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furryrabidbunny

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 10, 2005
475
0
Mesa, AZ
I am trying to convince my parents to switch to vonage and I have a quick question. I have a router setup for a cable internet and I have a question about having multiple phones. My idea is this... have the adapter near the router and invest in an expandable phone system. Have the answer machine/base phone hooked up to the adapter and then the expandable phones all over the house. Would that work? Or, do you need an adapter for every single phone? http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Unid...47666/catOid/-15562/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do that is the set I am looking at... pretty good deal four phones for 70 bucks.
 
furryrabidbunny said:
I am trying to convince my parents to switch to vonage and I have a quick question. I have a router setup for a cable internet and I have a question about having multiple phones. My idea is this... have the adapter near the router and invest in an expandable phone system. Have the answer machine/base phone hooked up to the adapter and then the expandable phones all over the house. Would that work? Or, do you need an adapter for every single phone? http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Unid...47666/catOid/-15562/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do that is the set I am looking at... pretty good deal four phones for 70 bucks.


I have the motorola phone device going to a motorola 5.8ghz phone base, from there i have 2 extra expandable handsets around the house. The expansion part is a feature of the phone, not the Vonage adaptor.

The only thing i would recommend is a UPS for your cable/dsl router, your network router, the vonage adaptor and the phone base this way if you lose power you will still be able to make some phone calls if needed in an emergency.

Ed
 
Ed H said:
I have the motorola phone device going to a motorola 5.8ghz phone base, from there i have 2 extra expandable handsets around the house. The expansion part is a feature of the phone, not the Vonage adaptor.

The only thing i would recommend is a UPS for your cable/dsl router, your network router, the vonage adaptor and the phone base this way if you lose power you will still be able to make some phone calls if needed in an emergency.

Ed
Good idea... they need a surge protector to expand the outlet anyway... compusa has a surge protector/ups on sale for 19.99. Gotta love the forth. We picked up that uniden btw. Seemed like a good deal.
 
furryrabidbunny said:
Good idea... they need a surge protector to expand the outlet anyway... compusa has a surge protector/ups on sale for 19.99. Gotta love the forth. We picked up that uniden btw. Seemed like a good deal.
Without knowing the brand, at that price it has to be utter #&^$%ola.

I bought 5 Belkin UPS's at $44 each -- all 5 of them failed. And what they did was if there was the slightest wobble in power, they'd switch, fail, and crash the computer -- while computers plugged into the wall sailed through without a blink.

Stick with American Power Conversion UPS's, avoid the 'office store' brands like Belkin and Startech.
 
CanadaRAM said:
Without knowing the brand, at that price it has to be utter #&^$%ola.

I bought 5 Belkin UPS's at $44 each -- all 5 of them failed. And what they did was if there was the slightest wobble in power, they'd switch, fail, and crash the computer -- while computers plugged into the wall sailed through without a blink.

Stick with American Power Conversion UPS's, avoid the 'office store' brands like Belkin and Startech.

Great advice. I had my iMac plugged into a cheapo and it got fried during a lightening storm
 
furryrabidbunny said:
I am trying to convince my parents to switch to vonage and I have a quick question. I have a router setup for a cable internet and I have a question about having multiple phones. My idea is this... have the adapter near the router and invest in an expandable phone system. Have the answer machine/base phone hooked up to the adapter and then the expandable phones all over the house. Would that work? Or, do you need an adapter for every single phone? http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Unid...47666/catOid/-15562/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do that is the set I am looking at... pretty good deal four phones for 70 bucks.

Another option, I know can be done, although I'm not completely up on the details is to have the adaptor near a phone jack and plug the adaptor into the phone jack. You'll have to disconnect the phone wire from outside the house and possibly do some wire crossing/rewireing in the house (especially if there is an alarm system since it's usually in between the outside hookup and your phones). When done correctly the Vonage adaptor will then run all of the phone jacks in your house so your existing phones would all work.

I have co-workers who have done this and I can get more details if you would like.
 
atszyman said:
Another option, I know can be done, although I'm not completely up on the details is to have the adaptor near a phone jack and plug the adaptor into the phone jack. You'll have to disconnect the phone wire from outside the house and possibly do some wire crossing/rewireing in the house (especially if there is an alarm system since it's usually in between the outside hookup and your phones). When done correctly the Vonage adaptor will then run all of the phone jacks in your house so your existing phones would all work.

I have co-workers who have done this and I can get more details if you would like.
We just went with the extendable phones. Although what you said sounds like a good idea... it was pulling teeth for them to sign up. We only have two functioning phones in our house... so four is an "improvement." My dad has a wiring mess in the house... and any tweaking of anything would have been a no go.
 
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