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We have 4 Nortel Venture telephones in our home. There is not KSU for these, yet they are all connected together via single 2 pair phone wiring. Now I have them hooked up to the Ooma telo device.
We can make outgoing Ooma telelephone calls with any of these phones and the outgoing calls are perfect.

The problem comes in with an incoming call. When a call is received the phones all ring for a very brief moment and then stop and the line 1 button lights up. This repeats with each ring. the sound is a ring burst really, not a full ringing. And even more importantly CallerID never shows up on the Display. We are able to answer incoming calls by pickiing up the phone and depending on where in the ring cycle the call is picked up; either we connect or we have to push line 1 Button or * to join the call, etc.

Our Nortel phones function fine for OG calls when they are plugged into the PHONE Port on the back of the Ooma. Nothing works if I try plugging them into the "WALL" jack of the Ooma telo.

Is there something I could try to get a Long enough incoming ring and so CallerID functions for incoming calls?

Have you investigated whether the issue occurs with fewer phones in the circuit? I wonder if the phones are using too many RENs and the Ooma box doesn't have enough voltage to ring 4 of them.

If it works fine with fewer phones, then what you need is a ring booster.

I have not tried fewer Phones but I did try turning OFF the Ringer on all Phones but one. That did not work.

As an experiement I did disconnect the Nortel Phones and just hooked a single phone (that does NOT have caller ID). This phone rings the full duration of a ring cycle. In other words normal. Since I don't own another landline phone that has caller ID I can not yet determine if CallerID is working properly.

I will try just 1 Nortel Phone later today.

But if not REN, anything else it could be?

My Nortel phone has a REN of 1.4. It's on the label on the bottom of the phone. Mine says 1.4B.
Four phones would be 5.6 which exceeds the 5.0 max of the Ooma box.

As the owner of approx 12 Venture phones, I can confirm that you need a Ring Voltage Amplifier, as the others have suggested.

I purchased mine a couple of years ago when I got FiOS. Apparently Verizon's fiber phone service has a lower voltage than their old copper service.

StevenD,

I discovered this problem and my solution was to connect the Telo unit to line 2 (or 3). This leaves me without the Venture phone intercom functionality. Oddly, the Linx unit must produce a higher ring voltage as it works just fine on line 1.

Could you provide the particular of the "ring voltage amplifier" you mentioned?

Thanks

K

My measurements show that both the Telo (at least the version 1 model) and the Linx provide lower than standard ring voltages. See this post:
http://ooma.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16016&start=10#p111751

My measurements show that both the Telo (at least the version 1 model) and the Linx provide lower than standard ring voltages. See this post:
http://ooma.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16016&start=10#p111751

Interesting, but empirical results demonstrate that the Linx unit must provide at least a marginally higher output voltage than the Telo(2) unit as it does work with my Venture phone.

k

Or maybe just your particular Linx unit. Peak ring voltage may vary from device to device due to component tolerances, line voltage, etc.

Perhaps it is just a nuance of my particular Linx. Further testing does show that while the Linx can ring 1 Venture phone on line 1 it can not generate a high enough voltage to connect to the house wiring and ring multiple phones.

Until I can find a means to boost the output voltage of the Telo (at a reasonable price) I am without my intercom feature (I expect Ooma will still pass the wife test).

Edit
Dialing *00 and *01 does in fact provide me with an intercom feature (thanks Murphy).

Regards

k