Change from 1 line to the other?

Question

My house has two working phone lines. I need to change the wiring in one room from the first line to the second line. How do I do this? Initially, when it was wired with line one, only the blue and blue/white wires were connected to the first left and right terminals. What needs to be changed? Also, how to the connections relate to the color diagrams on the sides of the jack?

By the way the jack indicates that my house is wired with cat 5 cable, if that makes any difference. However I still have the normal colors, blue green orange and brown.

STANLEYNEM-
I have tried simply switching the two blues with the oranges. To clarify, after I was done, the line looked like this: (with jack at botton) Solid orange on top left and Orange/white on top right. Those are the only wires plugged in. Is this correct, because It didn't work for me.

Answer 1

Your house wiring isn't the standard colours. Line 1 is typically Red and Green and line 2 is Yellow and Black. Looking at the phone connector, line 1 is the two centre pins and line 2 are the 2 outer pins (on a 4 pin jack). Usually your phone jack on the wall, if you take it off will have the red green yellow black wires going to the jack itself from the screw terminals. Just write down whats there, and swap what one is on the Red to the Yellow, and what's on the Green to the Black. Voila, now your second line is your primary line on that jack!

Also, at Radio Shack (and perhaps elsewhere) they have a 2-line phone splitter which puts Line 1 on the one jack on the splitter and Line 2 on another. Both lines are together on the 3rd. You just plug your single line phone into the left jack for line 1 or the middle jack for line 2. They're $9 -- http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102899

Cat 5 cable? That's usually used for Ethernet. Anyway, it's 8 wire -- 4 twisted pair. 4 wires must not be being used. Anyway, whatever colour they are you can usually tell by the wiring inside the jack provided that the people who installed them originally did it right. A trip to the junction box outside the house may provide some useful insight, too. If in doubt, buy a little phone line tester.

Answer 2

CAT5 would use blue and blue/white for line 1, orange and orange/white for line 2. So, if done correctly, you'd remove the blue and blue/white wires and replace them w/ orange and orange/white wires.

Now, that's assuming the phone installer at the entry point had connected your 2nd line to orange and orange/white. Provided you have access, make sure the CAT5 leading to your desired phone is hooked up to that 2nd line at the entry point. Another good check: make sure that 2nd line coming into your house actually works (i.e., dial tone exists).

Answer 3

I assume that you are talking about taking it off the wall and changing the internal wires. I believe that there are two columns of connections, four terminals on each one. I personally don't know how to switch them, but perhaps somebody else does.

Answer 4

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