Phone / DSL issues?

Question

Lately I've been having phone issues, sometimes you get a dial tone, other times you dont. Also when people call my house it rings once, then goes all static and hangs up automatically. Oddly during all this my DSL modem works fine, lately been dropping connection on and off. So we unplugged everything and just did the phones. people can call in, and signal seems fine. I have an Westell 6100 DSL modem, and 3 DSL filters on all 3 lines. I've had this setup for 1 year. I plug back all the filters, modem, and it does it all over again. Diagonstics shows the modem is fine. Any ideas what the heck is doing this?

Answer 1

Sometimes the length of the line connection can be too long try a shorter lead.

Answer 2

I gather from your description that you can disconnect the filters and plug in the phones without them and everything works fine. If this is correct then my question is, why put the filters back in ?

Answer 3

Sometimes, your 3 phones can be the cause. (Exceeding REN, etc.) I would try just one (with a DSL filter) and see how that works. Then try the second, with a filter. I had a similar problem, and had to use TWO DSL filters on each phone.!!! (With a maximum of two phones.) You might be better off with a cordless phone setup, which only used ONE phone jack, and can be used with 1 or two seperate wireless handsets, that just plug into a charging station. Using 2 DSL filters may do the trick. (I am sure you must know that your DSL modem line does NOT have a DSL filter..?)

Answer 4

I was told this by my phone company, It didn't work for me because I had different issues, but you might try it.

Some times things need to be reset with phone lines

It is recommended you try this.

If you have cordless phones, Take the batteries out of them, then unplug the base station (s),  unplug any land line and turn off and then disconnect your adsl modem.

Wait 2 minutes and reassemble everything back to the way it should be and see it that helps.

Answer 5

The only way to troubleshoot this kind of problem is to remove ALL connections from the DSL enabled phone lines.

In otherwords, remove the modem and every phone and filter from all lines.

Then, 1-by-1, reconnect each item and test it "individually".

This is the only way to evaluate that each item on the network is functioning properly, by itself.

Start with 1 phone and its associated DSL filter.  Test it.

Do this for each phone-filter set.

If any one phone-filter set fails by itself, that's the problem set.

Then, isolate wheter it is the phone or filter that's defective.

Once all devices have been tested individually, start adding more items to the line.... 1-by-1.

Now, add a 2nd phone and DSL filter.  Now, test with both phone-filter sets connected.

If OK, now test with all three phone-filter sets on the line.

If all 3 phone-filter sets work without Modem connected, now connect modem to the line too.  

If problems now start, it may be the modem loading down the signal.

If modem works fine by itself (no phone-filter sets connected), then repeat above test adding 1 phone-filter set at a time again, until problems begin again.

If modem and any 1-phone-filter set works fine, but starts to go faulty when adding more than 1 or 2 phone-filter sets, then it may be:

1)  Too many devices on the line and it is being loaded down

2)  One device is causing excessive loading - works by itself, but when combined with other devices the total loading is too much for the line.

3)  If you cannot narrow down to any one device as being defective, then call telephone company, tell them results of your testing and tell them you suspect the outside phone line is defective under loading conditions.

4) If external line testing results are ok, then problem is with one of the phone lines inside your house.  You need to narrow it down by isolation testing again....