My 9 year old found an old bell model 554 rotary phone in my shop and insists I hook it up. Will it still work with the new phone lines we now have? What wires do I hook where from my house jack to make it work.

Thanks, Richard

What colors are the wires coing off the phone? It will likely work but most likely will not be able to dial out

This sticky has the wiring colors: https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/landli...ed-484740.html

Rotary and Tone should work on lines to a central office.

VOIP services may have issues.

If this is 4 prong, you can buy 4 prong to modular adapters.

See http://www.porticus.org/bell/pdf/502-521-410.pdf or http://www.porticus.org/bell/pdf/c38.599.1.pdf for a schematic and info. Unless you have DSL, inside telephone connectivity and wiring has changed very little in the last 50 years.

DSL won't affect them.

The REN or Ringer Equlivelence Number should be 1 or so. Not so for modern phones.

Rotary vs Pulse dial support on a line. VOIP won't support pulse.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ballengerb1

What colors are the wires coing off the phone? It will likely work but most likely will not be able to dial out

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The phone doesn't have any wires coming out, it looks like it needs to be hardwired. It has some module with a dozen screw terminals with various wires connected, I'm sure that's where I need to connect my wires but don't know which screw terminals to connect to - screws are marked GN, B, R, RR, F, K, A, L1, L2,G.

R = red
G = GREEN

jumpers probably OK unless used on party line.

Rotary phone calls out, good dial tone but does not ring when called. What do I do?

VOIP, Comcast Triple Play or some such nonsense?

I assume it once worked. What changed?
What is the REN (Ringer equlivelence numbers) added together of all the phone devices? Take a standard rotary phone to be 1. > 2.5 to 3 things get iffy with VOIP. <5 is common for a land line.

Check to see what happens when the phone plugged directly into the NID (Network Interface Device) on the house. When it is called.

Issues can be:
1) The phone itself
2) Wiring past the NID
3) Wiring before the NID

A standard phone should not be polarity sensitive. A standard rotary phone will be polarity sensitive for the generation of touch tones.