HELP ... phoneline into the house is cut

whiteshadow

Hi,

While doing some redecorating i had to cut the phone line that lead to my router in another room, I cut the cable and have to figure out how i can get a new one as ive just ordered a new broadband package.

So just to clarify, the cable comes into the house, into a little white eircom box, and then from there onwards there's just a little stump of a wire, so i need to buy a cable i presume and then the thing that the cable goes into so a phone or isdn line or whatever goes into it. and then i can set up the router again.

Are these the sort of things i can pick up in say maplins? and if so, what exactly do i need!? i dont know the names of these things!

Hope you can offer some advice!
many thanks

Solair

Phone line connections only use two cores, even though the cables used normally contain a lot more spare pairs of cables.

You should either use telephone cable, or CAT5 cable.



This explains the wire colours used in a standard eircom or US RJ11 jack. The two centre contacts are used to carry the line. You don't need to worry about the rest of the connections.

Eircom sometimes use the orange pair to carry the line, if this is the case, connect that pair to the L1 and L2 or red/green terminals in the phone jack.

Just check which wires are actually connected to the terminals in the eircom junction box.

Run the new cable to your first phone socket and connect it to L1 and L2 (if eircom socket) or the red and green terminals as per the image above. You can ignore all the other terminals as they are only used for multi-line installations or in office phone systems and ISDN etc..

whiteshadow

Thanks for your reply, very comprehensive
i'll head into maplins and show them this pic
and then print out your instructions and give it a go...

here's a pic of my snip ! it is an eircom junction box...

runswithascript

To rule out no sync with your local broadband exchange get this fixed professionally by Eircom now for a call out charge of €100.

You could be looking at getting your broadband installed, it not working, troubleshooting over several phone calls with technical support and then waiting between three and five days for an Eircom engineer to call to your home who's going to charge you €100 anyway because you damaged the line.

Solair

There won't be sync problems with your local exchange. Just reconnect the phone socket. It's a very simple 2-wire circuit. The only thing to remember is that you MUST use good quality cable, preferably CAT5 to ensure good quality signals and noise-free transmission on DSL.

There's no point in paying eircom to come out and fix that. Just open the junction box in that picture, the top will either screw off (with a central screw) or just snap off if you prise it from the edge.

Inside you'll simply find a set of terminals with two wires connected. Simply strip back about 1cm or so of insulation on a single pair of the cat5 cable e.g. the blue pair.

Make a horseshoe shape with the bare wire and make sure that the terminal screw clamps down tightly on it. If you don't do this you'll get a poor or noisy connection.

Ensure that the two line wires are not touching or likely to touch i.e. make sure that the bare cable is under the screw.

"stuff" the rest of the wires into the junction box, these can be used should you ever want to loop signals back or install a second line at some stage in the future.

Connect your eircom socket by wiring up the L1 and L2 terminals. If the socket's the old beige type, use the terminals on the left side of the socket.

If it's a newer eircom white socket do the following:

Remove the two outer screws on the front of the socket, a face plate will come off. Inside you will find two further screws in the same position as the screws on a standard light switch. Remove these. You will find L1 and L2 connections behind these, connect your CAT5 to these lugs and screw down securely.

Polarity on Irish phone lines doesn't really matter all that much, so if you're unsure which is L1 and which is L2, don't worry too much.

Plug in a phone, check you've got a dial tone and make a test call to a mobile. Also, ring the line from your mobile.
Warning: DO NOT TOUCH the wires when the line is ringing. The exchange applies about 75V AC to make your phone ring!!

If it all sounds OK, you should be in business!

Not particularly complicated to do!