topic Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender in Digital Home Phone

Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

BartonEnd — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 09:35:47 GMT

We recently switched to EE and received a DVA for our landline. Paired the DVA with the router and then moved the DVA to the base station location in another part of the house where the Wifi is provided by an extender (which is hardwired to the router).

We get great Wifi strength and download/upload speeds at the location of the phone base station.

Since plugging the phone into the DVA we have had issues. The DVA green light goes solid green for a while then starts flashing. Most of the time it is flashing. Even when it is solid green, it starts flashing when we try to make a call.

The broadband is fine (checked several times) and a phone next to the router and plugged into it works fine.

Would be interested to know if anyone else has any of the same issues and if so whether there are any known solutions. EE are sending a new DVA but I suspect that is not the issue here.

Could it be that while the DVA is paired fine with the router, it is not actually connecting to the wifi extender signal but is trying to connect direct with the router? I'm not technically knwledgeable enough to know whether the wifi signal coming from the extender will have a different identified from the router that the DVA might not recognise.

The extenders are large commercial grade hard wired ones (not the usual plug in ones you can get from PC World) and have give no issues to date with wifi signal/strength.

Any thoughts very much appreciated.

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

Peter_W — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 13:27:26 GMT

Good afternoon @BartonEnd.

Welcome to the EE Community 😊

With Digital Voice, the adapters pair directly to your main hub via WPS, so this will be what it's trying to connect to.

Depending on the range of your router and the location of the adapter, this may very well be having an impact on how their ability to connect.

If your extender has a WPS button itself then it could be worth trying to pair them with this, but as it's a third party product it's unlikely this would be supported.

Peter

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

JimM11 — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 14:41:47 GMT

@BartonEnd The DVA are only able to work directly to the router, they work in the DECT spectrum frequency, not on wifi....

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

BartonEnd — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 16:00:54 GMT

Thanks Peter

It seems that this is an issue for any large house where the hub is far from the telephone base station. Even with Wifi repeaters, the DECT signal won't be repeated and the DVA the phone plugs into will always be out of range of the hub.

I have a BT master phone and broadband socket next to the hub and a phone one next to the distant phone so I may try plugging both hub and phone into their respective BT sockets and see if the old wiring carries the DECT signal to/from the hub/phone.

Digital Voice certainly doesn't seem to have thought about how to deal with what happens if the DECT signal from the hub can't reach the DVA.

THanks again

Colin

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

BartonEnd — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 16:02:57 GMT

Thanks Jim

This is essentially a repeat of my reply to Peter in case you don't get to see it automatically.

Digital Voice certainly doesn't seem to have thought about how to deal with what happens if the DECT signal from the hub can't reach the DVA.

Thanks again

Colin

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

BartonEnd — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 16:29:13 GMT

Plugged the hub into the BT socket and then the distant phone into its BT socket and got a dial tone. Was then able to send and receive calls on the distant phone (presumably through the hub).

Does that sound like a long term solution?

Thanks

Colin

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

JimM11 — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 16:40:35 GMT

@BartonEnd It's fine as a solution, internal wiring will always be fine, only possible problem is feeding signal back up the BT line, If you are not sure, lift the pair signal wires of the master socket that go away to OR...

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

XRaySpeX — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 00:44:09 GMT

If you can plug the router into the BT DSL phone socket & BB works and you can plug the phone into the BT phone socket & the phone works then it suggests you don't have Full Fibre nor DV. You can't have both surely? Something doesn't make sense!

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

JimM11 — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 06:44:19 GMT

@XRaySpeX When the master socket is wired correctly extension sockets are all filtered and no ADSL is required on any of the extensions, BT have a new Re-injection face plate for wiring if you wish to be 100% correct to stop sending back up the line, but easier to lift the A B pair, as the customer has done wired the EE router back connection to the master socket, re-injecting voice out to the extensions.

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

XRaySpeX — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 06:53:59 GMT

@JimM11 : Yes, I know how a BT master socket is wired but what has that to do with DV?

Are you trying to say that you can feed from the router's phone socket into an isolated home phone wiring circuit, thus giving DV at any of the home phone extension sockets?

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

JimM11 — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 07:02:43 GMT

@XRaySpeX The answer is yes, you can connect the ATA output from the EE router back and it will feed the extension wiring.

