Well, a little history here – moved house from where I had an existing cable internet connection to a new house where it already had provisions for cable internet (the people before musta had it), so bright ‘ol me thinks, just plug him in and see what happens – fairly typical process for me, very little thought and worry about the consequences later 🙂
So I plug it in and fire up the my debian gateway and voilia (or however you spell that french word) instant internet connection…..hmmm wonder if I should tell telstra. Well changed the billing address for our account to ensure i got the new bills! Nonetheless, a few weeks later decided I would call them and get the address changed etc, I suspected they may whack me with an $86 reconnection fee but hey…note I have been a cable customer for over 5 years! so theres no contract or stuff. Anyways..called up telstra and they were helpful and offered me a new modem and no reconnection fee provided I sign a new contract blah blah…However it would be best to get the phone transferred over before doing the cable, ‘no problem’ I say, they even offered to call me back after they connected the phone (which for the record they did not!)
Now to the phone…got the wheels in motion and they said it would be connected on day X and just make sure a phone was plugged in…no problem. Done but no working phone…just one very dead line…hmmm no problem I say, lets get the tech dude to check the line to the house. Tech dude comes out checks the outside line, leaves a note saying fixed fault in line and now please check all outlets and if you have any problems good luck and its now your problem. Maybe not in those exact words but basically thats what they say 🙂
So off I went to check the phone and yep…dead as a doornail…great…
So being the electrical guru that I am 🙂 and seeing that little ‘ol terminal block on the front door (inside) I thought…lets have a poke….pulled off the cover and found a birds nest of wiring…hmmm phones only need two wires to work, blue and white, yep they seem to be there….however there is two separate lines coming into the house! One that is connected is a newer looking one and other, an older looking cable with all wires not connected…
So again, lets just try and plug something in and see what happens..Pulled out some alligator clips and hooked up the unconnected blue and white wires to my phone (Yes I did check which ones go where! – see here)….after a little static and re-arranging of the clips….shazzam…we have a dial tone…. It would appear that the wrong line into the house was connected or corrected during the service….
I, like a dutiful clean electrical guru 🙂 ( by now u must know the truth) tidied up the wires and whacked the cover back on….
game on.