Question : Does my computer docking station need to be connected to phone line?
I am moving my home office to a different room. Have a home network so am wireless and can use my laptop anywhere in the house. When working at my desk, I use my docking station. The docking station is currently connected to the phone line with an ethernet connection. Since I am wireless, is it really necessary for the docking station to be connected to the phone line when I change rooms? Does it have any impact on peripherals such as printer or monitor?
docking station

Best answer:

Answer by Capricorn1
First off, I don’t think you have a phone line connected to an Ethernet port/jack. If you have inserted a phone cable into an Ethernet port, it would only fit in there very loosely as Ethernet ports (with 8 wires) are wider than a phone jack (with 2 or 4 wires). Most docking stations have both a phone and Ethernet jack because most laptop have both a built-in modem and built-in wired Ethernet networking.

The phone port would be used when you are docked in order to use dial-up networking or to send & receive faxes from & to your computer (if you have fax software). That assumes your laptop has a built-in modem, which almost all do. The wired Ethernet jack would be to connect your computer to a wired network when you are docked. It sounds like you are not using either the modem or wired Ethernet ports, so there is no need to hook a phone line up to the phone jack. There’s no harm either short of your phone line getting hit by lightning or some such. None of your other computer peripherals will need the phone line for anything.