How to Wire Your Home for VoIP Telephone Service in 15 Minutes or Less

Today more homes are switching to VoIP telephone services, saying goodbye to the local, landline telephone service providers forever. It's the smart thing to do. Unlimited local and long distance domestic calling for one low monthly fee, voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, all the options that your current telephone service provider charges you extra for are included with your VoIP package. Most of the VoIP service providers today offer an enhanced 911 service that makes it easy for emergency services to find your home in times of an emergency. The only perquisite for using one of these services is that you have a high-speed broadband connection to the Internet in place. According to a recent Kansas State study 84% of All Television Homes Receive Cable Programming--about 92 million subscribers. Eighty-four percent of American homes are ready to switch to VoIP telephone services.

When you sign up for VoIP telephone services you will receive a special telephone modem that connects between your broadband cable modem and your computer. Plug any regular telephone, corded or cordless into the modem and you're ready to make and receive telephone calls but if you want to connect all the telephones in your home to the VoIP modem there are a few things that you need to do first. Some VoIP service providers will provide you with systematically directions on how to prepare your home telephone system for total access while others don't. No matter. Whatever VoIP adapter you use the set up procedure is the same simple procedure.

Isolate your interior telephone wiring from the Telcom wiring. Isolating your telephone wiring from the Telephone Company's wiring is the first step in the conversion procedure. This is also the most important step because any voltage on the telephone line can seriously damage the VoIP Adapter, or, even more serious, cause a fire in your home. Follow these steps to isolate the wiring.

1. Locate the telephone company's Network Interface Device (NID) Box. This box is usually located on the outside of your home near the electric company's power meter. If you live in an apartment, the NID may be located in the basement or electrical equipment room and you may need to contact your property owner to get access to it.

2. Open the customer access side of the NID. Inside you will see one or more sets of screw terminals color-coded Red, Green, Yellow, and Black. If you currently have one telephone line serving your dwelling, it's the Red-Green pair that you will be interested in. the Red-Green pair is for line 1. The Yellow-Black pair serves Line 2 if you have two lines. Disconnect or cut the Red-Green pair. Some newer NIDs have an interface cable with a modular plug that connects the Telcom side of the NID to the customer's side and simply unplugging the modular plug will isolate the wiring. It's wise to still cut or disconnect the wires at the terminal to prevent someone from accidentally reconnecting your wiring.

3. Confirm that you have isolated the wiring by checking for a dial tone on the line or by plugging a telephone line checker into the modular wall jacks.

Connecting the VoIP telephone adapter/modem. Follow the VoIP supplier's instructions for connecting the telephone adapter between your cable modem and your computer. Then, instead of plugging your telephone directly into the telephone adapter, plug the adapter into the nearest modular wall jack using a 2 to 1 line splitter. This will back feed the VoIP signal to all the other modular wall jacks in your house allowing full VoIP access to any telephone plugged into them. If you want a telephone at the adapter location, plug it into the second jack on the 2 to 1 splitter.

Like with any telephone system, there's a limit to the number of telephones that you can connect to it before the signal deteriorates. Usually you won't have a problem until you exceed six or more telephones. The good news is that with a VoIP service you can buy signal boosters that you can simply plug in between the telephone and it wall jack to boost the signal level if it becomes necessary to install more telephones on the same system.