Wiring – Why do only some DSL ports work for internet in the house

wiring

I recently tried moving my modem from the ground level to the second floor, where I just put in a PC in my office. I have 3 phone jacks upstairs (2 in the guest room and 1 in my bedroom), but it would be much more convenient to run an ethernet cable to the PC if the modem were in the guest room.

Unfortunately, neither of the phone jacks in the guest room work. One blinks green on the DSL light, but the internet light never comes on. The other jack gives the DSL light a solid red.

For whatever reason, the phone jack in my room works just fine (DSL light turns solid green, internet light comes on). I've done some preliminary Googling but haven't been able to come up with a solution, even though I've seen similar posts. I have no phone filters (no landline to hook up), and no splitters.

Any insight would be much appreciated!

Best Answer

Have you tested that the problematic jacks are actually wired to your house's phone system? Just take a land phone and plug it in - do you get dial tone?

If you're not getting a dial tone, these jacks are disconnected. Perhaps they were wired to a second line that is no longer active, or simply cut during some other project. To fix that, you'd need to reattach them, tracing the cables and re-connecting them to your main phone service lines.

If the jacks work for phone but not DSL, there may be a DSL filter installed between your main phone line and those jacks. These can be wired inline somewhere, or even built into the phone jacks themselves. Check the jacks first - do they have DSL-related labels? Can you remove the cover and look inside to see if a filter is there? Perhaps they are connected to another jack that has a DSL filter.

If the filter is wired in elsewhere, you would need to trace the wires from jack to your main phone service termination point to confirm.

EDIT: if you don't have active phone service, you probably won't be able to test with the phone/dial tone method. Instead, you can try a tone & probe kit or test voltage on the lines to see if they're connected to your house phone system. Although I'd still try a land-phone test as it's entirely possible you are supplied with a dial tone even if you can't make or receive calls.

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