I have a question about my home telephone connection, please read details below and answer if you can.?

Question

My father has a rotary phone connected in our living room, with I believe a 4 pronged plug in. He would like to connect an answering machine which has the newer kind of connection (jack-?). The kind that would plug into a computer for dial up. Now, what I need to know is if there is some type of connector I could buy at home depot to connect the answering machine or do I have to call the phone company and have them install new phone jacks into the wall to allow to plug in the answering machine to work with or without the rotary phone (the answering machine is on the base of a cordless phone). If you aren't clear as to what I am asking, please email me at [e-mail]. I really don't want to go to home depot if I don't have to and am leaving soon, so please let me know ASAP! Thank you!

Answer 1

they do sell an adapter that will connect the old 4 prong in the front of the round jack connectors to the modular plugs in use today, if you purchace one of these adapters you will have no where to pulg the old rotary phone into, unless you connect this to a diffrent jack then the phone...

you can also simply install a phone jack next to this old style jack, so that you can continue to use the old phone, and the answering machine...

there should be 2 screws in the front of that jack that connect it to the baseboard, removing those two screws will allow you to take the old jack off the wall, you just need to connect a short wire from the screws on the back of this jack (red/green) to the red/green of the new jack, and s***w that jack and the new one back onto the wall...

I would not go thru having to pay the phone company so much money to "install" a new jack and pay close to 100 for something so simple..