ChrisFix
join:2006-07-24
Chapel Hill, NC
| reply to MichiganTelephone
Re: [ViaTalk] Does it work with an ADT home alarm?
said by MichiganTelephone :
Here's one way to think about it: Suppose you installed a brand new phone jack, ran a pair of wires from it to the RJ31X jack that your alarm is connected to, disconnected the pair that was formerly connected to the phone company's incoming line, and in its place connected the new line from your new jack. Everything would work as before, except your VoIP adapter would be taking the place of the telephone company Central Office.
Well, in most homes you can achieve exactly the same effect without running any new cable or adding any new jacks (unless you want to). All you have to do is rewire an existing jack to use a formerly unused pair as line 1, then out at the network interface device, connect that same pair to the wires going to your alarm system (disconnecting the line from the phone company in the process if you haven't done so already).
I've done exactly that and now use NextAlarm (with their separate PAP2 adapter) as my monitoring service for the past year. Very inexpensive with nice features. Have not had any reliability issues - and receive SMS or Email alerts for all alarm actions (daily test, arm, disarm, zone fault, zone alarm, etc.). No wiring modifications are required to the alarm panel. |
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v35_pilot
Whoops, there goes another AMU
Premium
join:2005-12-12
Fayetteville, NY
 ·ViaTalk
 ·Verizon FIOS
 ·Sprint Mobile Broa..
| reply to cjoseph82
said by cjoseph82  :v35pilot, let me ask you a question if I could, did you just have to unplug the line from Verizon outside and just plug in the VoIP device into any wall jack? I see you received several answers, but for the record, in my case I have not plugged my ViaTalk adapter into my home's telephone wiring. That wiring, which the ADT system is using, is still connected to a dialtone-only service provided by Verizon.
The ViaTalk adapter is plugged into a Uniden wireless base that has three wireless extensions throughout the house. |
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MichiganTelephone
@85.195.x.x
| reply to cjoseph82
Here's one way to think about it: Suppose you installed a brand new phone jack, ran a pair of wires from it to the RJ31X jack that your alarm is connected to, disconnected the pair that was formerly connected to the phone company's incoming line, and in its place connected the new line from your new jack. Everything would work as before, except your VoIP adapter would be taking the place of the telephone company Central Office.
Well, in most homes you can achieve exactly the same effect without running any new cable or adding any new jacks (unless you want to). All you have to do is rewire an existing jack to use a formerly unused pair as line 1, then out at the network interface device, connect that same pair to the wires going to your alarm system (disconnecting the line from the phone company in the process if you haven't done so already).
Let's say that the brown pair (solid brown wire plus white wire with brown stripe) is unused in your home (as it probably would be if you've never had four incoming phone lines in your home). You would connect the brown pair to the line one position at the jack you want to plug your adapter into (probably where the blue pair is connected now). Then out at the network interface, you would connect the brown pair to the line going to your alarm. As long as the brown pair connection isn't broken anywhere along the path from the jack to the network interface, this should work.
Your alarm system installer should be able to figure all this out, but the point you want to make to him is that your VoIP adapter now takes the place of the incoming PSTN line. Hopefully he'll have seen this situation before and will know what to do.
Some homes may have a central connection point that's not at the network interface device, so you may have to adapt the principle explained here accordingly. But the idea is that your telephone service flows in this direction:
VoIP adapter (takes place of incoming phone line) ---> Alarm (RJ31X jack) ---> Rest of jacks in your home. |
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cjoseph82
join:2006-07-30
Wilmington, DE | reply to poolek
AH! I get it now. Thanks. Perhaps I can have them do this when they come to install CellGuard. |
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poolek
join:2003-11-04
Austin, TX
 ·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T U-Verse
·ViaTalk
 ·AT&T Yahoo
| reply to cjoseph82
The adaptor will distrubute dial tone to all jacks in the house regardless of whether the alarm control panel is wired correctly or not. The alarm just won't be able to dial out if it's been installed correctly, since when the control panel cuts off the internal jacks to make the call, it will be cutting off the jack the adaptor is on as well.
You can fix this by swapping the 'incoming' vs 'outgoing' wires in the control panel.
If the alarm was installed incorrecly, the alarm should be able to call out. Whether the data transmission over the line will actually work will still need to be tested, but at least it'll be able to get dial tone. |
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cjoseph82
join:2006-07-30
Wilmington, DE
| reply to poolek
poolek, thanks for your reply. Just want to clarify one point you made. You said if the alarm wasn't setup properly, plugging the ViaTalk adapter into one jack will not distribute the signal to other phone jacks in the house? That would make the service unusable. This is bad...
What my parents are most probably going to do is purchase the CellGuard option in the event it won't work with ViaTalk. I believe the only case in which it wouldn't work is if the phone is off the hook, since the ViaTalk adapter won't be wired to seize the phone line.
Am I on the right track in my thinking here? |
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poolek
join:2003-11-04
Austin, TX
·RoadRunner Cable
·AT&T U-Verse
·ViaTalk
·AT&T Yahoo
| reply to cjoseph82
The ADT device shouldn't be sending any voltage down the line, so I don't think there are any concerns that it would mess up the Viatalk adaptor.
However, depending on how the alarm was installed, enabling voip service over your existing internal phone wiring may not work. The alarm installer -should- have run the phone line from the Newtwork Interface box outside directly to the alarm control panel, then from the control panel out to the internal jacks. The reasoning for this is so that the alarm control panel can shut off all extensions when dialing - so that if an extension is off hook, the call will still go through.
A -lot- of installers don't take the time to do this properly, especially if it's not a new construction. If the alarm is installed properly, the plugging the adaptor into an internal jack won't work without doing some wiring adjustments at the control panel. |
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cjoseph82
join:2006-07-30
Wilmington, DE
| reply to v35_pilot
v35pilot, let me ask you a question if I could, did you just have to unplug the line from Verizon outside and just plug in the VoIP device into any wall jack?
I was reading this article online, and it stated that even if you unplug outside, the ADT alarm panel could somehow generate a voltage that would fry the ViaTalk adapter.
Is this true? Does anyone know? |
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v35_pilot
Whoops, there goes another AMU
Premium
join:2005-12-12
Fayetteville, NY
·ViaTalk
·Verizon FIOS
·Sprint Mobile Broa..
1 edit | reply to cjoseph82
I am a ten year customer of ADT and just recently became a ViaTalk customer. I called ADT before making the jump and was told by them that the only two options I had (besides dumping ADT) were to a) keep a dial-tone only line coming in the house, or b) buy some cellular adapter sold by ADT and then pay an additional $5/month monitoring fee to ADT.
Currently, I chose option (a) and kept a Verizon POTS line to the house with dial-tone only service (at about $15/month) for the alarm system because ADT National quoted the cellular device at about $250!! 
I may call my local ADT sales office, though, to see if I can work out a deal for the device in return for another year commitment. |
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