Test phone jack without service subscription?

"Anti-Robo" wrote in news:uueCq.81934$ snipped-for-privacy@en-nntp-12.dc.easynews.com:

Take a second phone, wire both to 50 volts dc, put 600 ohms in series with the 50 volt power, and you have a miniature phone system. Take both sides off hook and you can talk to each other.

Thanks for the reply. This is a great idea, but a bit beyond me. I'm sort of a multi-meter kind of guy. The idea is to go to DSL to escape comcast, who has just raised prices three times in 6 months. I'm in a rented condo with phone jacks, but I use skype and a cell phone, so never got landline service. Looks like I'll just have to get the DSL modem and see what happens.

You'll see about 48V on phone jacks that are hooked up to the CO if you don't see any voltage on the jacks it's a reasonable bet that they aren't connected to the CO.

That won't tell you if your connected to a DSLAM though, you can't measure that with a multimeter.

If you do have DSL on the line you should get the line-sync LED on the DSL modem lighting up solid, but there will be more info on the status page of the modems configuration interface..

Surely your DSL provider will do whatever is necessary to get his signal into your dwelling, so you shouldn't have to worry about it.

If you don't currently have land-line or DSL service, I would expect that your phone outlet is connected to the Telco central office, but not connected to anything there. However, it may just go to a central terminal room in the condo complex.