Alarm and phone wiring

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Alarm and phone wiring

linw

2849 posts

Uber Geek

#108349 28-Aug-2012 22:43

I am about to hook my phone cabling to a Genius modem (UFB connection) so thought I had better study what was in my master filer/master phone socket housing. It was not as I expected and it took a few minutes to figure out what the story was.

I have a house alarm that has never been monitored but it has been wired into the phone to allow the alarm to grab the line. This is a new discovery!

I intend cutting all four (two down/two back) alarm wires and also the POTS wires and remove the filter. This will just leave the two wires daisy chained to my three phone sockets which I will plug into the Genius.

Anyone see any problems with this?

grant_k

3539 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#678485 28-Aug-2012 22:58

linw: I am about to hook my phone cabling to a Genius modem (UFB connection) so thought I had better study what was in my master filer/master phone socket housing. It was not as I expected and it took a few minutes to figure out what the story was.

I have a house alarm that has never been monitored but it has been wired into the phone to allow the alarm to grab the line. This is a new discovery!

That is pretty standard for alarms with any kind of dialler. It allows the alarm to dial out, even when somebody has left a phone off the hook.

linw: I intend cutting all four (two down/two back) alarm wires and also the POTS wires and remove the filter. This will just leave the two wires daisy chained to my three phone sockets which I will plug into the Genius.

Anyone see any problems with this?

If you aren't going to have a POTS phone any more, that sounds fair enough, except for this part:

"This will just leave the two wires daisy chained to my three phone sockets..."

It would be better if the incoming phone line goes to ONE socket only. Otherwise you could end up with unterminated "stubs" hanging off the incoming line, which can cause reflections and lower the attainable speeds. It is better if the line goes directly to the socket where the Genius is plugged in and NOWHERE else.

Zeon

3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#678511 28-Aug-2012 23:38

Nope sounds good. May sh!ttily wired alarms DIAF

Speedtest 2019-10-14

Zeon

3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#678512 28-Aug-2012 23:39

grant_k:
linw: I am about to hook my phone cabling to a Genius modem (UFB connection) so thought I had better study what was in my master filer/master phone socket housing. It was not as I expected and it took a few minutes to figure out what the story was.

I have a house alarm that has never been monitored but it has been wired into the phone to allow the alarm to grab the line. This is a new discovery!

That is pretty standard for alarms with any kind of dialler. It allows the alarm to dial out, even when somebody has left a phone off the hook.

linw: I intend cutting all four (two down/two back) alarm wires and also the POTS wires and remove the filter. This will just leave the two wires daisy chained to my three phone sockets which I will plug into the Genius.

Anyone see any problems with this?

If you aren't going to have a POTS phone any more, that sounds fair enough, except for this part:

"This will just leave the two wires daisy chained to my three phone sockets..."

It would be better if the incoming phone line goes to ONE socket only. Otherwise you could end up with unterminated "stubs" hanging off the incoming line, which can cause reflections and lower the attainable speeds. It is better if the line goes directly to the socket where the Genius is plugged in and NOWHERE else.

Think you missed the UFB part ;p

Speedtest 2019-10-14

webwat

2036 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#678514 28-Aug-2012 23:43

sounds fine since you aren't using phone lines for DSL anymore, and you don't want the line connected to Telecom since it should now be connected to your UFB phone service. But when you snip the wires, just insulate the ends so you dont short the internal wires.

Time to find a new industry!

grant_k

3539 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#678515 28-Aug-2012 23:43

Zeon: Think you missed the UFB part ;p

Yes, you're right. I missed it completely. Oooops ... in which case disregard most of the above.

gregmcc

2147 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#678540 29-Aug-2012 05:41

You may also find that removing the phone line from the alarm may cause a fault indicator on the alarm as some alarms activitly check for the phone line

linw

2849 posts

Uber Geek

#678591 29-Aug-2012 09:16

Thanks very much, everyone, for your helpful replies.

I'll contact my alarm installer to see whether the disconnection will trigger a response from the alarm. Just hope it doesn't go into full-on ear splitting alarm mode!!

Currently in limbo ATM. UFB install done yesterday but cutover to Orcon hasn't happened yet (no 'Internet' light on on Genius). Old ADSL and phone from Telecom still working but I don't know for how long!

Cheers.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

grant_k

3539 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#678664 29-Aug-2012 11:11

linw: I'll contact my alarm installer to see whether the disconnection will trigger a response from the alarm. Just hope it doesn't go into full-on ear splitting alarm mode!!

The alarm panels I've played with that had diallers generally displayed a "24 hour" alarm on the keypad when the phone line was not present, along with the occasional beep, but certainly didn't sound any sirens at all. There was also a setup option to disable phone line monitoring.

Depending on what type of dialler you have, there is a possibility it could be made to work with the Genius. My alarm had a simple dialler which called any number(s) programmed into it, then played a siren sound over the phone, and then had a brief quiet period where it waited for DTMF tones. That type of dialler should work OK with the Genius, but if you have a full-on monitoring type of dialler, it probably wouldn't.

Zeon

3916 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#678684 29-Aug-2012 12:23

linw: Thanks very much, everyone, for your helpful replies.

I'll contact my alarm installer to see whether the disconnection will trigger a response from the alarm. Just hope it doesn't go into full-on ear splitting alarm mode!!

Currently in limbo ATM. UFB install done yesterday but cutover to Orcon hasn't happened yet (no 'Internet' light on on Genius). Old ADSL and phone from Telecom still working but I don't know for how long!

Cheers.

If you talk to AlarmNZ they offer an IP monitoring service which can go directly over broadband.

Speedtest 2019-10-14

linw

2849 posts

Uber Geek

#678908 29-Aug-2012 19:13

I have never had alarm monitoring so I am not going to start now.

I have removed the alarm pairs and nothing hppened! It will have monitoring disabled.

So, just waiting for the cutover to work and I'll snip off the POTS and filter.

Cheers.

Ramjet007

319 posts

Ultimate Geek

#679065 30-Aug-2012 06:14

If you disconnect the phone line from the alarm (and the alarm as set to look for the line) you may get the key pad giving you a warning beep every few mins, but it shouldnt trigger the alram. (The beeping is a pain). You will need to get an alarm co to reprogram the alarm so it wornt beep.

I got mine changed to what they called raidonet, which is a unit that sends signals via 3G.

linw

2849 posts

Uber Geek

#679089 30-Aug-2012 08:21

No, mine wasn't enabled so no beeps etc. All good.

Now, back to Orcon to battle the UFB no-connection problem!

linw

2849 posts

Uber Geek

#679501 30-Aug-2012 22:29

Well, this afternoon all the lights on the Genius modem lit up! Yea.

Orcon pushed the problem back to Chorus who re-did the ONT setup and that allowed the modem to connect. Must have been a bad ONT setting somewhere.

Hooked up the internal phone wiring and that works fine, now. But I made a boo boo by only disconnecting one of the master filter wires as a test and that gave me a mains buzz on the phone. Disconnecting the other one sorted that.

All good except we have a new ph no. for a few days till our old Telecom one gets ported over.

Nearly there at last.

Getting 27/9 Mbps so I am pleased with that. Many web page loads seem snappier and using cloud storage is a whole lot more attractive.