Phone extension cable not working

[asif_hop]

Recently our virgin phone stopped working. The engineer said the copper line coming into the house had perished and he would have to connect our phone directly from our Super Hub. 

As the landline phone is in another bedroom, he connected the filter to the super hub and I told him I’d sort an extension lead out later. 

The problem I have now is when I connect the wired landline phone direct into the filter, it works fine. 

When I add an extension cable in between the phone and the super hub, it simply doesn’t work. I just get silence. I’ve bought two brand new extension cables now (Rj11 to Bt Plug) and neither work. I’m assuming I must be getting the wrong cable? Which cable do I need? I need it to be 25m. 

The 2 I bought so far:

I bought this first with RJ11 on both ends thinking I could do it without using the filter:

Alida Systems ® 20m ADSL Cable -... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007OUBRZ6?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

The above didn’t work so then I bought this one to go via the filter:

PC Supplies Limited PCSL® BT Plug... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MSA7NTJ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Neither have worked so far. What am I doing wrong? 

[goslow]

Some suggestions to try ...

You mention a 'filter' into the back of the hub. This should be just a simple adapter as per bottom LHS picture linked below to convert the RJ11 socket on the hub to a BT socket

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/home-phone-line-faults

as opposed to anything like and ADSL-type filter with electronic components in it.

If you have a look into the TEL1 socket on the back of the VM hub, you should see that there are only 2 pins present and they are the middle two (pins 3 and 4 from the possible 6 positions available for the RJ11).

Also have a look into the casing of the phone where you are trying to connect the other end of the cable. For a new phone, it should probably be the same arrangement (centre two pins 3 and 4). Older phones may use 4 pins.

If you have the 2-pin arrangement above, then the first cable you have linked/bought should have the centre two pins on each end linked through to each other. From the Amazon picture it looks like white and brown cables should connect through.

Your second cable also looks correct but shows only a two wire arrangement.

The difference between 2 and 4 wire should not be important for a modern phone and most common makes. Some makes (such as B&O do seem to have their own unique cable arrangements for power and signal)

If the above checks out, the next thing to look at would be the metal contact pins and see if you can determine how well they are making a connection. Phone cables and adapters are generally cheap, generic parts and manufacturing quality can be poor (such as poor quality plastic mouldings etc. not allowing pins to make good contact).

Another possibility might be the distance of your lead. 20m should not be a problem but it is quite long. See if you can use a different phone on the end of the extension leads you have bought to check whether it is a particular issue with your phone being used on such a long length of cable.

The phone connection from the hub can be wired into extension sockets and leads but really the simplest option is to use a cordless phone arrangement with the base station plugged into the hub and a cordless extensions used elsewhere as required.

[davet1954]

Hello,

I fitted the new hub and only my main phone would work with the system. My BT cordless phone system would not work.

I phoned the helpline and spoke to 6 different people. 3 in India, 1 in UK with a Scotts accent, and one in the Philippines. Rach time I was passed from one to another I had to go through all the security settings. None of them could understand the problem I was facing or offer any advice. One in India advised me to by wifi phones, not cheap.

So I tried the forum which has taken 5 days for me to be accepted.

So being an engineer I thought it is a go it alone situation.

First I purchased two wireless phones from B&Q. Not being sure if they would work I went with the cheapest gigaset from Germany, and also wanting to avoid BT. When first plugging in the did not work but after pushing some system button in setup they started working.

I have since then taken the cable from the hub 3 and fed this into a wall socket using the blue and white/blue wires on terminals 2 and 5. Plugging the phone into this was a success.

I then looked at the original phone cables around the house which is quite large. I disconnected the line in from BT so the house cabling was now independent and plugged this into the newly fitted socket. Success I can now plug and use the phones on any of the 3 points in my house.

On ebay I purchased a 3 way splitter that I plugged into my wall socket. Then I plugged back the wireless gigaset phone system and checked this was still working.

Finally I connected my original standard phone into one of the 3 sockets and this also worked.

So now I have one standard phone in my office. The main wireless phone in the hallway and the repeater wireless in the bedroom. All working with no help from Virgin. But as the saying goes for the folk manning the phone lines,"pay peanuts and you get -------".

Given time I will again check my BT wirless phones and see if there is some setting to get them working as in the gigaset phones. Sorry can't remember whet I pushed on the gigaset but it can't be difficult to find.

I hope this helps someone as I see many complaints on this issue.

[goslow]

Depending on the age of your BT phones, check if they have a 'Pulse/Tone dialling' switch or menu option somewhere. AFAIK either would work on a conventional BT line but for the VM connection it should be 'tone dialling'.

[David_Bn]

Good Morning @asif_hop, thanks for your post

Do you have any updates for us?

Has the very helpful advice from @goslow allowed you to find the suitable resolution?

Kindest regards,

David_Bn

[asif_hop]

thanks for the responses guys!

I managed to sort it in the end. I bought a new cordless phone. It basically came down to the pins on the cable needing to match the pins on the phone. The original phone wasn’t suitable. I ended up using the long RJ11 cable which has 4 pins and matched up to the centre pins on the new phone. 

[David_Bn]

Thanks for the update @asif_hop and we're pleased to see this has been resolved!

Happy New Year to you and your family

David_Bn