Home Phone

From inside your house you can dial *97 If you are prompted for your PIN, the default is 1234.

From outside your house you can dial your phone number, then push * when you hear the voicemail.

Out of the box

The standard SwitchWorks home phone service requires two pieces of hardware: a modem and a router/telephone adapter (called the ATA). This option assumes that you will use only one phone jack, and use only one phone. Any phone that you already own can be used with the service, including cordless phones.

Simply connect the modem to any phone jack in your home using the cable provided, then connect the ATA to the modem. Finally, plug your phone or cordless phone base station into the ATA. See diagram below:

Standard Wiring

Most homes are originally connected to the telephone company’s network using a standard 2-pair wiring system that runs to each jack in the home. If your home has only ever had one phone line active, you should be able to use the SwitchWorks home phone service with all the jacks.

The ATA may be damaged if it is connected to an active phone line. Ensure that the second pair is inactive before proceeding. This can be done with a telephone line tester or ammeter. To protect against future activation of the line, disconnect the second pair at the NID (network interface device) where the phone lines enter your home.

You will need a Duplex 2-line Jack (available at The Source for $6.99) for each phone, and one for the ATA.Plug a Duplex 2-line Jack into each phone jack you want to use, then plug each phone and the ATA into LINE 2 on the Duplex 2-line Jack. See diagram below:

If your home does not have standard wiring, and you want to use your SwitchWorks Home Phone with all the jacks in your house, you will need to do some work on the wiring. If you are handy with wiring you can do it yourself — there are many free sources of information online, including videos on YouTube.

If you are in the Toronto area, one of our SwitchWorks technicians can come to your home and do the wiring for you. Minimum service charge is $90, depending on your location and the specific work required.

If you are outside the Toronto area, we recommend hiring a professional to do the installation for you.

Custom Wiring

If your home does not have standard wiring, and you want to use your SwitchWorks Home Phone with all the jacks in your house, you will need to do some work on the wiring. If you are handy with wiring you can do it yourself — there are many free sources of information online, including videos on YouTube.

If you are in the Toronto area, one of our SwitchWorks technicians can come to your home and do the wiring for you. Minimum service charge is $90, depending on your location and the specific work required.

If you are outside the Toronto area, we recommend hiring a professional to do the installation for you.

There are two ways to take advantage of free long distance:

1. To call anywhere in the world for free, both parties need to have SwitchWorks Home Phone. All Home Phone to Home Phone calls are free, regardless of where they are in the world.
2. You can get long distance free by choosing our SwitchWorks Home Phone Long Distance Package (some limitations apply).

SwitchWorks Home Phone is a new digital technology that allows you to use your existing internet service to make and receive regular phone calls. You will enjoy enhanced services like call waiting, visual call waiting, and call forwarding just like traditional phone companies offer. All you need is a High Speed Internet connection and our free SwitchWorks Home Phone Connect Box and you can start saving immediately.

Absolutely. SwitchWorks Home Phone is available for your home and business. Businesses can enjoy the ease of increasing lines and services in minutes. Need an extra line for a new employee? Now instead of weeks, it takes minutes. Also add phone numbers from different cities to give your company a national presence.

Yes. DSL, DSL Lite or Cable modem.

SwitchWorks Home Phone was designed to work on all internet connections (except dial-up), but we recommend that you have “full” High Speed Internet (1-3 Megs) for your SwitchWorks Home Phone service. “Lite” services will in most cases support your SwitchWorks Home Phone by your quality will degrade when you start the browse and download from the internet. This is why we recommend the “full” High Speed Internet services.

No, SwitchWorks Home Phone will not work with Dial-up Internet.

Yes, you can. Contact SwitchWorks’ Sales Office and request transfer of phone number. The transfer is easy, and usually takes 20-30 days from the time you submit an order. Once the transfer is complete, your old phone number will land on the SwitchWorks Home Phone. You will no longer be billed from your old phone company. Transfer is only available in SwitchWorks Home Phone serving territory.

As a SwitchWorks Home Phone customer, you are not limited to the local area code of the place you live in any more. You can select most major area codes in Canada or the USA. For example, you live in Toronto, but your mother lives in Montreal, you can select a 514 number so that she can call you for free.

SwitchWorks Home Phone 911 works through a third party that answers your emergency calls and then dispatches the authorities. We will register your current service address with the system. You must notify us of any address changes.

411 at the present time is not available.

You can have as many lines as you wish. Each SwitchWorks Home Phone box supports 2 lines and you an stack as many boxes as you like.

