# Forum Home Renovation Television, Computers & Phones  Should I get a dial tone on an unused phone line

## Arron

If I have a telephone socket on the wall, which appears to be connected, but there is no phone service, should I be able to hear a dial tone if I plug a phone in ? 
What this is about is that we have a house on the Central Coast (NSW). There was a land line when we bought it 8 years ago, but we only use mobiles so have never had it connected. I've never tested it so I don't know whether its working or not, but then I've never interfered with it either so I guess there is no reason it shouldn't be.   
Anyway, we now want to rent the house out as a permanent rental, and I think any incoming tenant will want to know if the phone is available or not. 
So can I just plug a phone in - and if I hear a dial tone assure the prospective tenant that there is phone service should they decide to activate it ? 
cheers
Arron

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## Uncle Bob

Depends.
Telstra used to leave them connected but you could only call Telstra.
Now days, with the state of the copper network, the pair may be [S]used[/S] stolen to try and fix someone else's phoneline. 
Do you actually get a dial tone when you plug a phone in?

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## Arron

> Do you actually get a dial tone when you plug a phone in?

  I don't know. I'm back in Sydney now where we actually live so I won't be able to test it for a few days. I was at the place yesterday but didn't have a phone with me. 
Cheers
Arron

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## Pulse

yep dial tone means cheap activation without tech visit   
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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## PhilT2

Previous owner probably had the service disconnected. If you're not getting a bill from Telstra, then you don't have a service. They're not one to pass up an opportunity. 
Ignore this, didn't read OP properly

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## Arron

> yep dial tone means cheap activation without tech visit   
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  OK, but what does no dial tone mean ?

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## Jon

Dial Tone is the sound that you get when you lift a working phone service to your ear.  A "normal" Telstra phone line will kinda be a purring sound - gee it is hard to describe. 
The other check is for "side tone".  This is silence but if you blow into the mouthpiece you hear it in the ear piece.  This indicates that your line is physically connected all the way to the exchange or other network equipment.
If you blow in the ear piece and hear nothing your line is not physically connected. 
If you have dial tone on a disconnected line you have an inplace service and you will be able to get this activated without a technician being involved.  You will be able to dial Telstra using the service and discuss connection. 
If dont have dial tone but have side tone, you will probably be able to get the phone line connected fairly easily.  No comment on cost. 
If you dont have side tone you have just got a telephone socket on the wall and who knows what else.  It will need a tech to attend to one or more cross connection point between that socket and the exchange. 
And if you are in an NBN area ................... it is a whole different story.  And they are in areas on the Central Coast
Check on their web site     Home | nbn - Australia's new broadband network 
Jon

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## Armers

aaaaaand Jon beat me to it! 
Well said!

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## Arron

Thanks Jon, that information makes it perfectly clear.  
The NBN is in the area (neighbours have it). How does that change things ?

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## commodorenut

I went over to NBN in December, and my active (copper) land line was ported across.   
After reading this, I was intrigued, so I plugged the phone back into the old socket, and I have a dial tone - they haven't disconnected it yet. 
However, when I dialed my number, the phone didn't ring when plugged into that port.  
Plugged it back into the NBN's port, and it it rang doing the same test. 
Even if you have an active copper line, but you have NBN in the area, you'll need to look at switching to NBN at some point, as they plan to cut off the copper some 12-18 months after connection in the area - you have no choice but to go across to the NBN.  This is easier for tenants to do (as you require a plan with an ISP) but you may want to monitor the install process, as the installers think mounting several ugly boxes & cables along your lounge room wall is perfectly acceptable.  I ended up installing a cabinet in the garage, and had ports wired up in the house that ran back to it, or you can go wireless for your home network (phone will still need to be plugged in).  In my rental, I have all the gear being mounted in the unused top shelf area of a double linen press.  There's already a power point in there for an old alarm (as well as the alarm box) so it was only a matter of running the conduit through the ceiling, with a pull-string, and telling them to put it there. 
I am on a full fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connection - meaning I have  optical fibre right into the NBN equipment mounted in my garage.   Neighbouring suburbs have FTTN - Fibre to the node - which means the  optical fibre terminates in a metal cabinet in the street, located near a  telstra pit, and the existing copper from the pit to the house is used  from that point.  You need to find out which one you have locally, as  the process is different for each.

