From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Mon, 1/19/2026 9:05 PM, micky wrote:   
   > In alt.comp.os.windows-11, on Mon, 19 Jan 2026 19:48:10 -0600, Char   
   > Jackson  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On Mon, 19 Jan 2026 18:03:39 -0500, micky    
   >> wrote:   
   >>   
   >>> Currently my brother is getting old, walks with a walker, has lost his   
   >>> cell phone twice, doesn't have or want a new one, has no home phone but   
   >>> does have internet, his wife has a cell phone but she goes out without   
   >>> him sometimes and he's home, often with a maid/caretaker, but sometimes   
   >>> with no one and no way to call out or for others to call in. I would   
   >>> gladly pay for VoIPLY or even ooma for him but I think I have to know   
   >>> what ISP they use. I dont' think his wife knows that.  Is there a way I   
   >>> can find out if she doesn't know?   
   >>   
   >> I used VoIP from about 2003 to 2019 and I never had to worry about my   
   >> ISP. They provided Internet access and that's all I needed.   
   >   
   > Great.   But I would need someone to install an RJnn jack (or maybe even   
   > some box or other?) and someone to deliver a telephone, right.  I can   
   > mail him a telephone, but I can't install the jack from here.   The   
   > phone jack is something that people normally do themselves when it's   
   > their own home, right?   
   >   
      
   My phone is five feet from the ATA, and the regular phone wiring in the   
   house is not being used. Since I use an ATA that plugs into an Ethernet port,   
   I can just run an Ethernet cable to some other place in the house   
   and set up the ATA there.   
      
   I have a length of phone cable and a female-female phone cable extender   
   thing, and that allows me to run up the hall with the handset and hand it   
   to someone. I should be able to extend it, just with gray phone cable.   
   (Paying attention to male-female and having enough female-female rectangular   
   extenders for the job.)   
      
   To connect to the regular phone network, first you have to disconnect   
   POTS at the demarc (so the home wiring is unpowered). The ATA will have   
   a load rating. Say it is "five loads". That is a scheme for determining   
   how many phones can be wired in parallel on a line pair. The phones also   
   have a load rating. Maybe a phone has a load rating of 0.8 for example.   
      
   Only one phone should go off hook at a time. You could wire the ATA into the   
   phone wiring, but the home phone wiring must be in good shape, or the   
   line could end up noisier than you would like.   
      
   As a note of caution, my ATA had a hum on it. The reason for this,   
   is the wall adapter for the ATA is a two wire adapter (does not use   
   Safety Ground on mains). That means the powering is not grounded or ground   
   referenced. On the signal side, the pair for RJ11 is also not   
   ground referenced. This allows the hardware to pick up some "hum". But if you   
   run a wire from the chassis of the ATA, to the metal on a computer (which   
   is on Safety ground), the hum goes away :-) I love shit like this.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)