Phone jacks not working

Question

I have phone service through Verizon fios. I have a Motorola ONT1000GJ4 box. When Fios was installed I only used two jacks in the house and both work. The original installation has a wire with a regular phone line connector connected to the test 1 port on the Motorola ONT. This line is spliced to what appears to be the original house phone wiring. Below the test 1 jack are two rows of connections one labeled 1 and the other 2. These connections are not jack connections but receive the wire directly (2 wires). The original installation connected two other connections under the ones labeled 1. These phone jacks do not work and may have never worked. They are to the Jacks installed as part of an addition to the house previous to FIOS. My question is should this work? Was the original installation correct? What can I do?

Thanks

gs0b · Accepted Answer

The test jacks should not be used for regular service.  Service should be provided using the phone line connection points.

When a cable is plugged into the test jacks, the service connections are disconnected.  The intent is that end users can simply diagnose wiring problems by plugging a phone into the test jacks.  If the phone works, the ONT and phone network are working and any problems must be with the wires.

If your setup was installed with some phones connected to the test jack and the rest connected to the service connections, then only the test jack phones will be active.  You can test this be removing the plug in the test jack; then the jacks using the service connection should become live.  If this is the case, I suggest you re-wire your ONT so all phones are connected to the service jack and the test jack is left unused.

Good Luck.