How many phones can Horizon support?

Pauley2

Hello,

Thinking of upgrading my Mum's service to a Horizon box and rolling in the current Eircom Land line which is near and dear to her and which has three hard wired phones connected to it - none of which she'd like to loose...

Does anyone know for sure how many phones a Horizon box can support? (each phone is a standard phone with an REN of "1").

I was thinking of rerouting the houses internal phone "network" directly to the Horizon box so that they all function exactly as before...

Is this possible?

Thanks..

patrickc

not quite sure if this is what your asking but just looked at my box and there are 2 holes for a phone connection

edit: we have and use the landline but its running from a box in the hall UPC installed so that may be a possibility also

L1011

UPC always tell you to use a cordless phone with all their ATAs, these usually have a tiny REN (0.1 or similar). I would imagine this is due to the power being supplied being very low. This is common with most ATAs, they're usually designed for a single device per port.

I have successfully used a late-model Eircom branded Nortel handset but its REN would also be less than one.

You can get external power supplies for corded phones for situations like this, I'd advise looking in Irish electrical stores rather than UK ones however due to us using US phone sockets.

SpaceTime

Some ATAs are fairly beefy.
The Linksys PAP2 devices have an REN value of 5.

Eircom (or any phone system) lines will have varying REN values depending on how far you are from the exchange and even the specific make and model of exchange in use. It can vary from about 3 to well beyond 5. The longer your line, the more resistance and the lower the REN.
Although the exchange can detect that and provide higher power on long lines too.

I would be surprised if UPC horizon isn't at least REN 3.

Phones with actual bells consume a lot more ringing current than electronic ones.

Eircom had some speakerphones that were powered by the line too. These may not work on an ATA.

Also bear in mind that the box will not interpret rotary dialling or pulse dial. So make sure your old phones are set to tone/DTMF.

Plug the phone in and if they all ring you've no problems!

I wouldn't really expect much of a problem.

To hook it up:

Fully disconnect the exchange line where it enters the first socket. It's vital you do this or you may damage the horizon box as the exchange will still be powering the line. No dial tone doesn't mean no power.

Once that's done, just plug a normal Irish phone cable from the UPC box to any phone socket on your internal wiring. You can use a double adaptor if needed.

Job done!

Pauley2

Tx all for the responses but between not knowing for absolute sure what the REN support is, the bad reviews I've been reading about the Horizon box and Mums fear of change I've decided that best thing to do for now is to just leave things as is until at least I hear that the Horizon teething problems have been addressed.

Thanks!