| You can go to the telephone interface box which will be located most likley outside, where your telephone service comes in (normally somewhere near the electric meter). You will notice there is a panel for customer access. This is where you can add lines and test your wiring. Use a screw driver, or what ever tool is nessesary to access the customer access panel. Inside you will find a "test jack" just like the wall jacks in your house.
I think the test jack actually has a phone cord plugged into it. If you unplug this, you will unplug your house. Plug a regular corded phone into this test jack. If you hear a clear dial tone, then the problem is in your house wiring, if you do not, then the problem is in the phone companies lines.
It should be noted, that if you use DSL, then there will be some static in the line. You may use one of your DSL filters on this test jack to elliminate the static.
Also, you may want to get on verizons phone maintence plan, where I live, verizon charges a fee, of I think a few dollars a month that will waive the cost of having a tech come out and repair inside house wiring. I think now they even offer one for phones too. |