1970s style telephones and operation on router

[Malcolm T]

Just about everywhere i go i hardly seem to see any real telephones anymore , have people thrown them in the skip , put them in the loft or what ?.
is it possible to connect a telephone to the back of the router and have it ringing and working as it used to?. a lot has changed in 20 odd years.

[Vintage Engr]

I do indeed 'have a loft full of them', amongst other vintage electronics.

There are plenty of old-style rotary (pulse) dialling telephones still around in the U.K. As you say though, not so many still in regular use by 'the common man'.
There are a number of possible short & long replies to your question regarding connection to a router.
Here in the U.K. there are still a number of analogue exchanges that still support pulse dialling as well as DTMF.

Not for long though, as fibre is being rolled out, & all old POTS systems will go.
The new routers have provision for plugging in a standard relatively modern DTMF phone. It is also possible to use older rotary dial phone, by using one of the various pulse to DTMF converters such as a 'Rotatone, or a 'Dialagismo' between the old telephone & the router. (other makes are available!).

For further information on this subject, here on the forum, there is the dedicated Vintage Telephony & Telcomms section.

David.

[Reelman]

Until we moved from Virgin to Vodafone we had two refurbished 706s in use. Now we just have a digital wireless phone connected to the router which supplies two remote units around the house. I really miss the conventional phone I had in the workshop but my son bought me the gizmo that should allow it’s use. Just need to sort out the wiring and fit the right connector for the device. Since there is only one phone jack on the router I will have to split it to supply the digital phone and gizmo.

Peter

[G6Tanuki]

If you have a current-generation type of broadband router, it will probably have a socket on the back to take a BT 316-type plug.

On my Vodafone router there are two, marked "Phone 1" and "Phone 2", coloured grey [the Ethernet RJ45 ports are yellow, the ADSL port is red].

If I could be bothered to, I could get Vodafone to supply a "Digital Voice" service, whereupon I could connect an old analog phone to one of the grey sockets and use it as a landline-style legacy phone.

Buit that would cost me an extra £3/month for the service, plus call-charges. And I don't have any analog phones here to plug in.

I don't know if the two grey sockets on my Vodafone router would be the same phone number, or if they could be used to have two separate numbers under the same Broadband contract.

In practice, old style analog home phones started to become an endangered species from about 2012, because a lot of ISPs were then starting to switch to the first Fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband and offering "Naked Broadband" - with no analog service on the copper pair. Most people already having mobile phones, with 'unlimited texts/minutes' included in their package, the need for analog wired phones rapidly went away. Why pay for something you don't intend to use?

Virgin Media used to supply analog-phone services alongside their cable-TV, but I suspect that they're no longer offering this if their main service is delivered to the premised by fibre. It's ages since I had anything to do with Virgin.

Old analog phones [and the DECT cordless things, and old dialup modems...] were once commonplace at car boot sales; much less so today, I guess they've all been thrown into the WEEE skip by now.

So yes, in theory you could connect an old analog phone to a modern Broadband router and then subscribe to a digital-voice contract to make it work, BUT be aware that not all routers will work reliably with old pulse-dial phones.

Digital Voice also does not play well with Fax machines [remember them?] and Calling Line ID won't usually work either.

[agardiner]

Of course the OP is posting from Spain which may be slightly different to the UK approach router wise etc.

What is consistent though, is the modern way of providing a telephone is using VOIP. BT is one of several providers in the UK that will offer VOIP, and will provide a pre-configured router with a suitable adapter socket in it to make it plug and play.

The other universal way of doing it, is to buy a VOIP adapter, which plugs into an Ethernet socket on any standard broadband router, (wi-fi options are available but not common), and allows the connection of an old type telephone to the device. Most only support DTMF, so pulse phones would also need a DTMF converter as well. You can then sign up with any VOIP provider and configure the device accordingly, usually via a web browser. Note though that these devices are often quite complicated to configure and a provider with good technical support is probably a must.

[G6Tanuki]

I hadn't picked up in the Spanish connection.

