Hardware switch one single-line phone <---> two lines

Can't you just move the plug from one socket to the other?

If you buy a DPDT switch at Radio Shack and wire it yourself, it should cost $2 or so.

miguel

In order to make it easier to switch directly to POTS in case of a pbx failure, I need a hardware switch to connect one phone to two different sockets. Anyone have any experience with thiese?

thx

Since you are wanting to switch between a PBX line and a POTS, I assume the PBX line is analog also. Why not just use a readily available

2-line analog phone? If the PBX goes out, press line 2...

Since you are making the switch accessable to the person using the phone, there's really no difference, and you save having a gadget taking up desk space.

-- Roger Elmore UTM Telecommunications

Yes I can, but the person who is alone in the office may not be able to.

Perfect, thanks. It happens that I didn't look there because we don't have any RS in Europe, but now that I know they have these, I'll check into it next time I'm somewhere where there is a store.

Couldn't agree more. To someone who is even the least bit technically orientated it can be mind-boggling to try to understand how an ordinarily otherwise intelligent human being can be *SO UTTERLY HELPLESS* when it comes to even the most simple of "technical" tasks, like plugging in the phone.

Correct again. Unless the PBX had developed a history of routine failures such that the user had, through multiple prior experiences become accustomed to switching over, this plan wouldn't work.

One of the great disasters of the voice cabling infrastructure in our office was the ill-fated decision by someone back in the late 1990s to install ***TWO*** voice jacks in a common faceplace at every (3000+) workstation. The idea at the time was to have every faceplace "equipped for" the chance possibility of the user wanting a modem line, even though fewer than 10% of the employees ever had one.

Gauwd-d-d-d-d-d-d almighty, I cannot begin to tell you the number of service calls that has spawned. Having some technical skills, I also do not understand why someone would unplug their phone and then not be able to get it back into the same jack as before, but Jesus Mary and Joseph, it happens over and over, at least once a week. Further confusing the technical mind is why, if one jack doesn't work the mental midgets don't think to try the other one.

You have to understand, the users are the same folks who today, even if their life depended on it, would have no earthly clue how to use their computer if someone stole their mouse.

That's out of line.

The likely place a set of telco plugs would need to exist is in the wiring closet. This is a place most normal people are "not supposed to go". Asking them to wander in there and make sense of rats nest of wires is unrealistic. Granted, this could be wired up such that it was in an easier-to-access location with user-friendly labels attached but it's still be something most normal people would have trouble handling properly. So while you may feel a certain sense of superiority about it most of the regular people doing the work don't, and shouldn't, care about it. Besides it's them doing their jobs that justifies all this infrastructure being there in the first place. Without them, well, admins aren't very necessary....

Damned if do, damned if you don't. One trick that helps avoid trouble is to use color-coded sockets. That and LABELLING the faceplaces. Users are always going to screw things up. You can only hope to mitigate the frequency of their screwups and the amount of blame they'll try to put on you.

Which has nothing to do with telco wiring.

Mitel Lurker wrote: ....

The user has the mental model that the two jacks are the same sort-of-thing as the two AC power jacks: he/she thinks that they are parallel or the same thing. You have to lable the jacks.

Try to put yopurself in the position of the user, not the maintainer.

Because no one is asking me to replace a phone they like. If they *had* a two-line phone, it would be able to use the two lines, since 99% of the time the pbx is up. (For the last year, 100% actually, except for a power failure.)

Making it easier for a person to accomplish things is not necessarily facilitated by forcing a new phone on them. It was hard enough getting them to like the pbx! The switch can be on the floor or under the desk.

The point of the switch is simple: if the phone goes dead, try hitting the switch. The existing phone also has a callerid box on it, which is why changing the cable from one to the other is overly complicated. I had to go back to the office once to do it myself.

Yeah, I should know better. I've chased more than a couple of trouble calls for people who have their two-line's "conference" button pressed in and didn't realize it. They call someone, get them *and* their voicemail since it's set to forward busy...

3000+ extensions on my campus also. Around half are students. The dorms were wired for telephone (either wallplates or c-blocks) long before contractors put in CATV and ethernet in a common surface mount Panduit box. Every semester when the kids move in they find the CATV, then plug their phone into the data jack, and call the Help Desk on their cell complaining of no dial tone. What gets me is that while the tech has them on the line, why not talk them through finding the jack, rather than logging a work order to me. Now I have to go to the dorm and plug their phone in for them since I can't talk to them...

CATV is another good one. When they unplug their TV from home it reverts back to antenna in the setup. They plug into the campus cable and call complaining they only get the first 13 channels so there

*must* be something wrong with the cable...

We used panduit as well (minicom) and had the opportunity (and even recommended) that we use different colored jacks to designate the various services (voice/modem/Lan/DSL) with color-coordinated matching pigtail cables but the all-knowing architect felt that it wasn't aesthetically correct, so everything is standard EI. So much for trying to idiot-proof the infrastructure.

Something else that *REALLY* grindles me... When we were pulling in the horizontal distribution it was made clear to everyone that voice & data cables had to be fully supported and could *NOT* lay on the ceiling grid or lighting fixtures. Then some low-bidder comes in behind us to put in the fire detection and security system and guess where their cables are? Pretty obvious too they've never had to deal with a splined ceiling grid system before either. (That part was almost comical)

We were using Panduit prior to this, but this was the early Cat5 days and ModCom. Back then all Cat5 jacks were orange around the insert so you had a chance to tell folks to look for the orange jack for data and white for phone (Cat3 8X8s were white too, though). The dorms were wired with the early jacks that had the same config as a "normal" 568B plug. Then Panduit came out with the config that reversed everything but 3&6. With the old jack obsolete, you couldn't use the existing cap on a new jack if the student had screwed the contact fingers up (how they did that I don't know...). Panduit kept the orange insert portion for a while on the MiniCom 8X8 flat cap and the GigaJack that takes the hinged tool to terminate. The last few rounds of GigaJacks I've got in have all been white on the inside like the 6X6 flat cap MiniComs. My guess is they weren't selling enough purple jacks.

Seems the Fire Marshall would have caught that and had them repull.

Speaking of security, the access control contracters came in after the data/CATV was installed in the dorms, took over a third of the backboards when we weren't looking, used our vertical conduits, and then had the audacity to tell the head of Housing that the data cables were causing interference and making their system flakey. Of course our response was "we were here first, move *your* stuff". I guess it wasn't *that* bad, they never moved anything...

Snap snap, grin grin, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more...

That's one thing about a splined ceiling. Once closed up NOBODY ever wants to re-open it ;-)

Great post, "Mitel", not just because you agree, either :)

Unfortunately true. And I'm married to the user I'm "supporting" !

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and here

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