We have no working phone jacks in the house. Which is fine since we recently switched to digital phone and run it through the cable/modem box. However, time will come when we should wire at least one into the house. So, here's the question: with today's satellite phone systems, would it be OK to just have one phone jack? The best place for us would be to put it in the guest room/ office and then use our current satellite phone system for the other room. Also, some people don't even use a home phone anymore with all the cell phone.
What do you think?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
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3 comments:
I would pull two home runs of cat-5 and coax cable to every room anyway (e.g. four cables total, two cat-5 and two coax). Assuming you're going to pull any wires at all to a given room, you might as well. The wire is cheap enough and this will give you a lot of flexibility for any kind of technology infrastructure you want.
Then you just have a patch panel in your basement or attic, wherever you pull all the wires to, that you can use to configure the wires for whatever you want. Need a phone in a room? Patch one of the cat-5 cables over to your landline phone service. Internet? Patch it into your hub.
I know it sounds like overkill but it's really not that big a deal and gives you a lot of flexibility and convenience.
I am the only person in the world without a cell phone. Also do not have an answering machine. I cannot speak on cordless phones. I almost got cable phone service but it doesn't work when the power is out, easily solved with a battery backup thing but I don't want one more thing. I used to have a cell phone but it did not work in my home and I don't need to be accessible when out of my home.
And I am probably much older than your parents.
I have a satellite phone system and love it. The unit which must be plugged into a phone jack is the unit with the digital answering machine. Therefore, I would place that phone wherever it is the most convenient to sit and deal with phone messages. You also might want it to be near wherever you exit from the house, since you don't want to forget to put the answerng machine on. This is one of the best features; you can choose whether or not to use the answering machine and after how many rings. The rest of the phones can go into any room with an outlet. It's a good retrofit for an older house.
That said, Jamie sounds like he knows what he is talking about and there are so many technologies coming down the pike, it might be good to be prepared for them. But, you could start out by putting the main phone in a sensible spot.
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