Had to rewire the phone jacks in my house. I have a 5 pair wire for the phone white/blue blue/white green/white white/green etc.... and 5 jacks. Connected the white/blue and blue/white wires to line one throughout the house and have dial tone in each. Here's the predicament. I tired to hook up the DSL modem yesterday and didn't get a signal. Did some research and decided to hook up the green/white and white/green wires to line 2. Still nothing. Any thoughts. All the filters are installed. Am I correct in theory on my wiring? AT&T is coming today to check everything on the outside to make sure we are good. Trying to save myself almost 400 bucks. 100 for the service call and 50 bucks an outlet to make sure its wired correct :-)
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You are correct in your theory.

If in doubt find your demarc on the side of the house and open it up (demarc = demarcation point for the phone company). It usually is labeled "phone company" or something of the like. You should see your feed cables coming in and tied down to a block. I would take a look at it now and then look at it later. That should shed some insight as to what pair the installer used to feed the house.

I can also add - sometimes the cable that runs to all your jacks get wired in series. Somebody opens a jack up and forgets to tie down "line 2 wires" and the circuit is broken. If you happen to know the first jack from the cabling outside - I would start with that one and move throughout the house.
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Do you have 2 line drop from pole to residence? If not, you'll need a DSL splitter.
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For reference, here is what I have:

From the drop (incomming line to residence)
Pair 1: Tip: Green Ring: red
Pair 2: Tip: Black Ring: Yellow

Internal rersidence wiring with 5 pair cable
pair 1 tip White/Blue ring Blue/White
pair 2 tip White/Orange ring Orange/White
pair 3 tip White/Green ring Green/White
pair 4 tip White/Brown ring Brown/White
pair 5 tip White/Grey ring Grey/White
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I am a old phone guy...the above pairs are correct, try the orange pair for line 2.

Also like fishstix says, some of the jacks may not have the 2nd pair wired leavng you open to where you need to get to.
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Do the data lines (green/white white/green) need to be connected to line 2 through out the house or can they just remain intact and not hooked up to line 2 to complete the circuit? Does that make sense?
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Well it looks like I need a DSL splitter at the demarc box. Took me about 3 trips around the house to find it though lol. It was located at the base of a rather large bush
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Kelly gave you a nice list of the "accepted" method of using the pairs. I live in a house that was built in the late '20s, and all phone jacks are wired using 2-pair IW (grey inside wire).

What I had to do, when I hooked up my DSL, is to plug a splitter into the jack where the Cable Modem was going. The DSL cord went into the splitter directly, and the phone had to have a filter plugged into the splitter and the phone cord plugged into the splitter. And any phones in the rest of the house had to be plugged into filters, before going into the jack.

DSL uses a lower portion of the bandwidth, and voice is raised to a higher portion of the bandwidth, using the same pair of wires from the Central Office. The filter lowers the voice signal to a level where the phone can "see" it.

Back in the day, when we had an install in an area with bad cable, we would install a unit on the pole that would split 1 CO pair into two voice lines. Inside the house, another unit would lower the "piggy-backed" signal to usable levels.

Also, David, if your home was pre-wired with 5-pair, AND someone previously had an old "Princess" or "Trimline" phone, the second pair was always designated for a 12 volt transmitter that supplied power for the dial lights on those phones. That could be a problem in getting the DSL going.

My home has 2 phone lines, so my NIU "demarc" has 2 drops from the pole. If you only have one drop, you absolutely need a splitter where the phone and cable modem are plugged in.

:-)
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Well my theory was correct. The jacks were wired properly and the all the filters were in place. All the problems were on AT&T's end. They apparently had to do a lot of work at the box in our neighborhood to get things to function properly. But when all was complete I had the green light and good service. Thanks for your help guys.
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Best practive is to put a splitter at the demarc and use the orange pair for the DSL... Then you would throw a jack on the orange pair where you want the modem. :-)
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