new construction

[rvern]

I have been using Ooma successfully in my previous house. I recently moved into a new construction house. The landline (qwest) people have not been to the house. All of the phone wiring is just dangling in the (unfinished) basement by the electrical junction box. I assume I need to hook up all the wires together to make the house phone wiring "hot"? Does anyone have any pointers/information on first steps involved with this... or do I just need to pony up and call the phone company to hook the wires up together?

Thanks!

[southsound]

My recommendation is to NOT call the phone company unless you love giving money away. If you do want to give money away, then I can suggest some very worthy charities.

You should have no problem connecting the wiring. I imagine that since you have wiring just dangling in the basement that the builder was doing a star topology - that means that every outlet has a cable coming back to a central location. Being an old phone guy, I would put in either a 66 block or a 110 block - these are terminal blocks you can buy at any good electrical supply. The cables "punch down" to these blocks and using them gives you a lot of flexibility in the future. A special "punch down" tool is required and they differ depending on the block you are using. However, you don't need to get that fancy. Just leave a healthy portion of cable (in case you ever want use the blocks) and strip back the cable covering. Inside you will find 3 or 4 pairs of color coded twisted pairs. The ones that will be connected to the line 1 part of your jacks will be the blue/white pairs. There will be another pair that is orange/white and a third green/white pair. There may also be a brown/white pair. These are used for line 2, line 3 and line 4 respectively.

Like colors go to like colors - blue to blue, white with a blue stripe to white with a blue stripe, etc. I normally suggest using scotchlock connectors but with as many wires as you have, the correct size wire nuts will work fine. Let us know if you have any questions I have not covered.