TELEPHONE PROBLEMS?

If you are having problems with your phone such as no dial tone, static, or a hum on the line, the first thing to do is determine if the problem is with phone company facilities or your inside wiring and jacks. This can be accomplished by using the test jack at your standard network interface, or SNI. You will need to locate your SNI, which is on the outside of your house and normally near the electrical panel.


Once you locate the SNI you can open it with a screwdriver in order to gain access to the test jack. You will need a normal working telephone (not cordless and hopefully not a novelty phone) to test your dial tone. The test jack inside the SNI has a small cord with a modular plug inserted. When you unplug this cord from the test jack you are temporarily disconnecting phone company dial tone from your inside house cabling and jacks.



You can now plug your working phone directly into the test jack. This allows you to be connected directly to your dial tone with none of your interior cabling or jacks on the circuit. The reason you want to do this is so you can figure out if the problem is your responsibility or the phone companies. After you have plugged into the test jack listen to the quality of your connection through the phones earpiece. If the connection shows no improvement or you still have no dial tone then the problem is somewhere in the phone company facilities and you will need to call their repair department. If on the other hand your connection is clear then the problem is on the inside cabling or jacks. In this case you can either try to fix it yourself, or call a qualified installation and repair technician. Of course if you have a maintenance contract such as linebacker through your phone company, they will take care of all problems up to and including inside cabling and jacks.