BT Digital Voice: UPS and Other Questions

[Bob1001]

@Paul608085  No need to solder just twist the wires  together, not one wire wrapped round the other, that will give a sound joint that will last. Underground cables were joined like that  and some joints and their paper sleeves were almost 100 years old.

If you don't mind it being a bit untidy just unplug the customer end of the master socket and leave it unplugged with the phone to phone cable being plugged between this and the smarthub.

[Paul608085]

@Bob1001

"No need to solder just twist the wires together, not one wire wrapped round the other, that will give a sound joint that will last. Underground cables were joined like that and some joints and their paper sleeves were almost 100 years old."

That was OK for joining two single cored cables, but my internal cabling is single core and the cable with the BT431A plug that I have bought is stranded. I don't think twisting will work quite so well will it?

[Bob1001]

@Paul608085  No you are right, soldering is the only real solution unless you want to leave the customer side unplugged.

[colinbray1956]

I have a BT DECT cordless base system and it was hardwired from the main box by way of old multi adapters with an extension cable into another part of the house. All I have done is take the extension cable out of the main line and plug into the back of the Smart hub as instructed and it is business as usual with no changes to the wiring system at all. It didnt work when it was connected directly into the line . I have two cordless phones that link to the base station

[gg30340]

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@Paul608085 wrote:

My preference is keep the DECT handsets paired with their existing base station phone. I'm going to pop out soon to get a telephone extension cable to link my existing extension wiring to the SH2 - I'll cut off the socket on the cable and hopefully by able to solder the wires together, (some wires don't take solder very well), otherwise it will have to be terminal block.

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If you are going to get a telephone extension cable there is no need to cut off any ends.

Plug one end into the Smarthub's phone port and plug your Dect base station into the other end. Your Dect phone and the cordless phones that are paired with it will work in exactly the same way as they do now.

[Bob1001]

@gg30340  @Paul608085  I tried that but the hub did not like the 50v being connected to the telephone socket, the Openreach side still seems to work giving dial tone etc and you can dial you just get a recording, number unavailable.

[gg30340]

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@Bob1001 wrote:

@gg30340  @Paul608085  I tried that but the hub did not like the 50v being connected to the telephone socket, the Openreach side still seems to work giving dial tone etc and you can dial you just get a recording, number unavailable.

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What I have suggested is how I have my Dect base station connected and it and the "extension" phones work in exactly the same way as they did before. It took less than a minute to unplug the base station from the BT phone wall socket and then plug it into the Smarthub and I never had to cut/solder any cables or pair the extensions... everything just worked as is should.

The "old" telephone extension sockets that were dotted about my house were redundant and I have in fact removed them.

Now the only BT telephone socket is the master socket and that is what the Smarthub plugs into as I have FTTC.

[Bob1001]

@gg30340  I think we may be saying the same thing, if you leave the customer side of the master socket unplugged and use the cable from that to the hub it works fine but if there is still a 50V supply connected to the Openreach side then this can give problems if you plug the customer side back in.

[gg30340]

See the BT help pages which explains what to do when your phone is changed over to Digital Voice

Digital Voice: How do I set up my service? | BT Help

Moving to Digital Voice | BT Help

[gg30340]

You do not plug the Dect phone base station into anything other than the Smarthub.

The only thing that is plugged into the Master Socket is the Smarthub if you are on FTTC.

The only time you would connect to the "old" telephone sockets would be if you do not have a compatible phone and if that is the case you can use a free adaptor supplied by BT to do that. 

As per the above link

"If you have a number of normal phones (i.e., not Digital Voice phones) you'll need to use adapters. You can order one adapter for free from bt.com/DVequipment, or TEXT the word ADAPTER to 61998".

If you get one of the free DV Phones from BT that can be placed anywhere and connected to the hub via the WPS button as it does not need to be plugged into a phone socket.