Telephones aren't the only devices that connect to household telephone wiring. Base stations for cordless phones, answering machines, fax machines, modems, set-top cable TV boxes, and security systems all use the public telephone network to communicate with the outside world.
You may have extension phones in your kitchen, bedrooms, and other locations already, but in today's wired world, most homeowners find it helpful to have at least one or two telephone outlets in just about every room.It's not uncommon for a household to have two or more separate telephone lines. In addition to the main line that the family uses for voice calls, there may be a second line for teens and preteens to use for voice and modem calls.
Many homes also have a fax line and a line for the security alarm. And if you have a home-based business, or if you telecommute or often bring work home from the office, it's not unusual to install yet another dedicated voice line for business use.
DirecTV, Dish Network, and TiVo all use telephone lines to communicate with their set-top boxes. They might not need a full-time phone line, but they do need access to an outlet. A network gives you the versatility to plug in your phones and other equipment exactly where you want them.
Will you need another line when your children get older? Do you need a separate fax number for your home office? Do you plan to install an alarm system that will need a dedicated line to communicate with the monitoring center? A well-planned network provides a phone line to every room in the house where a phone might be used, and perhaps more than one line in the kitchen or the home office.
As your family grows older and your life changes, your telephone requirements will likely change too. So it's a good idea to have a flexible telephone system that will let you add, move, and change your telephone connections.
Once wires have been run from every telephone outlet back to a central network panel, it's a simple matter to add new phones and related devices to make the most efficient use of the various telephone lines coming into the house.
Wiring Home Networks
Computers, entertainment systems, satellite cable, and Internet connections are multiplying in virtually every household. Wiring Home Networks helps you understand these systems and shows you step-by-step instructions to help you create your own home networks for computers, video, audio, and phone systems. Copyright Sunset Publishing Corporation
