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MurphySM · Sep 1, 2008, 05:50 PM

I wonder if you all might have some insights on my current issue. We have been living in this 75 year old house for 2.5 years now and have had both telephone and DSL up and running for the full 2.5 years. They come in on the same line and then on this really old bay of terminals the lines separate out to the individual jacks in the different rooms (all of the same colored wires connect to the same terminal - red, green, black, yellow).

All of a sudden last week our voice line has no dial tone inside the house but the DSL still works. I called the phone company and they said there was no external issue. So, I went out to the NID and plugged in a phone and the phone line works out there. So, for the past week I have been trying one thing after the other to get this to work. I finally decided to connect the voice line wires directly to the wire coming in from the NID and IT WORKS!! So, I connected the line that is used in the office for the DSL (assuming the issue was with the terminals that all the wires were connected to) and went about my business.

About ten minutes later I picked up the telephone receiver to make a call and once again found no dial tone. So, I once again picked up my tools to find out what was wrong. What I discovered was that the voice line works fine until the DSL wires are connected. I tested this out by having a phone in hand with a working dial tone and then connected the wires that lead to the DSL jack. As soon as the wires connected the dial tone disappeared.

Any idea why this is happening? Could there have been a change on the phone companies end that is preventing both to work together like it had been for the past 2.5 years? Nothing had been touched with the phone/DSL system until we had no dial tone, so I know it wasn't a user error.

Any help would be appreciated
Sean

MurphySM · Sep 1, 2008, 05:54 PM

By the way, I should note that I am a complete amateur with telephony so I probably won't know any of the terminology that has been used in the other posts. So, if at all possible please KIS (yes, I left the last S off because from what I've read you all are far from stupid)
Thanks.

Stratmando · Sep 2, 2008, 01:35 PM

Monitor the voltage on your voice line when hooking up DSL. It should remain about 48 volts.
If a short, or heavily loaded down. DSL will work, but not voice. Either can't touch ground.

MurphySM · Sep 2, 2008, 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by Stratmando

Monitor the voltage on your voice line when hooking up DSL. It should remain about 48 volts.
If a short, or heavily loaded down. DSL will work, but not voice. Either can't touch ground.

So, what is it that could have caused this to happen? Seeing as it has been working for the past 2.5 years. And what is the solution? Do I need to make sure there are no connections touching a grounding?

Stratmando · Sep 2, 2008, 03:46 PM

I would unplug all phones, test with know good phone, while phone is unplugged, look inside ALL jack at pins to see if green or black, they should be Gold as well as cord ends.

KISS · Sep 5, 2008, 04:40 AM

Murphy:

You never mentioned the use of filters. Are you using one on the telephone? The filter could be defective. I'll assume that there is no DSL splitter in or out of the NID.

Try unplugging the DSL modem and with no filter, plug the phone into the DSL jack and then plug the phone into the normal phone jack and report what happens.

As a final test to eliminate the internal wiring, get a dual telephone adapter and plug it into the test port. Connect the DSL modem and the phone with a filter to the dual jack. You may need to power the modem, but you don't have to have any other connections.

Assuming this works, you have narrowed it down to inside wiring. If it doesn't, then it could be cables, filter, phone or modem.