atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Newby looking for direction

1. New member
2. Not in the industry
3. Just renovated my house and ran CAT 6 wiring throughout.
4. Not sure it is relevant but also ran 12ga speaker wire throughout
5. Did not run seperate telephone wiring in house
6. Was on VOIP through optimum online
7. We are switching to Verizon Fios VOIP
8. Located in Westchester County, NY

Am looking for guidance on selecting the right phone system for the house. Among the factors that may impact that:

1. House is large with 4 floors & old thick walls (not sure if standard "wireless" phone with base station will work).

2. Would like to use household WIFI network with portable handsets.

I am trying to access an independent knowlege base to help me make these deceisions. When I go to a local retailer/installer, they try to sell me their brand goods. This doesn't seem the best way to get educated on this area.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Jim

Interesting question. It looks like you are abandoning traditional phone systems altogether and going totally VOIP in your home.

I do not know about these systems but I will be following this thread to see how the experts opine.

I have heard that some security systems don't yet work with VOIP but that should change soon.

Good luck!

Hal

First, Optimum voice and Verizon FIOS are not VoIP as far as you are concerned. Its only a transmission method there for the service provider's convenience back to Verizon's facilities where it is handled like any other traffic. What you get are individual POTS lines same as copper, so the transmission method is irrelevant and not worthy of discussion (unless you are Verizon or Cablevision and hyping the service). Whatever system you choose then needs to utilize POTS lines. You should have no problem there.

I think you made a big mistake by not installing separate CAT3 wiring for voice. By your own admission "house is large with 4 floors & old thick walls (not sure if standard "wireless" phone with base station will work)". Neither do I and I wouldn't want to find out the hard way and not have anything to fall back on. Our position on wiring, particularly residential, is you really only have one chance to get it right. It would be ideal to provide a means where wiring can be added or changed such as conduit or raceway with wiring pulled in, but that is not always possible. This technology changes almost daily, your house doesn't.

Household WIFI? Voice and data? Someone more familiar with it can fill you in.

I do know that, being in the same area, you really only have two dealers- Panasonic and Avaya. Ok, maybe there are a few others that hide in the woodwork and only come out at night...

-Hal

Are you running a separate cable from each location back to a central distribution hub?

I fear one Cat 6 cable will not meet your needs, if not immediately then in the near future.

If you have cat 6 cables going back to a central hub you could run VOIP extensions. the internet network could be transmitted through wireless access points on each floor coming back to main hub on cat6, there is handheld smart phones that will work through the wireless network but are very expensive and the system would have to work with sip phones, though most systems will do sip phones now. If you have many cat 6 points throughout the house you can run the wired phones through them.

Jim-

Does "ran CAT 6 wiring throughout" mean that you have a single Cat6 jack in 1 location in each room or multiple jacks in 1 location in each room or multiple jacks in multiple locations in each room or something else? Traditional phone service and phone systems can run on Cat6 if you are within distance limitations and you have enough jacks to keep your voice and data on different cables.

I think it is difficult for people to discuss solutions if they don't know the details of your voice/data cable installation. A rough idea of your budget would be helpful, too. The telecommunications pros on this board know a lot and are usually eager to help if you meet them half way by providing details.

-Rob

Good point. I took it to mean that it was one run to each room or jack location and intended for a computer. If there are multiple CAT6 runs to each location one could certainly be used for telephone or fax.

-Hal