How to provide voice to more than 2 phones with WRTU54G-TM?

Question

I'd like to use this router to serve more than one phone on each port (since I have more than one phone in the house that share the same line). Ideally, I could connect the router to the wall jack and allow it to serve all of the phones in the house that are connected to that line - something that the User Manual specifically warns against. Any suggestions? Allowing the router to serve more than one phone per port would significantly broaden the market for this router, as the current restriction excludes anyone with more than one phone (including cordless) per line (Directory Number). WORKAROUND The only workaround that I can think of to get more than one phone on a line is a multi-handset cordless solution, where one base station connects to one Phone port, but it connects to multiple, cordless phones. Example: Vtech i5871). Other than this restriction, I am pleased with the new, T-Mobile-specific router, WRTU54G-TM. Robert

Answer 1

Hi -
Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any changes you can make to the router or phone service to change the way the voice mail indicator work with various phones.
The stutter tone has been a standard for a long time - I'm not sure what the variables might be between phones, but I've read a number of accounts of folks with other phones that do work the T-Mobile@home service and the Linksys router and activate the VMWI (visual message waiting indicator) properly.
If you haven't yet, I'd suggest trying T-Mobile customer care, asking for the department that supports @home service, or the Linksys router. Unfortunately, with the popularity of the new service, it seems that T-Mobile underestimated the need for tech support on this, and the wait times (which I normally found to be short for T-Mobile over the last 7 or 8 years I've been a mobile customer) are now generally pretty long. But you should be able to leave a phone number, and have them return the call to you if the wait queue is too long.
Also might be worth checking with the phone manufacturer to see if there's anything you can do to modify the way the phone works.
I did a LOT of googling about vmwi's, stutter tones, FSK (another technology for controlling vmwi's), etc. and was amazed at how LITTLE is out there on the net for an industry standard like this.
I wish I had more info to share with you about this. Please post back your experience -- this is clearly an area where we need more information sharing in general.
- Jon