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

BartonEnd — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 07:37:25 GMT

THe BT master socket next to the hub has a BB side and a phone side. Hub is plugged into the BB side and gets BB just fine. I have plugged the phone side into the phone socket into the back of the hub (I had an adapter that allowed me to get a male connector on each end). This seems to get me signal down the old phone wire and the distant phone gets tone and works when plugged into its original BT phone socket. The original BT phone socket went dead when EE switched us to DV so I am assuming the old wiring is simply providing a local connection between the distant phone and the hub (just like having a very long cable from the phone to the hub).

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

BartonEnd — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 07:50:21 GMT

Exactly.

When we switched to EE our BT landline wiring went dead (no tone at all).

Now that I have connected the phone socket at the back of the hub to the dual BT master socket next to the hub (phone side), all the old sockets in the house have becomme live just as if they are all wired directly into the back of the hub (which essentially it seems they are now).

Seems to have overcome the problem so far.

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

XRaySpeX — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 22:44:29 GMT

OK, I understand the phone connection now that @JimM11 has explained the possibility of activating the home phone wiring with DV by connecting it to the phone port on the back of the router.

The only thing I don't get is you plugging the Hub is into the BB side of the BT master socket. Isn't the router connected to the ONT?

Or are you saying you can similarly activate the home phone wiring with a data signal by connecting it to a LAN port of the router?

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

JimM11 — Wed, 09 Oct 2024 08:38:04 GMT

@XRaySpeX FTTC wired master preferred socket type 5c still delivering BB but no longer any voice.

RJ11 connects from Master socket to DSL port back of router. ATA port back of router BT telephone cable same connector on each side, one to the ata port, the other to the master socket, if you need a extension point here, you can get a single cable to 2 way socket connection, allows phone and ATA to be plugged in. At the other extensions throughout the home you can connect corded or dect as require, any ring problems, an old ADSL filter may help with ringing, should be fine with most newer phones and those do not need a strong ring signal. BT does have a new master socket faceplate but it is quite hard to find, this is a design to stop possible re-injection of power back up the connected line.

If using fttp, then disconnect the A B from the Master Socket, ensures no power up the line, and all extension sockets and master socket if wired correctly will work as before, and do same connection method as above.

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

Mustrum — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 21:03:29 GMT

late to the party on this one, whilst the obove method clearly works, you should see an improvement by isolating the extension wiring from the incoming line. That would save your voice signal being sent back towards the exchange as well as to the extensions. Easiest way mey be to just connect the extension wiring currently on the master socket to a new BT socket and plug the router phone socket into that.

HTH

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

Daveh46 — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 12:50:45 GMT

Thanks for all the information, I'm less than 24 hours into this (DV and EE) and still struggling with abbreviations.

I have a BT phone line splitter socket, which is now useless as the BT analogue signal is now switched off.

My question is: if I were able to connect this to the DV socket on the hub, would it work?

I was "sold" the Home Phone adapter on the basis that it would connect my phone to the WiFi extender but it seems I was misinformed. I'm sure most people's extension phones are some distance for the hub.

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

XRaySpeX — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 13:15:51 GMT

@Daveh46 : Yes, it should work. Some claim it improves things.

The DV adapter is plugged in a mains power socket & connects to the router, not the WiFi extenders. It's intended for phones are some distance for the hub.

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

JimM11 — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 14:04:12 GMT

@Daveh46 So yes in that respect you were miss informed to the operation of the DVA to the wifi extender, they have nothing what so ever to do with each other, if the DVA cannot reach the EE Router by it's OWN wireless then there will be NO connection.

Post a picture of your phone splitter socket on the posting so we can see what you have and there is no confusion about it. If you are not able to do that then will copy a link for you to look at, this way there is no cross purpose!

bt double adapter - Search

White BT Plug to Plug (BT631A) Telephone Cable - 3m - Pro Signal | CPC like this type of cable to plug back into the master socket on the phone port side!

Re: Issues with Digital Voice Adapter connecting to Wifi Extender

Daveh46 — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 17:19:16 GMT

Pretty much exactly like all those shown (not the wired ones).

Unfortunately my extension cable is to short to reach the hub so would need a short extender. Currently I'm experimenting with other locations for the phone; it isn't used extensively but does have a decent ring on DV unlike the main phone which has been reduced to a faint tinkle.