No dial tone on any jacks in my house

[Guitarman3]

Since yesterday our phone line sounds like a phone is off the hook.  I have unplugged all phones and tried an old princess phone in all jacks and I just get a light static.  I have plugged the princess phone in at the NID and it works there.  But how do I know where the problem is in the house if all jacks have the same issue?  There are at least 3 phone wires going into the NID.  Our cordless phones report that the line is in use.  I have no idea what to do next.  Please help!!  Thank you!  Dennis

[mleduc35651]

It might be worth a service call as their tools and experience can find it quickly.

But.

Firstly has anything happened in the home around the time this started? Any new equipment connecting to the phone jacks? Any renovations or service installations that might have impacted a wire in a wall?

Is there just the one wire leaving the NID? Does that wire use a splitter to branch off to the other 3?

If yes unplug everything coming out of the splitter. Then plug your test phone into each port and see if you get dial tone.

You can pick up a coupler like this ->http://www.outletpc.com/c6297.html

Place this in place of your splitter to one line at a time. Then plug your test phone into whereever that line leads.

You could try peering with a flashlight into each jack. You should see 2-4 metal wires that the male jack slides up against. They should all be straight and not touch each other. If you see any that are bent then that might be causing the short.

You can also open up the jacks.Can be a good idea here to take a good picture or two so you can remember where it all goes .  They can be a single run to one jack or the jack can be in series to other jacks. If you see one set of wires coming then you can disconnect that jack by looseing a screw and removing one wire.

If 2 sets of wires come into the box it gets a bit trickier as you have to disconnect the wires from the screw but leave them connected to each other to test the next jack down the line.