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## Jon

Once NBN is live in an area existing users have 18 months to migrate their fixed phone and copper based internet to NBN and after this all services are disconnected. 
Once NBN is available in an area you can not order a new phone line or ADSL internet, it can only be delivered via NBN which is probably going to be Arron's case. 
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

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## OBBob

I guess then ... if you are going to NBN you aren't limited to a fixed phone line and may as well consider all the VOIP options too. I haven't had a fixed phone line for 10+ years ... biggest advantage being no dinner time marketing calls!  :Smilie:

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## Arron

Our area is FTTN 
Cheers
Arron

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## FrodoOne

> I went over to NBN in December, and my active (copper) land line was ported across.   
> After reading this, I was intrigued, so I plugged the phone back into the old socket, and I have a dial tone - they haven't disconnected it yet. 
> However, when I dialed my number, the phone didn't ring when plugged into that port.  
> Plugged it back into the NBN's port, and it it rang doing the same test. 
> Even if you have an active copper line, but you have NBN in the area, you'll need to look at switching to NBN at some point, as they plan to cut off the copper some 12-18 months after connection in the area - you have no choice but to go across to the NBN.  This is easier for tenants to do (as you require a plan with an ISP) but you may want to monitor the install process, as the installers think mounting several ugly boxes & cables along your lounge room wall is perfectly acceptable.  I ended up installing a cabinet in the garage, and had ports wired up in the house that ran back to it, or you can go wireless for your home network (phone will still need to be plugged in).  In my rental, I have all the gear being mounted in the unused top shelf area of a double linen press.  There's already a power point in there for an old alarm (as well as the alarm box) so it was only a matter of running the conduit through the ceiling, with a pull-string, and telling them to put it there. 
> I am on a full fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connection - meaning I have  optical fibre right into the NBN equipment mounted in my garage.   Neighbouring suburbs have FTTN - Fibre to the node - which means the  optical fibre terminates in a metal cabinet in the street, located near a  telstra pit, and the existing copper from the pit to the house is used  from that point.  You need to find out which one you have locally, as  the process is different for each.

  Interesting question. 
"commodorenut" described how you can check for "side-tone" on your phone. "Side-tone means that you have roughly 52 V (from the Common Battery at the Telephone Exchange) on the telephone line connected to your premises and the "normal" telephone device is powered from the "common battery" at the Exchange.
If you also have "Dial Tone", you should then be able to "break" Dial Tone and "dial" some numbers. (Breaking "dial tone" actually applies to the "loop disconnect" system of "rotary" dialing.  However, sending a "dual-tone" signal should have the same effect.)
There are quite a number of (semi) secret codes which you can dial which will inform you of "conditions" on the "line" concerned. 
Two of these are  127 22 123, and 1800 80 1920 (both of which seem to have the same result on a working service) and which will inform you of the "number" of the "phone" from which you have dialed - if it is recognizable. 
(See also https://www.accesscomms.com.au/reference/testnumb.htm)

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## Jon

> I went over to NBN in December, and my active (copper) land line was ported across.   
> After reading this, I was intrigued, so I plugged the phone back into the old socket, and I have a dial tone - they haven't disconnected it yet. 
> However, when I dialed my number, the phone didn't ring when plugged into that port.  
> Plugged it back into the NBN's port, and it it rang doing the same test.

  When your number was ported across to NBN this would have been a purely software process and the physical cross connection in the exchange that connects the cable pair to the exchange equipment will still be in place.  The exchange interface would be put into a similar state as if you had cancelled your line.  It is not financially sensible to send a tech to remove the jumper in the exchange as each customer migrates to NBN.  Also safer as there are lots of dopes that cant count and pull the wrong jumper.  GRRRRR

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## Jon

> Our area is FTTN 
> Cheers
> Arron

   I have not seen one of these in the flesh yet.
The theory is you will still have copper from your house running back to a cabinet somewhere within a few hundred metres of your house.  And it is at this point that the fibre will terminate and the service broken back down and delivered in a similar way to the current ADSL services.  But with faster speeds as the length of copper that is required is much shorter.  I could not tell you what kind of modem or terminal equipment you will need at your house.  In future I will pay more attention to the junk mail I get.

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## Armers

> I have not seen one of these in the flesh yet.
> The theory is you will still have copper from your house running back to a cabinet somewhere within a few hundred metres of your house.  And it is at this point that the fibre will terminate and the service broken back down and delivered in a similar way to the current ADSL services.  But with faster speeds as the length of copper that is required is much shorter.  I could not tell you what kind of modem or terminal equipment you will need at your house.  In future I will pay more attention to the junk mail I get.

  
They're just pillars on steroids, they look like NBN node cabinets on the streets, they had all the fiber in them as well a krone blocks for the copper. They're mini dslams spitting out VDSL (happy to be corrected on this) which will give you a decent speed to the house. (depending on copper length and quality of the line).  
Also copper recovery processes have started in areas, they're starting from the house first and working backwards to the exchanges. So the jumpers will most likely be last.  
Cheers

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