Check Tel Line

dmwesq15

For the 2nd time in the past month, one of the two lines in my home shows "Check tel line" and the line itself appears dead. The other line in the house is working fine.

Last time this happened I checked at the ONT and both lines worked, and I plugged a phone into both jacks on the ONT, and the dead line started working again.

Today we had a power surge from our utility company (don't know if we had a similar surge last time) and I repeated the same troubleshooting step at the ONT box, where again both lines are working at the box. However, this time the one line is still dead after testing at the ONT.

I have multiple jacks throughout the house and they are all dead on the one line in question.

I am trying to figure out the best way to try to troubleshoot this before calling in Verizon and paying for the tech to come out.

I know the line from the ONT runs through my garage and into a crawlspace. I would also assume, although not 100% certain, that the line then runs up to my attic, and from there splits off to the various jacks throughout the house.

The first question I have is whether these lines are all on a daisy chain up to the point they split. If all the lines are not working, I would assume the problem is not at any one terminal jack but at some point where the lines split, unless they are all in a single line where a problem at the first jack in the run would knock out all the others?

Appreciate any insight into this.

dexman

There are a couple of possibilities, but a few additional questions.

When the telephone line is dead, if you pick up the receiver and blow air into the mouthpiece, do you hear the wind sound in the earpiece? (This is called "sidetone").

If you call the telephone number in question when it isn't working, what do you hear....Ring no Answer....Busy Signal....something else?

Has the telephone line reactivated since the power failure?

Knowing that the telephone line in question usually comes back up by disconnecting the cable plugged into the jack on the ONT, plugging in another cable to test directly with a telephone and then plugging the original cable back in has me wondering if the modular plug on the original cable isn't making consistent contact and that moving the cable around temporarily rectifies the problem.

If possible, could a picture of the ONT and the cabling connected to it be posted for us to look at? (Submitted pictures go into queue for a moderator to inspect before it appears out in the open).