I've been a Verizon custmer for as long as I can remember (in my late 50's). I've been living in this smae house now for 10 years - no changes to wiring etc. I have land line and DSL service - never an issue. I woke up one morning back in June and no dial tone. I unplugged each phone one at a time etc., did not solve the problem. I took a phone out to the service box and plugged it into the jack outside and it works just fine. I happened to have a long length of phone wire and so I ran it out the window to the jack outside. Thankfully both DSL and phone now work. One odd thing is that my phone will ring now twice per day - 2 rings and at exactly at the same time am & pm. Also, when ever I end a phone call (hang up) the phone will ring once. These behaviors are consistent. The wiring inside the house can't be more than 10 years old as this how old the house is. I have changed nothing except putting the inline filters on each phone when I got DSL 5/6 years ago. I live alone and have not had any service calls by any other utility company so its not that a service person accidently caused a problem with the wiring. I can not afford to call a service tech out to the house only to find out that its somehow my responsibilty as I no longer work and have serious heath issues now and medical bills through the roof. Not whining, just explaining. I know, "you can afford DSL though ?". Yes, the 'net its my only contact with the outside world. I live alone and don't know any of my neighbors. Again, not whining, just 'splaining ! Anyhow, I thought maybe a lightning strike but then the service jack would be fried too so that can't be it.I have only a crawl space access to the house wiring and crawling around down there trying to test the wiring will be painful and difficult to say the least. I thought that maybe I could un hook and splice say the green wire to the red wire on the outside jack and then put the probes from a continuity tester across the green/red termianls at each inside jack so as to test for a break in the line might work ? Of course I'd have to repeat for each color which means a lot of running outside and back in again but I guess I could do it if need be. I only have 3 rooms, each with a modular wall jack and a phone in each + the DSL wire/jack. Other than this I'm all out of ideas and not even sure if the splicing idea even makes sense ? If anyone could help with an answer/advice, I'd be extremely grateful as the cold weather will be coming soon and having a wire go out through an opened window - even if only crack, will not cut it when it gets -30 here !! Thanx much....
So, perhaps it's a break between the DMARK and the inside wiring. Since you have a long length of cable, go out to the DMARK and unplug the house wiring cable like you did before and plug in one end of your long phone cable. Then, come back inside and plug the other end into any available phone jack that used to work. Go around and see if any of the other phones now work. If so, there's a cable break between the DMARK and your first outlet somewhere -- if you know where that outlet might be, you might also check that outlet for a loose wire. Only way to fix that is to have someone take a look at it for you or pull new wire yourself.
Thank you for responding. Yes, I do have a long length of phone wire but its part of a phone company reel 'thingamajig' and I'd have to cut the jack off the end thereby ruining the piece. If I did cut the end off I'd then have no way to use my phone/DSL if I couldn't do the needed repairs immediately. This is why I was asking about the 'splice' procedure. I think my 'logic' is correct - if you unscrew the green and red wires out at the box and splice them together they'd form a continuous loop from the outside box to the green/red wires at the wall jack. Of course one can splice any 2 of the colored wires to make the 'loop' and it can be spliced at either end - inside at wall jack or outside at box....that is 'I think so'.... Then I put the probes of my continuity detector on the corresponding red/green wire ends at the opposite end and see if I have a continuous, unbroken 'loop' (?)This wouldn't answer whether there was a corrosion issue or not but it should show if there's a break in one of the wires. The house is comparatively 'new' as houses go and I can't help but think there's something else going on here - especially since the phone rings twice per day at the exact hour/minute/second every day and also rings once whenever I hang up the phone. I was hoping a Verizon person would see my post as there has to be something particular to Verizon I think that someone who does/handles repairs would recognize. I'd find it hard to believe that the 2 calls per day and the ring when I hang up doesn't signify SOMETHING to do with trouble shooting/line testing or hardware characteristics known to Verizon. Again, thanks for taking the time to respond. Now if I could just get a Verizon person to do likewise !
I've had exactly that the same issue. Used to happen every spring when it got humid.
Tracked it down by disconnecting every device in the house that was connected to a phone jack and then started reconnecting them one by one until the dial tone disappeared. Found that it was an old jack in a bedroom that was in a wall that had a bathroom on the other side. Opened up the jack and found the cocopper connectors were green with corrosion and so when a device was plugged into the jack it was shorting all the terminals together. Changed the wall jack and all has been OK since.
Lasgna's idea is the easiest test. Go down to home depot/lowes or the like and get a long telephone extension cord. Plug one end into the nid and the other into a wall jack and see if the other wall jacks come live. Possibly had a squirrel or chipmunk who's been chewing the wire in the crawl space.
Testing the wire this way is the equivalent of your splicing test but easier. You're really only interested in the reg/green pair (line 1) and yellow/black (line2).
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