No. SwitchWorks Home Phone is very easy to install and you will use the same telephone or cordless phone that you would normally use with your local telephone company. If you need assistance, you can always contact tech support.

Your SwitchWorks Home Phone Kit will arrive within 6 days. You can install and start using it in minutes.

No, SwitchWorks Home Phone does not require a computer. However, SwitchWorks Home Phone allows you to talk and surf the Internet at the same time.

Yes, if you or your business move, you can keep your service and your phone number. You just need to have a High Speed Internet connection at your new location.

Yes, you can take the SwitchWorks Home Phone Kit with you.

In most cases the answer is yes. The success is related to your internet speed connection, its quality and your fax machine. A fax requires 64K to function and many internet connection (Lite & Ultra Lite) variations do not provide constant speeds that a fax needs. We recommend that you have “full” high speed internet (1-3 Megs) for faxing. Your fax machine also plays a factor in its compatibility with internet based telephone services. There is no adjustment to be done on our part. You will just need to try.

• To make a local call: Just dial area code + number
• To make a long distance call: 1+ area code + number
• To make an International call : 011 + country code + city code + number

1. Dial your first party as you normally would.
2. Once connected, press the Flash Button or Switch Hook on your phone and dial the second party.
3. After the second party is connected, press the Flash Button or Switch Hook again and you will all be connected.

We use a North American standard that all traditional phone companies use. If for example you have a Toronto 416 area code, and are not sure if a call to Thornhill is long distance, you may consult our Local Area Guide. It will list all the areas the we cover as part of your Local Calling Area. Calls out side this area will incur charges.

If you plan on using SwitchWorks Home Phone as your primary phone service you will need to have your alarm company connect your alarm system to the Home Phone.

My Account is a web portal you can manage your Home Phone services. There are many features and below are just a few.

1. View detail Call Logs
2. Manage your SwitchWorks Home Phone service like call forwarding, follow me, other settings.
3. Listen to Voice mail, Voice mail notification

In order to log in you will need to establish a PIN by calling customer service. 416-531-8750 or Dial HELP (4357) on your Home Phone Line.

Dial HELP (4357) from any True VoIP phone.

You can turn this feature on and off from “My Account” or with the use of *commands.

Log into “My Account”: Enter your phone number and pin under VoIP Login and click on “Phone Features”. Enable the option you want and enter the phone number where you want the call to be forwarded to. Click “Update” to save settings. Alternatively you can dial *72 on your phone to activate the feature and *73 to deactivate the feature.

On a Linksys ATA you dial *72 then the number you want to forward to followed by #

[code](*72 + + #)[/code]

This feature will either direct callers directly into your Voice Mail if you subscribe to that service or to a recording that states “The party you have called is not available at this time, please try again later.”. This feature is controlled from “My Account”. Simply log into “My Account”. Enter you phone number and pin under VoIP Login and click on Phone Features. You will then turn this feature on or off.

If you subscribe to Caller ID service, then you can see the identity of the person calling you and they they can see your identity as well. If you wish you can “hide” your ID (Name and phone number) on a call-by-call basis by keying 67# before the number being dialed.

If you subscribe Caller ID Block service whereby your ID is always anonymous, you can display your ID on a call-by-call basis by keying 82# before the number being dialed.

You can retrieve your voicemail in four ways:

1. From an outside line call the Voicemail Center at 416-548-8868
2. Enter your SwitchWorks Home Phone Number
3. Enter your Pin Number
4. From you SwitchWorks Home Phone Line dial *97
5. Enter your Pin Number
6. Over the Internet from the “My Account”. Simply log into “My Account” Enter your phone number and pin under the VoIP Login and click on Voicemail.
7. Via Email. You can email your Voicemail to your email address from the “My Account”. Simply log into “My Account” Enter your phone number and pin under the VoIP Login and click on Settings. Enable Email Notification and enter your email address.

This feature allows you to control how your calls are routed. With online access you can determine that your SwitchWorks Home Phone service will first try you at home then if not answered or busy it will try you at the office or cell phone. This feature is great for people that are tired of giving out multiple phone numbers. Just give out your SwitchWorks Home Phone number instead.

Programming “Follow Me” from “Account Manger”

Log into “My Account”. Enter your phone number and pin under “VoIP Login” and click on “Follow Me”.

If you subscribe to Call Waiting service, and wish to engage in a phone call without being interrupted by Call Waiting during that call, you can disable it for that call by keying 70# followed by the number you wish to call.

SwitchWorks Home Phone service is billed monthly.

SwitchWorks accepts payment via Credit Card (VISA, MASTERCARD), Web Banking (Paying your bills online via your bank), and pre-authorized direct debit.

