Work Life: VOIP Pass-Through for Dumb Switches

Are you implementing VOIP phones in your office but have certain places where you've got a dumb switch in place providing connectivity to computers, printers, etc? No problem! Here's all you do:

1. Connect the network cable into the wall jack as you normally would.
2. Plug the cable from the wall jack into the NETWORK jack on the phone.
3. Plug a network cable into the COMPUTER jack on the phone.
4. Plug the other end of the COMPUTER cable into the dumb switch. This gives your PC, printers, etc connectivity to the network!

This setup allows you to still pull your POE from the wall jack to the phone while giving the devices connected to the switch the network access they need via the phone's network pass-through. 

I have tested this on various brands of phones and various brands of POE switching. So far, they have each been able to provide the connectivity to the network needed by the dumb-switch devices while enabling the power and connectivity needed of the VOIP phone.

Hope this helps!

"Computer" jack (on left) goes to Dumb Switch

Connection from phone's Computer jack plugs into switch.

Note: This post assumes you have whatever equipment you need in place for the actual phones themselves (ex: POE switches and/or power injectors, etc)