No dial tone on Verizon landline, DSL operating normally

[frank1492]

I have an appointment for Ag 20. I'd blame the strike except that I have some sort of problem every year. Beach house, high winds, lots of salt.

[frank1492]

Thank you for these details. I have been to this forum and have received several ideas. Verizon has run a line test from the office and tells me nothing is wrong which is puzzling. I will do what you have suggested but am tied up with another matter at the moment. What can the DSLReports tech do that the phone company couldn't?

[RogerT]

In addition to what others have said, I just have two things to add in case it helps.

One is, what happens when you call your own number from another phone? Does it sound like it is ringing when you listen on the phone you are calling from? Do you get a busy signal?

And, the second is, do you have an alarm system (or maybe the DSL hookup) that is wired directly to the telephone company side of the D-Mark? The phone company says that nothing is supposed to be connected directly to their side of the D-Mark, but sometimes alarm company installers and others ignore this and do it anyway.

I mention these because I had a phone line problem recently and there was no dial tone. When the phone company came out, they said my alarm system was connected to their side of the D-Mark, which it shouldn't be. However, that was not the problem. Also, in my case, although there was no dial tone, including after doing the same tests you did, when I called my number from another phone I always got a busy signal. It turned out that my problem was in the buried phone line going to the house (we have buried incoming phone lines in my area). They had to call out the "buried cable" guys to fix the problem.

[frank1492]

Thanks Roger! The last people to work on the interface were Verizon techs when they ran a dedicated line to my DSL because I was having speed issues. All was fine for awhile. No alarm guys here. People that call get a busy signal. I will mention again that V did a line test from the office and they said everything was normal.

[Home Guy]

frank1492 used improper usenet message composition style by top-poasting:

Those details did not include if you had physically disconnected your home's internal phone wires from the demark point such that they can absolutely be ruled out as causing your apparent off-hook condition.

Someone else mentioned an alarm system. Do you have an alarm system wired into your phone wires?

It's quite possible that you have a device connected to your home's network of phone wires. An alarm system. A stand-alone call-display unit. An overlooked portable phone base. A faulty phone extention cable.

By physically disconnecting ALL your home's internal phone cables from the demark point, only then are you able to rule out anything beyond the demark point as the cause of the problem. I don't believe you've clearly said if you've done that (complete physical disconnection from the demark).

[Home Guy]

frank1492 top-poasted:

Just to clarify something:

The techs that answer the questions posted to the direct forums on dslreports work for the various companies (Verizon, Comcast, ATT, etc). Their normal dayjob is with those companies. They have an arrangement with DSLReports which gives them the ability to read and deal with the issues posted by customers.

I don't know the history of how that arrangement came about, but I can imagine that as DSLreports became popular as the place people went to to discuss cable, telecom and internet issues, and as the various big companies were slow (or still haven't) developed a credible on-line service portal of their own, it became clear that having a presence on dslreports was beneficial to everyone concerned.

[mike]

Which is why the check for -48V is relevant.

[frank1492]

I have two phones and a modem which I have tried disconnecting. I did not disconnect the house wiring at the box but will try when I get the time. I do not have an alarm system, but I do have a standalone answering machine, which I thought I had ruled out but will check again. Actually I thought the jack at the interface wasn't supposed to require any of that. Although I am not an expert on interfaces I have never had Verizon tell me that I would have to disconnect my home wiring in order for that test to be reliable. Perhaps you could explain further.

[Home Guy]

Uh hu. Ok, so any other devices? Fax machine maybe?

Typically the exact "demarc" point is a modular jack or terminal block mounted to the wall, probably near to where your electrical service panel is. All the phone jacks in your house are wired to this demarc.

The demarc might look like one of these:

You have a condition where you're not getting a dial-tone, but your DSL service is still working. Most likely there is a device (phone, fax, answering machine, possibly even the DSL modem itself, or a DSL filter) that is causing an "off-hook" condition. It's like the handset of a phone that's hidden somewhere in your house was lifed off it's cradle and just left like that - off hook.

I don't believe you've said if there is a phone jack at your demarc point. Ideally there should be - the rest of my instructions will assume you have one there.

Your phone service is supplied by 2 wires (typically red and green). You might 4 wires in total coming in from the outside (red, green, black and yellow). Locate the two that are connected to your home's phone wires. Or you might have just two wires (both of them black).

Once you've located the two wires that are connected to your home's phone wires, its only necessary to disconnect one of those wires from your home's phone wiring (but not to the service jack that should be located nearby). This means your DSL modem will also be cut off and you will lose your internet connectivity (but only for as long as this wire is disconnected).

Once you do that (disconnect one wire) you've effectively cut off any problem device from the incoming phone line, and the line should return to an "on-hook" condition. Now at this point you need to have a known, good working phone (how you determine that might be trial and error, or plug it into a friend's or neighbor's house and verify that it works). Take that phone and plug it into the jack at your demarc point (assuming there is one). If there isin't one, if your handy with a screwdriver then you should be able to connect an ordinary phone jack to your incoming phone line, and remember to keep the rest of your home's phone wires disconnected from the incoming line.

Once the known-good working phone is connected to your incoming phone line, lift up the handset and see if you have a dial tone. If you have one, then you've just established that a service call from the phone company is not required, because the problem with with some device in your home - or even with the wiring itself.

[Dave]

The demarc at my house automatically cuts loose the house when you pull the wire plug out in order to plug a test phone in. Quite simple.

[RogerT]

You may have already done this, but the NID (see

) has two sections -- one for the owner access, and one for the phone company access. When you open the owner side of the NID, you should be able to unplug all of the plugs and plug a telephone directly in there to see if you get a dial tone. I think you said you already did this.

