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2 Messages

Thursday, December 3rd, 2020 2:56 AM

Routing AT&T Digital Voice through Ethernet LAN

I have subscribed to AT&T Digital Voice in order to have a business line in my office.   I was planning/hoping to be able to route voice throughout the house (in particular, my office) and connect it to a Polycom desktop (IP) phone I already own.   

Unfortunately, the situation with my gateway, my VoIP phone, where they are located in relation to each other (i.e., not in the same room) and the phone/ethernet jacks they use vs the jacks that are near them is complicating my setup.   Without going into nauseating detail, my question is simply whether this setup will work (i.e. transmit voice over the LAN to my phone)

Gateway (RJ11) ===> in-wall Ethernet port (RJ45) ===> in-wall Ethernet Port (RJ45) ===> Polycom phone (RJ45)

I could configure the line between the gateway either as a standard phone line (I know RJ11s fit and work in RJ45 jacks) or I could be a little smarter/safer about it and run a RJ11-RJ45 adapter.   

Any other (better) approaches greatly appreciated.

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Expert

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18.3K Messages

3 years ago

No.  The rj11 jack connects to an internal ATA it is not an Ethernet port.  You could do as you describe and put a standard phone on it as only the center pins are used for the analog port no matter what jack you use.  The regular phone cord will be loose in the 8pin jack so you can get a RJ45 to RJ11 adapter, or be careful around the cords.  Your Polycom is a true IP phone and you'd have to use a VoIP provider to get SIP trunk(s) gets expensive in a hurry. 

 

EDIT:  I see you already are aware of the adapters and using a standard phone.  That's the way to go. 

(edited)

New Member

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2 Messages

3 years ago

Thanks, Spoom2.

Based on your reply, I missed a very basic fact -- AT&T Digital Voice isn't VoIP.   Ugh.   (They are sly by being very ambiguous about that)

If there was a decent desktop phone these days that wasn't VoIP, I'd go with that.   If I go with a regular POTS/PSTN phone, I'll dump digital voice and just go landline.  

Anyway,  back to the drawing board.   Thanks for the response.

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