Originally Posted by OM05
Enjoy reading this site, lurking about 8 years now of and on, finally need to make a first post to get some info --

If I were to put a DC voltmeter across a pair of telephone wires (direct from the pole, no NID or other anything else attached) should that measure ~48VDC if POTS and DSL is active on the line?

Moved into a new house, ordered POTS and DSL... I've got 3 cables at the side of the house, 6 pairs, two are aerial drops and one rises up out of the ground... one 30 year old crusty NID on the house, and a shadow where another likely existed years ago but since removed. 1 of the aerial drops is connected to the NID, opening the the telco side of the NID I probe both pairs from the drop and they measure 0VDC. The other 2 cables I stripped back to bare copper, all 4 pairs measure 0VDC.

According to the phone company everything should be working on their side. They are dispatching a tech, but have cautioned me up and down that I'll be charged some expensive hourly rate if the problem isn't on their side, so I want to be sure I've done my diligence as best I can.
I saw this kind of work back during Verizon days here in Maine (then became Fairpoint, and now Consolidated) and it continues on. They have the CO tech do the frame wiring, and they submit all done (for their work). Then I think the system thinks just because the CO tech did the frame work, that the entire loop from CO to prem is done, so the order is done. When in reality, F1 and F2 crossconnects might still need to be done, drops might need to be repaired, someone frogged pairs and didn't report it, etc... all of those needing I&R tech to do. And the vice versa might happen: I&R tech actually goes to NID and builds loop out to CO, but needs CO tech do frame wire, but that doesn't get done, I&R submits done, order is "done". It's all a mess now and won't get any better. It's all about metrics not getting the job done right. Sorry to be doom and gloom.