Using a UK phone in Ireland

Kevo

Hey
I bought a BT phone from Argos yesterday. When I got home I realised that the data cable has a different connection to the Irish one. Since the cable didn't fit I tried using a normal Irish one but there is no dialtone. Do I need to return it or is there a way to fix this?

Onikage

Buy or borrow a normal phone cable. The port on the phone will be the same as the irish "square" plug. Should cost less than €2.

kaizersoze

Kevo wrote: »

Hey
I bought a BT phone from Argos yesterday. When I got home I realised that the data cable has a different connection to the Irish one. Since the cable didn't fit I tried using a normal Irish one but there is no dialtone. Do I need to return it or is there a way to fix this?

The Irish cable should have worked. There's a couple of reasons why you didn't get a dial tone.
1. Did you successfully pair the handsets with the base units? If this is not done they won't work. There should be instructions on how to do it.
2. Look at the plugs on the Irish cable. You should only see 2 copper contacts in the 2 center pins. If there is 4 contacts present this can cause problems with some UK phones. The solution is to get a cable with only 2 contacts wired or peel off a bit of the outside insulation on the one you have and snip the 2 outside wires.

If that doesn't work you could get an adapter for the cable that came with the phone.

Alun

Argos usually give you a free BT-RJ11 adapter I always thought? If not, go back there and ask for one.

antoinolachtnai

Yup, get the adapter. The reason the regular cable won't work for you (as I understand it) is because the outer wires are used on uk phones, whilst the inner wires are used in Ireland/US/most other places.

Solair

The UK's BT-Connector uses the two outer contacts to carry the line.
Standard RJ11 (as used in Ireland, US, Canada, and pretty much everywhere) uses the centre pair.

The phone manufacturers crimp on the RJ11 and BT connectors onto flat cable. To make their lives easier, they just wire the RJ11 connector incorrectly in the BT connector configuration and do the cross-overs in the phone itself.

So a standard RJ11 cord will not work, even though the phone's got an RJ11 connector on the back! It's ridiculously stupid, but trust the Brits to be weird

There are also some phones that parallel the line in both the UK and standard RJ11 positions i.e. it's on the centre pair and the outer pair!

The problem is that when you connect it to an eircom socket, with a 4-wire RJ11 cord, it will short out the line as eircom uses those contacts for other purposes.

Basically, you need to use the phone's original cord and an RJ11 to BT adaptor. Argos will have to provide you with one free, otherwise the phone is not suitable for use in the Republic of Ireland and shouldn't be sold!