Modem and Telephone Leads

[Zak33]

For the record....and its in the title so its easy for others to find.

I have just wasted 7 hours with "No Dialing tone" and brought a new modem...only to find the following.

The RJ11 plug on the bottom of a telephone here in the UK is not wired the same way as a modem.

SO...if you do as I did for 6 1/2 hours, and use a TELEPHONE to test for a Dial tone...and get one...and plug that RJ45 straight into the modem hole..

IT AINT GONNA WORK

Soon as you get a MODEM lead plugged in and try a TELEPHONE ON IT....it WONT GIVE YOU A DIALLING TONE..

but that does not.....REPEAT DOES NOT MEAN THE WIRE IS DAMAGED

they are simply not wired the same.

SO dont test a modem lead with a phone....cos it wont work...and dont use a phone lead to a modem....cos that wont work either.

I thank you

*bows*

[Steve]

Well that was a pretty stupid thing to do!

So stupid I'd have probably done it too. Infact, I very nearly did the other week when putting my ADSL gear back in.

[Rabs]

A friend of mine claims to have used his old 56K modem lead without a splitter to run his ADSL, never saw it in action though.

Theres 2 and 4 wire modem leads too - completely incompatible with each other :/

[iMc]

what lead do i need to go from an ADSL enabled telephone line to a router?

[Rabs]

The router will usually come with a lead, if not it try a standard rj11 to rj11 adsl modem lead, should work fine.

[Howard]

Something I too found out a couple of weeks ago

Stupid phone-telephone-modem-dialing-tone-rubbish

[Zak33]

Stupid phone-telephone-modem-dialing-tone-rubbish

thats it EXACTLY mate...exactly

[Tumble]

The things are just a money-spinning ploy I'm afraid... The damned things are manufacturer specific. A normal telephone cable has 4 wires - 2 pair. 1 pair is for power and the other for RX/TX. A fax, or a modem, will only usually have 2 wires... RX & TX. At the PHONE LINE end, where it plugs into the wall - it'll always be the same. It's the other end thats wired differently, and the manu's never tell you which pins in the actual device are RX & TX - even in the service manuals. so you have to use THEIR cable if you lose/damage yours in any way. Unless you are clever with a multi-meter, or you can see the wires through the transparent rj11 connector at both ends, you aint gonna find out