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Telephone line

SplitIdentity

SplitIdentity

Well-Known Member
Mar 31, 2007
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Minnesota
Hey guys. So here's a question for you. We just moved into a new townhome and got centurylink installed. There were no phone jacks, so we installed one ourselves. The problem is, and I've tried several different outlets, the line seems to be dead. I ran a line from the test jack in the centurylink box outside, and the internet works. So it seems the line is dead somewhere inside. Could we have a faulty phone jack? Or would this likely be something in the wiring?
 
One thing I can think of is if you have an analog phone and the line you have is digital or vice versa. I see this happen a lot in commercial installs, but you shouldn't have that problem in your home.
 
So now they are building homes without phone jacks? That seems a bit premature. I know the numbers are decreasing, but the majority of the population still keeps a home phone. Last information I can find from April of last year only 26.6% of homes had no land line.
 
Very disappointed this isn't another ELO thread:

"Telephone Line" is a song by Electric Light Orchestra.
The song is track two on their 1976 album A New World Record and was the final single to be released from the LP until September 2006 when Surrender was released from the expanded reissue. It became their "biggest single success in the US and was their first UK gold award for a single. With ELO's continuing success in America it seemed obvious to Lynne to use an American ring tone during the song."[SUP][1][/SUP] Writer/guitarist, Lynne explained:
[TABLE="class: cquote"]
[TR]
[TD="align: left"]“[/TD]
[TD]To get the sound on the beginning, you know, the American telephone sound, we phoned from England to America to a number that we know nobody would be at, to just listen to it for a while. On the Moog we recreated the sound exactly by tuning the oscillators to the same notes as the ringing of the phone.[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]”[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
The song charted in the Top Ten in both the UK and the US, peaking at number 8 in the UK and number 7 in the US. In 1977, the song would reach number 1 in New Zealand and Canada. The US version of the single was released in green vinyl—as was the norm, many ELO singles were issued in different colors—but it was the only single that was green. It became the band's first single to achieve Gold sales figures.
 
The only explanation I can come up with is that you're a silly dinosaur who, for some reason, purchased a land line.
 
Centurylink internet, sillies. 12 mb/s interwebs is 1/2 the price of Comcast, and I got DirecTV.

So the modem pulls in the signal and connects online if hooked up to the test jack outside, but gets nothing after being connected to my self-installed phone jack. Is it possible that there are some wires that are not connected somewhere? If this was something i could do myself without having to wait for the landlord to come out, I would.
 
How did you wire it yourself? What did you do from the test jack outside to the outlet you are using? What kind of wire did you use? As in, did you use the same cord that you put phone jacks on or the wire they use to go from outside jack to your phone jack plate?
 
VeloClone said:
So now they are building homes without phone jacks? That seems a bit premature. I know the numbers are decreasing, but the majority of the population still keeps a home phone. Last information I can find from April of last year only 26.6% of homes had no land line.
Click to expand...

Stereotyping to the MAX here, but most of the cheap new construction = younger people (mid to late 20's). And those people don't have landlines. Maybe :nerd6bs:
 
Only two of the four wires are needed for the phone. Be sure you have the correct two on the jack you installed. Don't ask me which is which, but you should be able to google it.
 
urb1 said:
Only two of the four wires are needed for the phone. Be sure you have the correct two on the jack you installed. Don't ask me which is which, but you should be able to google it.
Click to expand...

If you have red/green/black/yellow and both lines are this, the red and green is all you need connected together to get a phone line. The other two are for if you have additional lines.

If you used the newer style wiring which is Blue/White, Orange/White, White/Orange and White/Blue, then you have to hook the red on the receptacle to White/Blue stripe and the green to the Blue/White stripe wire.

If that is the way you have them wired then recheck them to make sure a wire didn't come off or you aren't getting good contact.
 
Cyclonesrule91 said:
How did you wire it yourself? What did you do from the test jack outside to the outlet you are using? What kind of wire did you use? As in, did you use the same cord that you put phone jacks on or the wire they use to go from outside jack to your phone jack plate?
Click to expand...

The wiring was already there, by that I meant hooked up the phone jack to the existing wiring. We used the white-blue and the blue-white to connect to the red and green on the jack, which didn't work. So we switched to the white-orange and orange-white to connect, and still no good (we did switch to the orange outside in the box as well). Our modem is currently hooked up to the test jack in the gray box via a long telephone wire, and works perfectly. Which tells me that there is something not right with the internal wiring (which is what my inside phone jack is installed to), since we get signal through that, but not inside. And I did replace the phone jack to see if maybe the first one was faulty, and still no go.

I'm a little disappointed, since we've only been here for a week, and finding out that our wiring is potentially faulty. not sure how that would have passed an inspection?


urb1 said:
Only two of the four wires are needed for the phone. Be sure you have the correct two on the jack you installed. Don't ask me which is which, but you should be able to google it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, and this was my first thought, but I was able to talk to a centurylink guy in the neighborhood, who stopped in during his lunch break to check my work, and couldn't get it going. Good guy.
 
Go look from the outside jack to where it goes in the house and see if there is some place that is kinked or looks like an animal chewed it up. Then if your basement isn't finished go track it from there to where it goes up and see if you can see the same thing. My guess is the wire from the jack to the outside jack got cut, chewed on or something like that.
 
Another thing you could do is remove the phone jack plate and take unscrew the wires and take it to the line that you know works or grab another phone line that you can cut off one end and then wire it to the phone jack receptacle there and see if you have phone signal then. That would rule out if that is bad or if it is the wire.

And look at the wire stips on the inside of the plug. I had a problem with connectivity once and looked and one of the contact wires on the female end was bent or pushed out so contact wasn't being made. Got the wire where it should have been and had dial tone.

If not, just drill a hole in an outside wall of the townhome big enough to put the wire through and run the wire from the service up to your phone line. A little sealant to keep the bugs out and you're golden!!!
 
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Had this on one of the jacks in my house, the line got damaged during construction. Phish a new new line.
 
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