Telephone over wireless Ethernet Bridge

I am trying to do something that everyone I talk with says can be done in theory, but nobody has actually done it. Perhaps someone here can help.

I am trying to connect a corded telephone to a telephone jack via two wireless bridges (Linksys WET54G v.3 to be exact). Linksys tells me that it can be done, however won't go into details because that's not what the unit was designed for. I've been warned about the higher voltage surges from the telephone's ring, but am not concerned, as this line never rings.

Here's what I have tried: I took 2 standard rj11 cables and replaced one end with an rj45, matching the wires to the two center slots on each of them. All wires are parallel - none are crossed, although I don't think that would matter with the telephone connection. One cable has the rj11 in the phone jack and the rj45 in the wireless bridge. The other cable has the rj45 in another wireless bridge and the rj11 in the desk-top telephone.

Both bridges are set to ad-hoc mode with the same SSID number (per Linksys ad-hoc directions) and different static IP addresses and are using channel 11 with no security. In this configuration, the lights indicate they are seeing each other, but the telephone has no connection.

I tried enabling MAC address cloning (I saw that this was an issue with Xboxes and not knowing anything about how they work, thought I'd at least try it) but the lights on the bridges then indicated that they could not see each other.

Just for kicks, I also tried moving the telephone wires to the outside slots on the rj45 with the same results.

Can anyone give me some insight or help with this? The world won't end if I can't figure it out, but now it's just one of those things that is gonna bug the heck out of me until I can get it right! Thanks in advance!

Reply to
tis
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The only way that will work is if it's a VIOP phone and the "telephone jack" is Ethernet, right?

If it's a "normal" "corded phone" and "telephone jack", then you're so far off base...

Huh? There is no ring voltage on VOIP. If you're talking POTS lines, you may have already blown up one of the bridges. I don't think Ethernet PHYs are spec'ed to withstand 24V.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

Allow me to disagree with "everybody" and tell you to forget it. If you were using a VoIP phone that was supposed to plug into an Ethernet, it would be easy to make it work. If you're using a regular old phone, it's about as likely to work by plugging it into a WiFi bridge as by plugging it into a water faucet.

Fortunately, the technology to do a wireless POTS extender is widely available. It's called a "cordless phone" and it's about $29.95 at your local K-Mart.

R's, John

Reply to
John L

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