I have a land line service and DSL service. The line comes into the house and is "star"-ed out to 12 or 14 jacks throughout the house. There are two phones plugged in (through) DSL filters, one old school wired wall phone and one wireless base with three handsets. There is also an alarm system and a DSL modem on the line. Each of the above items utilizes a different jack.

This morning the phone service went out while DSL was OK. I disconnected all phones, the alarm, the DSL modem, called AT&T. They ran sime tests and said that they would need to come out and that there is a charge for it.

The question for you residents DIYers and pros is if anyone has ever had this happen before, when the DSL is working fine but there is no dialtone? What did you do to fix it? What to check for? Ideas, tips would be appreciated. I really don't feel like having an AT&T guy come out and paying for it unless it's something super tough.

Is the phone serivce working at the DSL connection point? Or is phone service down at all jack locations?

It's down at two phone jack locations, but I haven't checked it at the jack where I hook up the DSL modem at. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Should have thought about it first! Thanks, Darko.

This is what I do.

What do you think about Leviton structured wiring boards? Are they worth the approx. $45? They sell them at the Home Depot and $45 doesn't seem too bad.

The place is wired with Cat5 and I have been thinking about cleaning up the setup. Right now I "split" (14-ways, I think) the line by twisting the stripped ends of the HR with stripped ends off of each jack and wrapping them with electric tape. I know, lame, but it worked OK for years.

Since I might have to take the cover off the hole in the drywall where all this mess is, I thought this would be a good time to set this thing up the way I initially planned but took a shortcut due to time/budget constraints several years ago.

I'm looking to do a 110 block based disctribution board (hate having to invest in a crimper) with alarm interface (Leviton) for the phone. One line off the phone board will feed the DSL modem, which will move, with the router and a new switch, into the same enclosure. I'll then convert select jacks on the walls from voice to data for stuff like Tivo, NAS (not The CSFMB Nas, just a NAS,) media hub, print server.