Telephone line in to TEL 1 on Rogers Ignite Modem

1887 Views 9 Replies 5 Participants Last post by 57, 5 mo ago

macM1X

Discussion Starter · 5 mo ago

Hello. I was hoping anyone with a telecom background, or understanding of telephone data panels in general could shed some light on this subject.

I'm in the process of moving my modem from my 2nd floor bedroom, to a shelf on the 1st landing wall going down to my basement. The logic being:

1) Wi-Fi signal will be more central to the house
2) I've run Cat6 cables from 2 of the second floor rooms - down into the basement landing wall where the modem will be moved (so I can have Ethernet access for both rooms.)

3) I can now more easily run Cat6 cable from the modem to my basement (along side the basement floor joists, through the sub-floor, into my living room's wall where another streaming box is.

In my case, because my modem is in an upstairs office, and we're using Rogers as our phone service, during installation, a Rogers tech had to install a 3 way phone splitter "biscuit" on the floor. He needed to interface the phone line from our wall, with our phone, and to the modem - basically splitting the phone line using the biscuit, so that both modem and phone could be using the same phone line. SEE: 3 Way Biscuit.JPG.

Telecom people know that a phone line only needs 2 wires, or 1 pair to be punched down at a 110 terminal in your data panel box, in order to send/receive voice. Usually it's the blue/white wire for the T (TIP) and solid blue wire for the R (RING) If you look at this image: Mediasync CSH-C810.JPG — NOTE: There are 2 connected phone lines here.

The 1 on the left goes to our upstairs kitchen phone wall jack, the 2nd line on the far right (with the green tape) terminates to a wall jack in the upstairs bedroom where the modem currently is.

See the far right strip labelled with 4 vertical "TR" markings
1 TR (This is where the 2 wires are punched down on the panel, terminated at the upstairs office phone wall plate, where the RJ11 jack plugs into the Rogers Ignite modem's TEL 1 jack)

I'm assuming that each pair or set of TR (4 in total) is for having 4 separate phone lines, if required.
2 TR — additional separate phone line
3 TR — additional separate phone line
4 TR — additional separate phone line

QUESTION: If the Rogers Ignite modem requires a phone line in TEL 1 on the back of the modem for phone service, do the 2 phone wires punched down in the 1st TR position have to connect to TEL 1 on the Rogers modem?

OR, can the 2 phone wires originate from one of the "EXPANSION" strips on the left? I'm not quite sure about this. As I understand it, the "TR strip" for Tip & Ring on the far right, governs all other connected phone lines that are subsequently punched down into the expansion strips to the left.

Basically, does it matter what strip the Blue/White | Blue wires are punched down, in order to be connected to the TEL 1 input on the back of the Ignite modem? MUST they be connected to TR1, and be terminated via phone plug — into the modem?

Thanks for any input you can give.

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57

· #2 · 5 mo ago

I'm not a phone expert, but if there is a phone jack near the location where you're moving the gateway to, just plug the gateway into that phone jack to "backfeed" all of the jacks in your house. Plug the phone in the "old" location into the jack located where you had the gateway.

Many people have cordless phones, so it's possible to simply plug the cordless base station into the Tel1 jack of the gateway. If you still have corded phones, then they should be able to be plugged into the home jacks that will be "backfed" from the Gateway.

I have a corded phone near my gateway, so I simply plugged a phone line splitter into the Tel1 port, so that one side of the splitter "backfeeds" all the jacks in my house and the other side of the splitter goes to my corded phone. This accomplishes the same thing as your "biscuit." I had to make no telephone line modifications.

It's only if you have an alarm system using the telephone lines that wiring can become a problem. If you just have phones, it's easy peasy.

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JamesK

· #3 · 5 mo ago

macM1X said:
Thanks for any input you can give.

Assuming you have a single line, then the blue/white pair would be used. You just have to connect that to the jack on the modem. It doesn't matter where you find that pair to connect to it. While you're at it, you might want to get rid of that "biscuit". Either get a proper 3 way splitter, if still needed, or use that 110 strip to break out to multiple phones.

BTW, 110 strips are unusual in Canada. I've only seen one. Telcos generally install a BIX strip. Did Rogers provide it? I've only seen them use BIX. With BIX, it's easy to set up parallel connections, as the punch can be configured to punch only, but not cut. I've never tried that with 110.

The 110 is common in the U.S., but I was surprised to see a bunch of BIX in the State Farm headquarters, in Indianapolis, Illinois, when I was down there several years ago.

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macM1X

Discussion Starter · #4 · 5 mo ago

Thanks 57, I appreciate the reply. You said:

"It's only if you have an alarm system using the telephone lines that wiring can become a problem. If you just have phones, it's easy peasy."

I never thought to mention it, but we do infact have an alarm system connected to our Mediasync CSH-C810 via a Cat5e modular plug: SEE TR Panel Strip.JPG.

See the Grey modular plug to the left of the Tip & Ring strip? That grey RJ45 plug connects to an alarm panel box, about 2 feet to the right, mounted in between 2 studs.

I know that the alarm system needs "seize" the phone line in the event the alarm system triggers, in order to send out a notification to our alarm company.

The 2 punched down wires on the right (Blue/White Blue) in the 1st position of TR, — that's our upstairs office phone line, which as you said is "split" by the 2 way biscuit in the upstairs office.

