Virgin Media Community

[Aquanaut]

2nd phone port is dead, how do I switch this on so that my 2nd phone system works?

[nodrogd]

If you only have one phone line from Virgin only one hub socket will work (TEL 1). The TEL 2 socket is for a second seperate line on a different number. You cannot use both TEL ports on the same line.

[JOE-C]

Ho @Aquanaut,

As @nodrogd has said you will only get 1 active port per line you have with us.

If you want use more than one phone in your home you will need to either use a set of cordless phones or contact our customer service team and request for extension sockets to be installed.

Regards Joe

[Aquanaut]

I have a cordless system in the house already, so the base unit has to be connected to the hub to work. But I now want my converted vintage phone set up in the lounge as well.

I still have a Virgin wall socket left from a previous installation, can that not be used as an extension?

[JOE-C]

It would need a cable running from the hub to one of the vm wall sockets for that to become live again. This is doable but you will need an engineer visit to complete the work. I believe the charge for this is £25.

Regards Joe 

[Aquanaut]

I may be missing something so excuse me, but BT Openreach (for Virgin) ran an overhead cable to the house and then down to the wall socket. Are you saying this is now redundant and can't be activated from the street comms box?

I wasn't made aware that this new router would stop me from having multiple connections. Previously I could just add a splitter at the wall connection!

[-tony-]

lets start again but first say not sure where openreach come into this - they are nothing to do with VM and the phone connection on the back of the hub is nothing to do with Openreach

as said only one connector on the hub is live if you only have one phone line - you plug a phone into that or the base box if its a cordless - if this is a recent install/modification the tech should have offered you a wired wall box that plugs into the hum - that way you have a standard phone box on the wall near the hub - they carry these on their van but as i understand it dont offer it unless you ask and how can you ask if you dont know they exist - catch 22 fully sorted

not sure where you can go now - looks like they want to charge you £25 for something they should have done maybe staff can resolve that or a call to retentions might - it certainly would if you are out of contract and mention 30 days notice but if you go that route only do it to a UK agent - far too difficult for offshore

once you have the wall box you can connect your existing extension circuit to it after removing any connection to Openreach

if retentions wont do what you want and you dont want to give VM £25 for something they should have done then the parts are available vie screwfix or the like

as to getting VM to connect anything i think the post above from staff is not correct - yes they will add the one connection that they should have done in the first place but afaik thats it they will not wire any extensions or connect anything to the box thats they will install

[jem101]

@Aquanaut 

As I read this thread, and I'll be the first to admit that I may well have misunderstood, your cordless phone base station is currently connected directly to the hub's telephony 1 port and is all working, but now you have another corded phone which you also want to have in the same room but don't know how to connect it? Is that right?

Once your phone is switched over to the 21CV system, ie through the hub, then all existing wall boxes become redundant and can't be reactivated, unless you had an engineer in who ran additional cables from one of these boxes to the hub's tel. port, but they tend not to do it or even offer to unless asked, and in your case it does seem as if it wasn't seen as being necessary - you had a cordless phone system, plug the base station directly into the hub, it works and all the satellite stations will work as well.

If my analysis is right, then what is needed is a splitter with two standard 'BT phone sockets' - not sure what these are actually called, telephony isn't really my area - into a single RJ11 connector which goes into the hub. What I'm not sure though is if this will work with a splitter directly plugged in to the hub. Now a VM engineer could (or as @-tony- hints above you could probably do this yourself), run a cable to connect an existing (or new) wall box to the hub - but that would take up the only working port leaving nowhere for the base station to connect to, presumably though you could plug a splitter into that and plug both phones into that.

[nodrogd]

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@Aquanaut wrote:

I may be missing something so excuse me, but BT Openreach (for Virgin) ran an overhead cable to the house and then down to the wall socket. Are you saying this is now redundant and can't be activated from the street comms box?

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If you have or had an existing wired Virgin phone socket, this connects to Virgins omni-box outside & a twin cable (coax & phone) is carried underground to Virgins cabinet. Cable companies installed their own competing phone systems long before BT was opened up to competition, so all cable telephones have seperate wiring & even seperate exchanges to BT or what is now Openreach. So your overhead BT Openreach line is nothing to do with Virgin. Virgin are now moving to 21CV which sends everything down the coax.

[Eeeps]

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@Aquanaut wrote:

I have a cordless system in the house already, so the base unit has to be connected to the hub to work. But I now want my converted vintage phone set up in the lounge as well.

I still have a Virgin wall socket left from a previous installation, can that not be used as an extension?

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The analogue telephone system is really quite simple.

Only two wires are used from the exchange (be that BT or Virgin) and this is emulated by the Hub.

So effectively all you have to do is find the Master socket, remove the existing cable that comes from the outside (BT or Virgin) and replace that connection with the two wires (A & B) from the Hub.

How 'Vintage' is the phone you want to connect? Does it have an really old bell with electromechanical clapper?

The reason I ask is that you may have a problem with REN (Ringer Equivalence Number).

The Hub has to generate a voltage to make the phones ring. This is normally a 75V AC signal that drives the bell directly.
The old style bell required much more power than the newer ringers or the modern handsets.
It maybe that the Hub does not have enough power to drive that type of mechanical bell.

(If you want to know why internal telephone wiring uses three wires when only two come in from outside I can explain that - it's all to do with rotary dials!)