Telephone Repair Made Simple #1

Hello, I thought that I would start by covering the simplest way for you to try to repair your telephone service if possible. For most of you there is a box on the outside of your home or business where the customer has access to the phone line as it comes into your home or business. This is where you can isolate your part of the line to prove whether the trouble is in your home or business. You will need a screw driver to gain access to this box and a hard wired telephone to plug into the test plug in the box. A portable phone will not work. If you find you have Dial Tone at the box, this means your trouble is inside.
In this scenerio you will need to put the test plug back together and go inside and remove each piece of equipment you have plugged into your phone line. Do this one piece at a time and then waiting a few seconds (30 to 45) check for Dial Tone. The purpose of this is to elimante the piece of equipment causing the problem. You must understand that your problem can be a phone, an answering machine, caller ID box and any alarm system attached to the phone line for monitoring purposes. As well as any cord that attaches your equipment to the jacks in your home or business. Of course the wiring and the jacks can also cause your problem.
Jacks are fairly easy to replace, but proving they are defective requires much more time. If after testing all your equipment inside your home, the phone still will not work, the trouble is probably the wiring or a jack and you may need some professional help to fix the problem.
These days many people do not have the insurance that a phone company offers for "Inside Repair". If you do not have this insurance, having the phone company come out can cost you a "Pretty Penny". If they prove the trouble inside your home there will be a "Trip Charge" at the minium and if you want them to fix the problem inside your home or business you can be looking at "Hundreds" of dollars to fix that problem. So be sure that the problem is "NOT" inside your home or business.