U-Verse Voice Only Working when connected to the gateway, was fine last night

[sbatson01]

I installed my U-Verse kit last night, everything was working fine with the filters plugged in to use my phones. This morning the phones plugged into the filters do not work and I hear some noise on the line, almost like the line is open or a phone is off the hook somewhere, but I don't have any phones elsewhere plugged in.  There are 2 things I've done that I suppose may have affected the setup, but I tend to doubt it.

Please understand, the internet is working great and so does the phone if it's connected directly to the gateway.

1) I connected my own wireless router since I'm happy with it and don't want to use the built in wireless. I went into setup on the gateway and disabled it's wireless features after the problems started, but that made no difference.

2) I plugged in a filter to the phone line that my dish reciever connects too.

As of right now, internet is working great using my own wireless router, my cordless base stations is plugged into the gateway so I have use of my phones until I figure this out. A call to ATT U-Verse support didn't help much and they suggest having a tech come out to check the wiring. While I don't have a problem with that, I hope they don't plan to charge me for it as the equipment is working fine, the lines were working fine with my POTS phones yesterday, and then after using the filters for a little while.

I'm a technical type with a lot of computer and network and some phone experience, so I'm not afraid to check things out. Unless there has been an existing problem with the house phone wiring that the standard lines didn't have problems with, I don't see why the phones wouldn't work. Also, if there was a wiring problem, I'd suspect there's a good chance I'd be having issues with the DSL connection for the gateway, though I could be wrong about that I suppose.

Any suggestions on what to look for?

Is AT&T going to want to charge to to fix it? Other than my router and plugging in the Dish Receiver and phone to the wall jacks with their provided filters, I've made no changes that should cause any problems, they've done all of those changes back at the hub or where ever else they needed to to configure anything.

[aviewer ACE - Wizard]

Not entirely clear on what you are saying - You had U-verse with POTS and you switched the POTS to U-voice with a self install.

With POTS your phones connect to the line at the NID on the side of the house.
With U-verse VOIP your phones connect to the line via jacks on the RG.

If you connect a single phone into the RG it works fine.

If you patch the RG to a jack on your existing phone distribution all the phones in the house will work.

Unless you disconnected the wire to the NID you are still going out in that path. THis could be your problem. YOu need to disconnect the old path to dial tone.

If a single phone connected to the RG works & other phones in the house do not, the problem is in your house wiring & is chargeable.

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

I agree, the jacks in your house will have to backfed from the RG.  If a tech comes to your home there will be a charge because yours was a self install.

[sbatson01]

aviewer,

Thanks, that was incredibly helpful! Before I tell you what I did, let me clarify what I was trying to say in my first message

had my phone service as a POTS line and no U-Verse services. I had my internet through a cable company. I ordered U-Verse to change to their Internet + Voice. I connected the self install kit per instructions and activated the phone service. It seemed like voice was working on all lines. I'm now guessing that maybe they hadn't finished disconnected the POTS service since I made the changes pretty quick after the scheduled activation time. Then I got up in the morning on the POTS was not working.

Anyway, I did backfeed the voice out from the RG and the other lines started working! It's kinda noisy and I'm concerned about the quality of the cable I tried so I'm going to replace that cable later today. 

Here's a question though, I'm using the dual port filter to back feed it to the line and worried that the loss there could be causing some noise. I'm thinking a good adapter to split the phone jack in the room out might be better to avoid filter loss. 

Any other suggestions? Anway, this helps and I can avoid the costly service call for sure now! Thanks!!!

[jfw ACE - Czar]

The use of filters is not needed or recommended with Uverse Voice. Try removing the filters and see if the call quality improves.

[sbatson01]

Thanks everyone! Backreeding from the RG and not using the filters is working. No service call needed!!!

There is a little noise on the line, but I think some better cables and Y connector for the room where the RG is connected could help. Any suggestions?

I have noticed that when I connect a new phone or device to other phone jacks, that there's no dialtone for about a minute or two. Not a big deal, but is this normal?

  Thanks again

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

Very cool you made progress.  Enjoy.

