, if I were you, I would never talk on a digital phone for illegal purposes. FYI, the police & others can tap any line anywhere with a court order.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top