Xfinity/Comcast telephone questions

[VeloClone]

I wrote the whole story but for the short story look at the bolded.

So we were having huge issues with our CenturyLink internet service. With remote learning and work from home this was unacceptable. So we decided to look into Xfinity and ended up switching our internet, television and land-line telephone to Xfinity. (We have a young one at home who isn't ready for a cell phone but we want to make sure he has a phone he can use in an emergency situation so we are keeping the land line for the time being.)

We had it all installed but our telephone didn't work - we had no dial tone and it would never ring, but we would get voice mail messages on the TV. They came back and told me that we had to plug in our phone directly into the modem/router. They failed to do this or tell us this during the initial set up. So that means we have to move our main base unit phone into the modem in the basement. That wouldn't be a big deal with our wireless phones except that that base unit also has the answering machine that we use to screen calls. If it is in the basement we would have to run downstairs to see if it is a legitimate call or not.

Is there a way that I can connect the cable modem/router to my in-home telephone network/wiring so I can leave the phones where they are and also use the old wall mounted wired phone in my kitchen. I thought about just plugging a wire with RJ11 connectors into the modem/router and the nearest telephone jack but I'm not sure if that is a good idea. I could change out that jack to RJ45, but since it is a RJ11 connecting the base unit right now I didn't think that would be necessary.

Can anyone tell me if this is a solution? Also, in order to do this will I have to find where the CenturyLink connection is and disconnect it? Before we connected to the modem/router we wouldn't get a dial tone, but after a few seconds we would get something like a busy signal or phone left off the hook signal so there is clearly still some kind of connection there.

I would appreciate any help.

And before anyone says it, I know this is a "Okay, boomer" problem.

 

[Clonefan94]

I wrote the whole story but for the short story look at the bolded.

So we were having huge issues with our CenturyLink internet service. With remote learning and work from home this was unacceptable. So we decided to look into Xfinity and ended up switching our internet, television and land-line telephone to Xfinity. (We have a young one at home who isn't ready for a cell phone but we want to make sure he has a phone he can use in an emergency situation so we are keeping the land line for the time being.)

We had it all installed but our telephone didn't work - we had no dial tone and it would never ring, but we would get voice mail messages on the TV. They came back and told me that we had to plug in our phone directly into the modem/router. They failed to do this or tell us this during the initial set up. So that means we have to move our main base unit phone into the modem in the basement. That wouldn't be a big deal with our wireless phones except that that base unit also has the answering machine that we use to screen calls. If it is in the basement we would have to run downstairs to see if it is a legitimate call or not.

Is there a way that I can connect the cable modem/router to my in-home telephone network/wiring so I can leave the phones where they are and also use the old wall mounted wired phone in my kitchen. I thought about just plugging a wire with RJ11 connectors into the modem/router and the nearest telephone jack but I'm not sure if that is a good idea. I could change out that jack to RJ45, but since it is a RJ11 connecting the base unit right now I didn't think that would be necessary.

Can anyone tell me if this is a solution? Also, in order to do this will I have to find where the CenturyLink connection is and disconnect it? Before we connected to the modem/router we wouldn't get a dial tone, but after a few seconds we would get something like a busy signal or phone left off the hook signal so there is clearly still some kind of connection there.

I would appreciate any help.

And before anyone says it, I know this is a "Okay, boomer" problem.

Yes, you actually just have to plug it into an existing phone jack. But, you have to remove the incoming lines from the outside first. There should be a main jack, where the phone line comes into your house, You have to take those wires off, but make sure all the others going to the rest of your house are still hooked up there. The outside line, even if inactive, will cause interference if not removed.

Then just plug the phone line from the modem into any phone jack.

 

[VeloClone]

Yes, you actually just have to plug it into an existing phone jack. But, you have to remove the incoming lines from the outside first. There should be a main jack, where the phone line comes into your house, You have to take those wires off, but make sure all the others going to the rest of your house are still hooked up there. The outside line, even if inactive, will cause interference if not removed.

Then just plug the phone line from the modem into any phone jack.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

You would think the installer would know that, but maybe they don't have telephones in Russia.

 

[Clonefan94]

I had to look up how to do it when we first did it as well. We ended up switching to a wireless phone system though, to make it easy. Now it's all telemarketers, so we turned them off and just check messages through the app.