Telephone wiring questions

[dparm]

My father's current desk phone (home office) has two analog lines running into it: the house line and his business line. There are two physical wires into the back of the phone.

I'd like to get him a nice new Siemens Gigaset phone but it only supports 1 analog/2 ISDN/4 VOIP. All the "office" phones with two analog inputs are pretty much the same thing as what he has now...ugly, clunky, no special features, etc.

Is there anything I can do here?

 

[JimPghPA]

First be sure he is up to working the bells and whistles the new setup will have. Many times an older person is better off staying with what they know how to operate.

Sometimes when you help out an older person by upgrading what they have all you end up doing is causing them problems.

 

[brianl703]

http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/model/KX-TG9381T

Two-line DECT cordless phone. There are others, google for them.

 

[dparm]

He's not that old, LOL. He does prefer a corded phone for his office, for whatever reason. Tried to talk him into a nice headset but he didn't seem too excited.

 

[EricF]

you can't use the siemans phone for the 2nd line.
You'll have to find an analog 2 line phone.
I have 2 of them, but with DSL, there's no longer a need for a 2nd line!
the phones are sitting in boxes, just can't toss 'em out..

But there's nothing you can really do, aside from setting him up with google voice and he can use that as a dispatch screen for himself as well as handle voice mails & forwarding.

 

[brianl703]

http://www.cortelco.com/9225.html

It's about $70.

Another option:

http://www.cortelco.com/col2220.html

About $75.

 

[dparm]

Like I said before, I do NOT want to get him another generic office phone. He hates them.

 

[brianl703]

I'm not sure what you want, then. If you don't want a cordless (which is what the Siemens Gigasets are--I haven't found a corded one), then your only option for the most part is what you refer to as a generic office phone. Does he want a novelty phone, a Star Wars or Mickey Mouse phone like they had in the 80s or something?

You could find a trimline style phone (dial in handset) with two lines, if that's what he wants.

Of course...if you REALLY wanted to...you could build an Asterisk VOIP server with two FXO ports in it for the two lines, and put a VOIP phone on his desk, assuming that you can find a VOIP phone that meets his requirements.


You're looking at a few hundred dollars for that option, and some assembly (configuration) IS required.

By the way, what special features are you expecting a two line analog phone to be able to provide?