My thought was, all I need to do is pull those 2 wires from their slots, move them over a few strips into one of 9 available expansion ports, then punch-down the 2 wires from the biscuit that's bolted to the back panel of my data box, SEE: Mediasync CSH-C810.JPG

Those 2 loose Blue-White/Blue wires are unused. I tested that biscuit yesterday by punching them down into one of the expansion ports using another phone. It works perfectly well for phone signal.

The question now is, IF:

1) I punch down the 2 Blue-White/Blue loose wires from the biscuit, into the 1st position TR, then plug a male-male phone extension cord from the input on the biscuit — directly into the Tel 1 on the Ignite modem

2) Then move the white jacketed 2 Blue-White/Blue — (currently in 1st position of the TR strip) to any of the expansion ports, I should have a direct Telephone signal into the modem - that originates from the TR strips (no issue) AND have a working phone line for the office, without the need to split anything.

I'm wondering though, will my alarm system be able to seize the phone line, now that the 1st position TR phone line goes directly into the modem.

I'm realizing how stupid this system is. I spoke with a friend of mine who used to work for Bell a long time ago. He told me once, "Bell Canada by law, SHOULD provide every household with a dedicated emergency phone line from that TR Strip" It's paid for by all Canadians, not on a monthly service, it's just part of our infrastructure. I don't like the using Rogers as the phone provided through a modem. If the network is down, or loss of service, you're screwed.

Basically a federally regulated, mandated emergency phone line for every household, in the event of tornado, blackout, loss of internet, cell service etc. It just makes common sense.

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17671

· #5 · 5 mo ago

Hi macM1X,

Telecom Professional here.
You mentioned your moving your modem to the basement landing wall, have you done this? Once you locate it there, will there be a RJ11 telephone jack that will run to this patch panel of yours?

In essence for phone to work you can feed it to any punch down on the bix strip, but since you said you have an alarm system, if the alarm is currently monitored and designed to seize the telephone line when it places a call out, then you MUST punch down the telephone line from the modem going into the far right port. you also have an RJ31x port covered up with a yellow sticker, you would then connect that to your monitored alarm.

This rule only applies to the device (modem) feeding the phone signal to the patch panel must be to far right jack if you have an alarm, otherwise you would connect any of the other punch downs can go to any other jack in your house and feed a device like a phone jack or facsimile machine or what not

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JamesK

· #6 · 5 mo ago

macM1X said:
I don't like the using Rogers as the phone provided through a modem. If the network is down, or loss of service, you're screwed.

You'll get the same from Bell too. Both companies are providing VoIP now and the days of the twisted pair back to the CO are limited.

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17671

· #7 · 5 mo ago

exactly, and all the other competitors are VoIP based so when your internet goes down, your phone is also down! you pretty much do not have a choice any more

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Norman_C

· #8 · 5 mo ago

17671 said:
so when your internet goes down, your phone is also down!

So a good idea to protect the modem (and cordless phone base station if applicable) with a decent UPS, and hope that the telco's power backup keeps working.

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macM1X

Discussion Starter · #9 · 5 mo ago

Thanks for all your replies, much appreciated. 17671 — thanks so much for confirming that. To answer your post:

If you look at this image: Basement Landing Wall Setup.JPG

The modem hasn't been physically moved to the basement landing wall shelf yet. But everything else needed to make the move quickly has been well planned and pre-installed.

On the basement landing wall, I have a shelf bolted into 2 studs, an AC outlet to the right of the gang plate. On the other side of that wall, about 3 feet away and down about 4 feet, I have the MediaSync data panel, where the Coax for internet exists, and the BIX phone strip in the previous images.

As of today, I've cutout gang plate routes in my 2 bedroom walls, where I'm terminating the Cat6 cables to their keystone jacks.

I have all I need to make the modem move quickly, so I'm not figuring things out as I go — that was all planned and done months ago.

I just wanted to be certain, with the modem requiring a phone line, and my alarm system, as you pointed out, I MUST punch down the phone wires (Blue/White & Blue) from that unused biscuit in the data panel box into the 1st TR position, and then use the black 10 foot phone extension cable (male to male) from the biscuit into Tel 1 on the modem. This way, the alarm system can seize the line when needed.

SEE: Mediasync CSH-C810.JPG — That biscuit on the right, can be terminated into 1st TR position, I'll just move the current termination (upstairs office phone) from TR1 to another expansion port. The 10 foot phone extension will plug into the top of the biscuit, up the wall (in between the basement wall and basement landing wall where the shelf is).

So, yes, I'll have Coax for internet, power, phone line, and then simply plug in the Cat6 cables that go to each room upstairs.

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· #10 · 5 mo ago

Norman_C said:
So a good idea to protect the modem (and cordless phone base station if applicable) with a decent UPS, and hope that the telco's power backup keeps working.

In most instances a UPS at your home will no longer help. I learned this years ago as I always have such equipment on a UPS. The Nodes near your home used to have battery backups, but the batteries are very expensive and providers have not bothered replacing them, or they have been stolen. So, if there is a power failure in your area, you will very likely be "down" typically for TV, Home Phone and Internet.

For emergencies, most people have a cell phone.

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Telephone line in to TEL 1 on Rogers Ignite Modem

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