Eircom and Phonewatch

shurl

Morning Folks,

Just wondering, I ordered the Self-Install Istream last Friday.
While I was on the Phone, the sales repy told me to check with Phonewatch to see if ADSL would cause a prob with it.

Anyway, rang phonewatch, the tech guy said that I have to put the splitter at the phonewatch box and give it Priority.
Now i'm not familar with the eircom splitters, is there a priorty switch on it?

Also its one of the old original phonewatch boxes, just a cable that plugs directly into the phone line.

Actually, now that I think of it, the plug at the end of the phonewatch cable is an RJ45. What type of conenctions are on the eircom splitter?


Cheers

Simon

DSLinAbsentia

If you have phonewatch, then you have to have a technician to come out and rewire for you. So even with self-install, that's 199 euro.

Redshift

When he says priority he means the phonewatch box must have priority over the house phones which is the way they are wired when installed the reason for this is if a phone is left off hook it won't prevent the phonewatch box dialing out out since it can disconnect the phones and sieze the line.



X is the splitter but you may need to make up an adapter yourself by stripping one end of a phone lead that has a rj11 jack and hardwiring it into the rj45 socket instead of the exchange line you can then install a normal socket on the exchange line to which you can connect your dsl splitter you will then connect your homemade adapter into the phone socket on the splitter and your dsl modem into the other socket.



_____ Exchange Line In_____>__X__|Phonewatch

_____Line Out to phones____<_____|Panel


What you need to achieve is install your spliter on the exchange line which will give you your output to go to your dsl modem then you need to connect your phonewatch box line input to the phone jack connection on the splitter your house phones should already be connected through the phonewatch box so your phones should work once the phonewatch box has a line. You will probably find phonewatch installed a rj45 phonesocket which was the way they used to connect them up and inside this socket or directly beside it under a blanking plate is where the priority wiring is done it can look a bit complicated but if your anyway familliar with phonelines or circuits you should be able to manage this. I'm afraid it would not be as simple as getting a rj45 to rj11 adapter as the phonewatch rj45 plug uses one pair in and one pair out thus achieving priority.

Hope that makes some sense to you I have tried to keep it simple but that is a diy way of doing what you will have to pay a technician to do.

Red

shurl

Cheers Redshift.

I'm a tech, so it made complete sense :-)

Screw getting the engineer out just to do that.!


Give's me something to do while I'm waiting.
Cheers again
Simon

Redshift

Excellent glad you understood M8, why pay somone a small fortune when you can do it yourself for a fiver.

Ryan

Krusty_Clown

Given that you pay a maintenance fee to Eircom for Phonewatch (about €19 pm), and DSL costs €54 per month, and both products are from the same company, I would imagine that you could argue with them in favour of waiving the technicians fee...

Get in touch with one of the Phonewatch sales staff. Tell them you want to get rid of Phonewatch because it prohibits your signing-up for I-Stream... If they have any sense, the'll try and do something about it... They'll be keen to continue to collect their lucrative 19 bucks a month..

If you wanna wait, I'll try it in two months time, when i'm ready to sign-up for the service...

Redshift

Phonewatch is a subsidiary of eircom and as such is a seperate private company it has pretty much damn all else to do with eircom apart from sharing part of it's name. eircom doesn't even handle billing for phonewatch as it does for all other group companies and some former group companies. It would be no different asking the same thing of chubb or adt. In saying that a shut mouth gets nothing and it never hurts to ask:cool:

shurl

All sorted now,

Rewired the phonewatch box, ready to throw that splitter in, as soon as Eircom get me sorted.


Took all of 10 mins.


S.

Krusty_Clown

Redshift:Phonewatch is a subsidiary of eircom

But they are essentially the same company (and lets not forget, they're a public-company who can live or die by their good and bad press)... If you get to speak to someone high enough up in the food-chain, they will fully understand the concept of losing money, whether it's from their I-Stream wing, or their Phonewatch wing...

Regardless, I reckon the best approach, is to ring your Phonewatch sales person, and tell them that unless they make the necessary changes to support a DSL installation, you will discontinue their monthly income. If it doesn't work, speak to their supervisor. Rinse, and repeat!