To be sure that nothing other than the incoming phone lines are connected to the other side -- the phone company side -- you would need to open their side up and look. You probably already did this too, but that is the side where my phone guy recently said that my alarm company had connected the alarm system directly to the incoming phone line. As long as there is nothing from your house (an alarm system DSL wiring, etc.) that is wired directly to the phone company side of the NID, then the test you did of unplugging the plugs and plugging a phone directly into the owner side of the NID to test for a dial tone should be sufficient.

Again, since I think you said you already did all of this anyway, the problem clearly is in the phone lines going from your house back to the phone company.

And, even though when you called the phone company said they ran a test on the line and is shows up fine, you cannot go by that. They recently told me the same thing regarding another house that I own (not the one with underground phone lines that I mentioned before). They told me that the line tests fine and I said that can't be correct because if I call my number from any phone I get a busy signal and there is no one home and no phones are off the hook etc. So, I asked them if they could try actually calling my phone number -- rather than just "running a test on the line" -- and tell me what happens. When they did that, they said I was right, they do get a busy signal -- and since no one is home they said there must be a short or problem in the wiring going to the house. That's what ended up being the problem -- a bad wire going from my house to a nearby junction box on one of their poles.

[George]

Why would he need to do all that? Once you pull the modular plug for that line at the NID it is end of story for any premise wiring or devices being the problem.

[RogerT]

My NID looks like this:

(the first picture) and is on the outside of my house.

From there, the wires do come into the house and go to something that looks like this:

which is what you posted and I guess is called a demarc.

When I go to the outside of my house and open up the owner side of the NID, and then unplug anything that is plugged into the owner side, everything from the inside of my house is isolated from the incoming phone lines (unless someone miswired the NID and accessed the phone company side of the NID).

[Home Guy]

I'm sure there is still a large variety of telco wiring and demarcation / connection methods / connectors / jacks / terminal blocks still in place all across US / Canada.

You can't say or assume that any given house has had their demarc updated to reflect the current practice used today for new home hookup.

[Home Guy]

I don't recall him saying that all his home phone wires end in a single RJ-11 jack plugged into his demark.

How do you know that he doesn't have this:

as his demark - with a wall-mounted RJ-11 jack wired into it close by as his service or "test" jack?

[Home Guy]

Look closely at that picture. There is no "jack" by which you can simply unplug your entire home wiring from that terminal block.

Your home wiring is "hard wired" to those binding posts. The only way to disconnect your home wiring from those posts is with a socket or nut-driver (or wire-cutters).

Which is why I keep saying that not everyone has a demarc point to which their entire home phone wiring is connected to via a modular RJ-11 plug that they can simply dis-connect by unplugging the plug.

[George]

But their certainly is in the picture of the NID he also included.

If you have a "box" (NID) outside there is always a plug which allows you to easily disconnect your stuff and allows telco access without needing to go inside. That is the entire point of the NID.

His wiring reflects a typical older phone service that terminated on an inside carbon protector block. At some point the telco was doing work there and they did a typical installation of a NID outside while leaving the protector block in place.

[RogerT]

I understand what you are saying. Not everyone has the same setup, and the OP may or may not have an NID box on the outside of their house like I was describing. However, the OP wrote, "Have tried phones directly from the box and also no dial tone", so maybe he does have an NID like I do.

But, now that I think about it, I am confusing my houses, and what I wrote above about having an NID on the outside of my house and the wiring then going from there to the inside of my house where there is a hardwired demarc block like the one you described was incorrect. On that house, the wiring does come straight in from the phone company to the hardwired demarc block, with no NID on the outside.

It is on one of my other houses that has an NID like I described on the outside of the house. On THAT house, unplugging the jack from the owner side of the NID does disconnect the whole in-house phone system.

Sorry about the confusion. I actually had two separate phone line problems going on a two different houses, both in almost exactly the same time period a few weeks ago. For one, the problem was an underground cable. For the other the problem was a line problem going from my house to a nearby terminal on a pole. In both cases, I had no dial tone, and in both cases, calling my phone numbers from somewhere else just produced a busy signal. And, in both cases, all I would hear on my phone was a slight hiss but no dialtone. I do not have DSL service at either house so that wasn't a factor as it is in the OP's case.

[Home Guy]

Heh.

Don't rule out intentional sabotage or tampering...

====================

Verizon Site Mischief Cuts Police Phone Service State Trooper Says Someone With Keys Went In Underground Vault

POSTED: 11:00 am EDT August 12, 2011

LEMONT FURNACE, Pa.

State police in Uniontown said a 29-hour loss of landline phone service was caused by an act of criminal mischief when someone went into locked underground Verizon vaults and shut off the power.

Trooper Timothy Kirsch said there was no forced entry at the sites on Main Street and on Route 119 in Lemont Furnace, near the Penn State Fayette campus. Police believe whoever shut off the power had keys.

Police are trying to determine if the incident, which began at about

9:30 p.m. Tuesday, is related to an ongoing strike by Verizon landline workers.

The local state police barracks was without phone and computer service for 21 hours, police said. Calls had to be forwarded to dispatchers who worked out of another barracks several miles away.

All of the Lemont Furnace area -- including many local businesses -- had no communication, data and cellphone service for about 29 hours, police said.

Police have no suspects and have made no arrests. =================

[Home Guy]

Yes. Roger says he has a box outside his house.

But Roger isin't the guy with the problem that started this thread.

Way too many generalizations in that paragraph.

I could just as easily say that the outside box is secured with tamper-proof screws or bolts and it not easily opened by the average homeowner, and that there's no garantee that there's a modular connector in the box vs just a hard-wired spliced connection to the demarc inside the home.

But regardless - I don't believe the OP (frank1492) mentioned anything about having an outside box.