Fussy Messy VoIP

Last Sunday was as boring as thinking about going to work the next day. Not a pleasing thought to start any week considering the negative vibes at the work place with what the management has created as of late.

To rid myself of the unsettling thoughts, I kept myself busy for the day. I took on the pending task of addressing the criss-crossing of wires and cables at the living room. Wifey hated it. I have to agree too.

It had been like that since the switch-over was made from the paid Singtel analog land-lines to Starhub's free digital voice broadband line. Well, at least do not have to be bothered with the monthly phone bills anymore... well, not for two years anyway.

The in-wall analog lines that run across all rooms in the house were rendered useless upon the fix-up of the VoIP modem tapped from the cable outlet at the living room.

Where the modem was fixed, we had to move our bedroom main cordless phone to connect to it. The other two wireless phones in Sonny's and my gym room were able to work properly.

Unfortunately, our fax-phone at the living room became useless as there was no way to connect without running a long cable across the entire living room.

Before I could think of a solution to this mess, we had to live with the inconvenience.

Not all is bad actually. The switch-over had benefited us immediate upon its connection.

We used to pay about S$30 to $40 per month on IDD calls alone to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Wifey now smiles brightly when she saw our first phone bill only at S$1.57 for a 20 minutes overseas call.

Wifey can now talk to her Mom without one eye looking at the clock or rush and cut short her conversation anymore. She can now call her Mom as often as I call my folks locally. The new IDD charges are also so much cheaper than the previous telco. It is indeed a sweet deal.


The worst part of this switch-over was the need to get out of bed to pick up a call. It was even frustrating to run to the phone and picked-up a "sorry, wrong number" call in the middle of the night. Then I had trouble going back to sleep after the 5 metre night sprint.

Nobody wants to receive a call in the wee hours of the morning. It usually means and reserves for emergencies and unpleasant news.

One time, I was rudely awoken from my sleep. I had to get out of bed and ran to the phone thinking something unsettling. Groggily, I found out it was Mom... she just wanted to chat thinking it was only going on 10 o'clock when it was in fact close to midnight.

Profusely she apologized for overlooking and waking me up, but it was better than any bad news to me. Phew!

It turned out to be a simple solution... as all solutions are.


I just had to feed the phone wire from the Modem back to the in-wall outlets. All the lines in the rooms were instantly connected to the new digital line. So too is my fax-phone. All the phones went back to its proper places. Yes!

At least some good came out of my tired mind. I got to check one item from the "things to do" list off my mind... then the SMS from ADT came again.

It requested me to call and perform a check on my Home Security System which I had been ignoring many times before... and come to think of it, since the switch-over.

I returned to call only to find out that the security system was disconnected from its analog phone line and will have to be reconfigured to digital with a fee of S$30 after they waived the S$40 transport fee.

They will have to get access to my home panel for it this Friday. Oops!

Have I compromised my home security for now?