I think what the user means is he\she gets NO dial tone connected to the socket on the plug-in extension (FRONT one) and no tone from the front plate on the master (MIDDLE one) but does on the test socket (BACK one)
Sounds to me like the extension going from the front plate is fautly.
Of course, just remembered that the Infinity VDSL filter sits inbetween the test socket and the normal front plate!!
As I believe Keith suggested that the openreach modem may have gone faulty.
Put the VDSL filter back into the test socket, unplug the small cable plugged into the centre top and then try your phone in the socket (ie where the front palte plugs into)
I think we are getting there
Get a normal filter, take all faceplates off and plug your bb and phone into the filter and test socket. It should work and prove a fault with the filtered faceplate. Then you need to call bt and get them to come and replace it.
Thanks for all your help everyone. Turns out the move of the master socket into the front room was wired "strangely" and that was causing the problem.
Here was the culprit;
Now all rewired - and phones all working again.
Have no idea why it stopped working in the first place, but the engineer was amazed our phone ever rang since! 🙂
Now to solve the choppy upload speeds and line quality problems that have come up since!
Thank you all for your help.
Alex.
@Devon_Dave wrote:
That wiring is a DIY job, yellow/blue/red/black wires are burglar alarm cabling. Surprised the infinity engineer did not find that on his install, anyway glad all sorted (ish)
That yellow/blue wire is engineer jumper wire. That would have been fitted by the engineer, not diy.
I just had the same problem. I returned from holiday to find that my broadband worked, but no dial tone!
I was astonished that this could happen and suspected BT had "done" something.
I went to BT help and did all the tests, including removing all devices connected, and removed the front of my master phone socket and plugged in an old phone to the inner, test socket........No dial tone.
The next step is to book a BT engineer visit. This was speedy, 2 days later, BUT the £99 cost does concentrate the mind!!
They say that if the fault is within your house or garden, you have to pay.
I found the fault! A previous BT engineer had used an old beige connector box above the front door to hide newer RJ type wire connectors and one of the two old thick ( about 24SWG) incoming wires had decided to cease connecting to the newer thin wires, although nothing appeared to be loose. I simply cut out the two newer(guestimate 8 years old) connectors, then re-used the 25 year old connector box terminals. Hey presto! A dial tone!
I wonder if this will also fix the unreliability problem with my Vodafone Suresignal modem which uses the broadband?
We shall see.........I have 25+ posts on that forum without real success.
So this also proves a less understood fact: Broadband only requires ONE wire to make it work ( presumably plus the earth or neutral in the router) whereas an ordinart phone line requires TWO wires to connect to the pole.