[gbnl]

Hi Friends,

So I live in one of those areas of America where we can't get broadband or dsl, so I have two telephone lines in my house... one for dialup and the other for the regular telephone. The line I use for dialup gets a connection speed of 26.4 kbps, but the line I use for my regular telephone gets a dialup connection speed of 56 kbps.

I called the telephone company and they said that there was nothing they could do because as long as the phone was working, they were not responsible for dialup connection speed.

Then I asked them if they could reverse the two lines so that the line with the faster connection speed could be on the line I use for dialup and the line I use for the telephone could have the slower dialup speed. They said yes... but they wouldn't tell me how to do it.

All they told me was that it was possible for me to do it and that it had to do with the grey box outside the house and that I could also call an electrician to do it.

If someone could tell me how to make this change, I sure would appreciate it.

Many thanks
Noah

[labman]

Usually you have a 4 wire cable for 2 lines. The first line is red and green, and the second black and yellow. All you need to do is switch them. Trouble is, I don't know if the yellow replaces the green or red. If you have 2 pairs of red/green outside, just swap them. If you have one 4 wire cable going in, follow it and see if you can find a box where the yellow/black switches to red/green, and make the swap there.

Fortunately I have cable internet available, and went Vonage, and told my phone company where to put their poles.

[NorCal68]

Hi, Labman is on the right track. I've been doing custom phone and computer wiring for years and will give you a complete (and easy) answer Friday afternoon - I'm heading out of town for a quick business meeting in just a bit. I'll write as soon as I get back.
Dave

[gbnl]

Hi Dave and Labman...
Sure do appreciate your help. Dave... looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Many thanks
Noah

[NorCal68]

Hi again, it's late and I just got back. Running a few hours behind today.. tomorrow (Saturday) morning I will be here and we'll get this wiring thing taken care of.
Dave

[labman]

We could use somebody with some telephone experience here. When I first came here, I was doing my best in a number of areas, but like this question, not quite able to give the complete answer needed. Fortunately we have added a number of good people, and many questions get better answers than I could give. I have no problem with leaving questions to those that can give better answers.

[NorCal68]

Hi, sorry about the delay!
Here we go:
A standard phone plug / connector has four conductors (or brass-colored 'fingers'). The center two of these (which could be called 'Pins 2 & 3') are Line 1 on your system. 'Pins 1 & 4' are Line 2. Some phone wires only have Pins 2 & 3 connected - if you look through the clear plastic plug you can see this.
Radio Shack has a great little device for checking phone line 'polarity' - that is, if every wire is connected to where it's supposed to be. I really suggest getting one of these things along with an 'in-line coupler'. They're relatively cheap and can really help with this type of problem...
RS Telephone Line Tester part no. 43-2225
RS In-Line Coupler part no. 279-358 (or other # for different colors)

The first step would be to open the grey interface box that's outside your house. You'll see four terminals that correspond to the same four 'Pins' that are inside the boxes or wall plates that your home phones connect to. There are several styles of interface boxes, but the basic concept is all the same. Write down & make a drawing of the Entire wiring scheme - I've seen so many different colored wires in these things!
At this point we need to figure out if all the various phone connections in your house are wired directly to this outside box (these are called "homeruns" - one wire straight from the box to the wall connection) OR is there one or two homeruns and then additional wall connections 'looped' from one to the next one ("daisychain" wiring)... much like the AC wiring in a house.
Now you have a choice - if you have the RS polarity checker w/coupler, you can start to figure out which wall connections have the better computer-connection. Un-screw the wall connection plate so you can actually see the color of the wires and how they're connected. With the polarity checker plugged in, disconnect one of the wires and you'll see what is Line 1 vs. Line 2... like we talked about above.

It may be as simple as reversing the wires at the Interface Box - The 'pair' that is now on Line 1 terminals are moved to the Line 2 terminals and so on.

Now, we can go even further with this and have a 'custom' configuration at each wall jack if you want to - wherein you can reverse the connections inside the wall. That's for a later date.
Let me know how you're doing and we'll continue from here!
Dave

[NorCal68]

ONE MORE THING! Sorry, I have lots going on today... Do you have separate phone numbers on each of these lines?? We need this answer before doing anything!!

If Line 1 has both the home phone number ringing in AND the better internet speed... well if you just switch the pairs of wires then you will now be sending all your phone calls onto the Line 2 wire. And unless you're using a 2-Line Telephone you will never hear the phone ring. Right?
Now if this is the case, you'll need to do two things: 1) Let everyone know the new phone number to reach you; and, 2) you'll need to do a little custom re-wiring of the jack that supplies the phone connection to the computer. You'll also need to make a change to the jacks that any telephones are plugged into. Let me know and I'll explain this part further. BTW, it's really easy and should take less then 5 minutes to make it all work.

Also, going all the way back to your initial question: I've never heard of two different dial-up speeds coming into one household. What phone company are you with?

[NorCal68]

Let me know if you're making progress on this issue... I'd be really interested in hearing about the two different speed situations.
Dave

[Stratmando]

Reversing wires outside will reverse the numbers. If the speed happens to be on the number that everyone knows, and you don't want to have to tell everyone your New
Number. And if you have call forwarding. Forward your fast line to the slow line.
You can still receive calls, and your computer can be on "Fast Line"

Before I had DSL, I would forward my home phone to my cell phone. I would
Not lose calls, and still go online.

Red and green, line one, yellow and black, line 2 Red and Yellows are Negative,
Green and black are positive.
Sounds like he has Bell South.