Anyone knows how to work on phone jack?

[bo_bear]

I got my own phone line and the phone co. says my new number is activated already and their people has already come out and do whatever they need to do at the protector block outside my apartment. I found some instruction on the net about how to switch my exisiting phone jack to use another line. I followed it and got a dial tone, but it's not my own number. We currently have 3 phone lines in the house, including mine. So I'm suspecting that the dial tone belongs to the second phone line. The phone co. will charge me $120 if I ask them to come do it for me and I can't afford that. Does anyone know how? Thank you very much.

 

[brandc]

Do I understand correctly? Three phone lines inside your apartment (not three jacks with one line running to them?) Only one has a dial tone. The one with the dial tone is not your number.

You connected a phone to it and had someone call your number?

Sounds as if phone company connected you wrong or gave you incorrect number.

Or maybe they lied about doing their duty at the protector block.

If phone co. actually did their job correctly then your line is open somewhere between protector block and inside jacks or you screwed up connecting jack to phone line. Try again.

 

[bo_bear]

Thanks for the reply and sorry for the confusion. I'll try to describe the scenario a little better.

There is one phone jack in each bedroom (totally 3). I'm trying to setup my own phone jack to have my own phone number(only, I'll call it line 3) on it (it's currently connected to line 1 still). So I switched two wires according to some instruction I got off a website, and I got a dialtone. But it's obviously not my own number (I tried calling my own number and I don't get a busy signal). And I'm thinking it's probably connected to line 2 right now. I hope this is a better description.

So does anyone know if there's anyway I can do this by myself? My apartment manager isn't letting me to go into the protector block to check. Can this be done by operating on my phone jack only?

 

[Viper GTS]

OK...

First off, the box outside your house is called a "demarcation box (DMARC for short)" (sp?) or "punch down box." Basically this is where the lines from the street hit your house. You own that box, you can open it & do whatever you like. In your case, your landlord isn't going to let you. So you may be screwed.

Once the line(s) hit the DMARC box, they're routed to their appropriate jacks. Standard category 3 phone wire (the flat stuff) has 4 wires, or two pairs. A phone line only requires two wires. So 4 wires can manage two lines. The inside pair is one line (Line #1), & the outside pair is another line (Line #2).

The fact that your jack is currently on the same line as the rest of the house probably means you're going to need internal wiring changes. Changing things at the DMARC box will switch every jack in the house, while changing things at your jack will just swap which pair the number is coming in on. Unless your jack has wires leading to it from "Line 3," as you call it, you're not going to be able to access that number.

Hope that helps. There are probably techs here who know a lot more about this than I do, I'm just a DSL tech.

Viper GTS