[One incidental benefit of the separate Voice-over-IP adapter thing is you can take it with you when you travel; one of my old business partners had such a device at his UK home but when he was in the process of relocating to Switzerland and shuttling back and forth a lot, he'd take his VoIP adapter with him - along with his UK phone-number (which he had ported to the VoIP thing from his long established UK landline). It caused come confusion when people in the UK would call him suggesting meeting up for a drink and he would say "Sure, come on over, but you'll need to book flights!".]

[dagskarlsen]

You may get lots of info here: http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/f...php?board=57.0
Markjosal has helped me with several things. 2 Good products Ilike is the cellphone adapter called X-Link BT and tha Nettwork adabter (ATA) Grandstream HT802 that gives me the best sound quality. It is several companies that may give you a phone number. Not sure who will give you a Spanish number, But try Callcentric or Zadarma. They let you use your own equipment and does not charge you to much.

[dave walsh]

Malcolm's interesting thread is focussed on linking "vintage" phones via the router and there are clearly a number of options. I doubt there is any point in re-installing the dial tone around the house. I was on a thread regarding the new Fibre installations recently, which I suggested might confuse any number of people. Extra wires and kit had appeared on the Telegraph Poles around us some time ago. Then Openreach spent a day or two replacing the twin pair, with fibre from posts to propertys nearby. We don't seem to be on their list just yet but that will happen fairly soon and the house system will then be totally redundant. Of course "cell" phones are now ubiquitous and many people will not see any problem at all but be carefull what you wish for-as they say! It's not so much the technology itself but the level of dependency that's it's engendered. Lots of people are genuinely distressed if their hand held "support" or the Interenet is not available. I remember a time when mobiles were mainly anticipated as just a safety measure re difficulties on motorways, or in remote places. It's usually hard to predict the future though: shrug:
Dave W

[emeritus]

When we were changed to a digital landline service a couple of months ago, I disconnected the extension wiring from our (ASDL) master socket, fitted a new BT extension socket next to the master socket and an RJ extension socket next to the BT hub, and used a BT to RJ lead to connect the RJ extension socket to the BT socket in the new BT hub. All six of our existing phones ring and work normally, apart from an old pushbutton BT phone that has pulse dialling, which can be used to pick up calls but cannot make them.

Our mobile reception indoors is very unreliable on both EE and Vodafone.

[wd40addict]

We were changed over to VoIP by Virginmedia a year ago. Fed from our superhub 3 the 746 and Gecophone continue to work fine, inc pulse dialling, alongside modern dect units.

[dave walsh]

I'm really interested in these responses [from Emeritus and WD40] but a little surprised. I'm not very "telephonic" but it seems that the self conversion and Virginmedia visits have matched the Openreach work here. So if it does support "old style phones" I may have to consider reactivating the house phone socket wiring after all! This means that Malcoms request has not only been answered but that the older phones can be in use after all [if I've got this right].

I'm wondering why they do work with VoIP now.? I was planning to feed into the system "backwoods" ie from the Master to one of the house sockets. I read a post recently were someone seemed to have done the same. Once I've got a dial tone everywhere again, it does seem that the phones won't be redundant [after VoIP is installed] according to these posts. Thanks for the information chaps.

Dave W

[VinTech90]

Late last year Virgin Media switched us over to VoIP without actually telling us, meaning we were without telephone for a few days. Fortunately my Type 332 had already been upgraded for VoIP so once the router was moved it continued working as well as it did before.

[emeritus]

I learned that it would be possible to connect the existing extension wiring and phones to the BT hub from various posts on this forum. The BT info didn't mention it, no doubt because they were more interested in selling new cordless phones & their base station.

[Station X]

Originally Posted by emeritus

The BT info didn't mention it, no doubt because they were more interested in selling new cordless phones & their base station.

Which is what most people want these days assuming they want a land line at all.

[emeritus]

Indeed: two of our old phones are cordless, a Siemens Gigaset that must be at least 15 years old and still on its original NiCd battery, and our original BT home hub phone which used to provide a second landline via the internet until BT withdrew the service. It used to default to the ordinary exchange line if the internet went down. BT said it would not work with our new home hub, but following advice from posters on this forum, it worked fine when the original home hub was plugged into an extension socket via a BT filter.

[Sean Williams]

A Grandstream ATA will help, though you need to learn how to set it up! Not a simple task....

This allows a LD type telephone to work via VOIP.

It's a lot of work, but it is possible.