[usp1]

We use Vonage for our landline. I had it connected to the home network so that I could run several corded phones around the house in addition to a few cordless phones. The batteries of the old phone were dying so I decided to buy a new one. I bring it home and connect it to the network and all is working fine for about a day. After that whenever there was an incoming call, the phone would make a weird continuous ringing sound and the call would terminate. First I thought the new phone was a problem, but even when I unplug the new phone the other phones did the same thing. And things only got worse. As things stand now, no jack in the house even gets a dial tone, regardless of which jack I use to plug the vonage adapter.

If I plug the new phone (or an old corded phone) directly into the Vonage jack and bypass the home wiring, everything works fine. But this leaves me at the mercy of misplaced cordless phones.  I tried unplugging all devices except one, but as soon as I introduce the home wiring into the system I do not get any dial tone.

Any suggestions on how I should identify/isolate/fix the problem would be greatly appreciated.

[ctviggen]

That sounds like a tough one.  If you have a dial tone at the vonage box with no home network installed, then the problem is in the home network or the devices connected to it.  Unplug everything from the home network.  Connect the vonage box to the network.  Select one of the cables on the home network and connect to that (using a normal corded phone if you have one of those or whichever phone actually worked when directly connected to vonage).  Does that work?  If not, then you have to start looking at the wiring for the home network.  Unfortunately, not knowing how your network is connected, I can't make many suggestions. 

[Doublej]

It's possible that your Vonage box might have gone bad but let's assume for a moment that it is the wiring. Is the wiring a star configuration (e.g. all ports wired back to a central hub or is it daisy chained? If it's star wired then I would go to the hub and disconnect all of the runs except for one. If the phone system works then you can one by one add a run back until the phone system gets flaky. Disconnect this one and add back the rest. All should be good. If not you either have multiple bad lines or a bad box.

If the run is daisy chained then you have a similar process where you disconnect everything and then jack by jack add them back onto the network until you find where it gets flaky again.

Good luck.

[pansixt]

Good advice from Doublej.

You should also make sure that you try a new jumper between vonage and the jack/outlet. Sometimes it is that simple. Also unplug all phones in the house and try again to rule out a bad phone. If you have a dial tone straight from the vonage modem as you said, then it is fine.
Otherwise it sounds like a possible short in the home wiring, (usually at the interface or splice in one of the lines or at an outlet) and these can show up anytime despite coincidence.
Shorts in the house phone wiring can send the modem into over-current protection thus killing the dial tone.
Follow the troubleshooting advice from Doublej after you unplug all phones in the home, and you should figure it out. If not, let us know.
Then you break out the volt meter and test voltages. Happy troubleshooting.
James

Edit: I forgot to mention that you must also make sure the incumbent carrier ( the original land line phone provider) if there ever was one is disconnected at their interface device. You may have an enclosure which is either at the side of your home or maybe an old carbon type connecting block usually in the basement. If the enclosure is outside, you will have customer access on one side of it with a screwdriver. "Foreign Voltage" can come from them or a bad answering machine, Caller ID or other conflicting device.
Most telephone providers that use a phone modem can do a test for foreign voltage remotely. I am not sure about Vonage.