Local calling minutes are included in the minutes allocated monthly.

Home Wiring Setup

To use SwitchWorks Home Phone on multiple phones is to modify the existing telephone wiring in your home to distribute the Home Phone service to all of your phone jacks. Then you can plug a regular telephone into any jack and make a call.

This option works best if you own your own single-family home. If you live in an apartment or a multiple-family dwelling, chances are your landlord and neighbors won’t want you to mess with your building’s telephone lines. It also helps if you are handy around the house and have a basic understanding of telephone wiring. It’s not very difficult to modify your home phone wiring, but because you’re dealing with lines that carry voltage, there’s always a risk of causing a fire or damage to your phone lines and equipment. If you’re not comfortable doing the work yourself, you should hire a professional electrician or telephone technician to do the job instead.

It’s important to note that by modifying your telephone wiring to distribute SwitchWorks Home Phone throughout your home, you’ll be totally disconnecting yourself from the phone company. But the process is completely reversible. So if you sell your house in the future, for example, you can restore your old phone configuration with minimal difficulty.

Instructions

STEP ONE – ISOLATE YOUR INSIDE WIRING

• To re-wire your home for SwitchWorks Home Phone, you first need to isolate your inside phone wiring from the lines that come into your house from the phone company. This is a step you shouldn’t skip, even if you think your phone line is already dead. If you don’t isolate your inside wiring, and the phone company decides to send voltage across the line you thought was dead, it could damage the telephone equipment inside your house or worse, cause a fire.
• To begin, find the box on the outside of your house where the telephone lines come into your house from the street. This is called the Network Interface Device (NID). It’s the legal demarcation point where the outside wiring from the street (owned by the telephone company) meets the wiring inside your house (owned by you). When you open the box, which is usually locked or fastened with a screw, you will have access to the side containing the wires going into your home, but not the side with the lines coming from the street. You’ll also see a ground wire coming out of the phone company’s side of the box. This wire protects you against lightning strikes, so make sure you never disconnect it.
• Once you’ve opened your side of the NID, you’ll see one or more sets of screw terminals inside. Each will have a short piece of telephone wire coming out of it with a phone connector on the end plugged into a corresponding jack. If there’s only one line coming into your house, you’ll most likely have only one set of screw terminals. To disconnect from the phone company, simply unplug each of the short telephone wires from its corresponding jack.
• Next, you need to make it obvious to others that you’ve unplugged the wires on purpose and they shouldn’t undo your modifications without risking damage to your inside equipment. Start by wrapping the end of each of the telephone wires you just unplugged with electrical tape so it can’t be plugged back in without unwrapping the tape. Then, clearly label the inside of the box with a message that says something like: “Do not reconnect! May cause damage to inside equipment!” A sign written or printed in waterproof ink and taped inside the box works well. No matter how you choose to label the box, be sure it is obvious, clear, and easy to read.
• Once you’ve clearly labeled the inside of the NID, close and refasten the box. Then, just to be safe, label the outside of the box as well. To be extra safe, you can also wrap a cord or nylon tie-wrap around the box so it can’t be opened without cutting it. Remember, to avoid damage, you want to make it as inconvenient as possible for someone to change what you’ve done without your knowledge.

STEP TWO – CONFIRM THE LINE IS DISCONNECTED

• After you’ve isolated your wiring from the phone company’s, it’s important to confirm the line is disconnected before installing SwitchWorks Home Phone.
• Go back into your house and pick up a phone plugged into a jack that previously worked. You should hear absolutely nothing; the line should be totally dead. If the line’s not dead, go back and check your work. If your work looks correct and the line’s still not dead, it means that voltage is somehow still being carried on the line and it’s not safe for you to proceed any further. Consult a professional electrician or telephone technician for help.

STEP THREE – CONNECT YOUR PHONE ADAPTER

• If you’ve successfully isolated your wiring and you’ve confirmed the line is dead, the hard part’s over. It’s time to connect to your SwitchWorks Home Phone Box!?
• Simply plug your DSL/cable modem into the Home Phone Box. Then plug your Home Phone Box into any telephone jack using a standard telephone cord. Finally, plug regular phones into the other jacks in your house. Telephone jacks are wired in parallel, so when you plug your phone adapter into any working jack, it will spread the signal to the other jacks in your home.
• Like any telephone line, there is a limit to the number of phones you can connect to a single line. If too many phones are connected, the signal will fade, and not all of the phones will ring when a call comes in. Therefore, we recommend you only connect five phones maximum to a single line.

Congratulations! Your home is now wired with SwitchWorks Home Phone!