[sbatson01]

Ok, still having some issues. Even with better cables and splitters, when I back feed the voice from the RG back to the line, it get a lot of noise on the line, and sometimes I don't get a dial tone the first time I pickup the phone.

When I connect a phone directly to the RG, it sounds great. When I feed it down the line (same as the DSL is connected too) I get a lot of noise that sounds like electrical hum. I don't think that's from house wiring or anything in the room where the RG is connected because I never had that much noise with my POTS line.

As far as the noise issue, I'm wondering if the RG really has a strong enough signal to backfeed the whole house. This house is probably only 4 or 5 years old and was nicely prewired from what I can tell. I'm only renting, so I really can't be doing too much messing around with existing wiring, drilling holes or any of that stuff I'd consider with my own place. Is there any thing available for this purpose that I could buy to filter and boost the signal for back feeding from the RG? If I have to pay for something, I'd rather pay for a device I could take if I move than to pay a tech to come up and do wiring.

The other option I've been thinking about, is getting a couple of 2 line splitter adapters. The house should be prewired with 2 pair to each phone jack with line 1 connected at each point by default. That's the line the DSL is coming in on. Maybe if I split that out sending Line 1 to the RG, and then backfeed from the RG to Line 2 through the splitter. Then any room I need a phone connected, I connect a splitter or adapter to connect to line 2. I'm pretty sure that will work from a connectivity standpoint, I'm no confident at this point that it will elimintate the noise unless the DSL signal is what's causing the noise when I try to backfeed on the same line.

Any more feedback or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

[aviewer ACE - Wizard]

Two suggestions -

Are you "backfeeding" the phone connection into the same line the RG is coming in on? I think this not a good idea. The RG feed should be direct from the NID to the RG & should not connect to anything else (i.e. your phone network).

The backfeed should be via a different jack or connection.

The in-house phone network can grow in spurts and become a mess. Can you trace it out to make sure it is only connected to phone jacks?

If this is too complicated, maybe it is time to get a wireless phone network with as many phones as you need. Place the base station at & plu-in to the RG and place the phones wherever you want. They have awesome features. My Pansonic even has voice announcement based on caller ID. Set up you friends and family list to announce their first name & it is like you start the conversation even before you answer the phone.

[sbatson01]

"Two suggestions -

Are you "backfeeding" the phone connection into the same line the RG is coming in on? I think this not a good idea. The RG feed should be direct from the NID to the RG & should not connect to anything else (i.e. your phone network)."

This makes sense to me because it's a lot of stuff on one line even though it's possible to do.

"The backfeed should be via a different jack or connection."

This also makes sense and could be easily done by splitting out the pair for Line 2 with adapters or some rewiring of the jacks.

"The in-house phone network can grow in spurts and become a mess. Can you trace it out to make sure it is only connected to phone jacks?"

Understood, but I'm not sure that's necesary unless everything else fails...I had no issues with standard phone service and there's no other devices, alrms or anything else connected...just the unused jacks in a few other rooms. I'd save this as an absolute last resort.

"If this is too complicated, maybe it is time to get a wireless phone network with as many phones as you need. Place the base station at & plu-in to the RG and place the phones wherever you want. They have awesome features. My Pansonic even has voice announcement based on caller ID. Set up you friends and family list to announce their first name & it is like you start the conversation even before you answer the phone."

I aleady have a wireless phone with the base station currently connected to the RG to avoid the noise. The issue I'm having, is that I need to have my dishnetwork receiver attached to a phone line, and I'm considering on more connection to a printer/fax in another room. I just want to have access to the phone line from other rooms.

All that said, it does seem like backfeeding to line 2 would most likely solve my issue. If I split out lines 1 and 2 from the jack where the RG is currently sitting, feed line 1 to the RG for the DSL, and backfeed line 2 from the phone port on the RG, do you see this as a feasible solution? It sounds like it may be from what you are saying and what I've learned about about it from the various replies to this thread.

[aviewer ACE - Wizard]

sbatson01 - Using the extra pair sounds better than the same pair. I have thought iyt but not suggested it because it may be too complex for the average customer. Also, there is the possibility of cross- talk. But, It can't hurt to try it.

I forgot you needed hard wired for your direct tv connection,