Telephone line troubleshooting

Step one is to determine if it is the phone company or your house. To do this, go outside and find the box where the lines come in. Inside is a connector from the house to the phone company. Disconnect the house, plug in a phone to the interface, see if you have a dial tone. If yes, it is your problem and expect to pay for the service call.

You did the right thing taking all the phones off the line so th at should eliminate the problem if it is one of your devices. Have you done any work in the fast few months? I lost my phones after an unused line was cut, but the corrosion did not short it out until months later.

Plug a corded phone into the jack in the entrance box. If it works the problem is in your house.

I don't have a network interface box so there is no telephone plug where the wires come in. Instead there is what I believe is called a entrance bridge. I tested for voltage between the green and red wires. I got 24 volts. I am not sure whether this is within the range of voltage I should find.

If you had wiring problems one of the first things to suffer is your DSL.

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That is what I would think. Yet I still have my DSL connection. So is there a problem that would cause my telephone line not to work, but that would not prevent my internet connection from working?

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Google "DSL filter". It seems like a bad DSL filter might affect the phones but not the computer connection. Just guessing here.

Jerry

48 volts is about right if no phone or other device is "off the hook". Although I would have expected a somewhat lower number, 24 volts could indicate some device is still trying to use the phone line. Are you sure there's nothing you've overlooked - an autodialer in a burglar alarm, an unused computer modem, a caller-ID box?

As others have said, assuming your internet connection is DSL, the fact that it's working is a pretty good (although not

100%) sign that your phone line is in good shape.

Eric Law

Well, that clinches it: You're making it up. Quit it and leave the poor company alone.

It can be helpful if, using a working phone (cell phone, neighbor's phone, etc), you dial your number and see what you get. Ring/no answer would suggest an OPEN somewhere. A busy signal would indicate a line fault/short somewhere.

Take a working phone to the Network Interface and plug it in. Since you don't have one, and you even made that abundantly clear, I thought I would join the others and make the same, inane suggestion anyway.

Since you don't have a SNID (Standard Network Interface Device), you can probably await a repair without worry for a charge, even if the trouble is INSIDE your home.

Yeah, it did me, too, the first time I encountered such a repair. DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) will work over a SINGLE conductor, even a rather faulted one. It takes a "clean" pair for dialtone to work.

I don't either, but I've managed to fool my employer. Please don't tell on me.

That's as good a term as any other. Without seeing the situation, I suppose you have a "grandfathered" demarc. That is simply a station "protector" device where the service "drop" and station wire are "commoned" on binding posts. This is not a bad thing.

OK, you are an order of magnitude beyond the average telephone subscriber simply by virtue of using the word "multimeter", much less possessing and using one.

24 volts across the pair suggests an OPEN pair.

Ideally, one side of the pair should have -0- volts with SOLID continuity to ground while the other side, with one test lead connected to ground, should have -48 to -52 VDC.

Wait for your phone to ring. I'll bet "they" don't even have to come to the house. Please let us know what happened. Good luck.

Surprising as it seems, this is just not true. It is quite possible to have DSL and no dial tone. This often is the case when the line gets shorted out by something like water in the box (has it rained hard lately?), or animals gnawing on the insulation, or just plain corrosion. In some ways the DSL signal is more tolerant than POTS. BTW, if your DSL is still connected, then you don't have everything unplugged. Try unplugging the DSL and plug in one phone to check for a dial tone.

Hard to imagine tho. I beleive a DSL filter goes on each voice phone line, meaning each one would need to be faulty?

Unless one is shorted internally and dragging everything else down with it?

The voltage should be 48 volts but only if nothing is connected to it. Disconnect your DSL and check your voltage.With it connected it should be 24 volts. A DSL will work with they call a dry line. In other words you do not have to have phone service to use he internet . If your internet works and you have 48 volts with DSL and everything disconnected then the fault definitely rests with the phone company.

I don't think so. DSL is just an add on, the line looks the same. Mine,

2 minutes ago, read 46 volts across the tip and ring. The lower voltage, 46 volts instead of the higher 48 to 52 volts, I think, comes from the fact that my line comes from a remote vault about 3 blocks away. The DSL also comes from that vault. They use a Lucent product called Lightwave 2000 to remote the line from the central office to the vault.

Sounds like a wiring corrosion or equipment problem. Nothing on your end though, you'll have to wait until the repair tech gets there. The DSL signal is voltage-independent and so it is not affected (enough to shut it down). I know is sucks to sit and wait but you need to let the PhoneCo handle that.

Good luck!

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You may be right about the corrosion or equipment problem. If not in this case then in many other instances this is true. That is one main reason Verizon is dropping copper lines and going to FiOS. The maintenance costs of corroding copper and especially the power supplies at the Central Office used to power everything is prohibitively high. And of course the other main reason is they had to find a way to compete with the cable companies in regard to delivering video content.

The initial cost of bringing fiber all the way to the premise is high but the future dividends will pay off handsomely, at least Verizon is betting the farm on it.

Although I would have expected a somewhat lower

line. Are you sure there's nothing you've

caller-ID box?

it's working is a pretty good (although not

DSL and no dial tone. This often is the case

rained hard lately?), or animals gnawing on the

tolerant than POTS. BTW, if your DSL is still

and plug in one phone to check for a dial

Um... gee... that's why I put the "not 100%" part in!

Although in my experience with maybe 30 different installations, I've seen "dialtone with no DSL" numerous times, have never seen "DSL with no dialtone".

Good idea about unplugging the DSL though, and as other posters have said, the filters too.

Eric

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Your DSL can and does get by on only one wire. I went through this with local VZ, with the same symptoms and the same results. First, it is a telphone problem. Work with the folks at VZ tel vice VZ broadband. Here are some of the things I was told:

Of all that I did, calling VZ and telling them that my next call was to the VA Public Utility Commission appeared to be the most effective. HOWEVER, I then,per the instructions in the phone book, emailed their consumer complaint folks. I told them that having no 911 for 5 days was totally unsat, and the next email was going to the SCC, just as they provide for in the book.

The problem, which was never disclosed. simply went away by the end of the day Oh, the next day, the phone was fine and the DSL went out BTW - I was advised that "the requirement" is that POTS be restored within 24 hours, since you have no 911 service. That is the point I hammered home to the phone company HTH starrin

Not necessarily. Some of the material I googled indicated that a DSL installation might involve a splitter, right at the phone line entrance to the premises. One line in, two lines out. One of the two lines goes to the DSL modem only. The other line goes to all the voice telephone jacks. In this case, 1 filter would suffice for all the voice jacks.

Jerry

Update: The telephone repairman came out today. The problem was outside the house in the telephone company's lines. My wife was at home not me so I don't know what the problem was in the telephone company's equipment. The repairman mentioned work was being done about two miles from my house that apparently caused the problem. Interestingly, my connection seemed to be the only one effected.