I’ve wired the house with 2 cat5e cables going to every room in a star configuration. These go to a box in the roof, where I have a master splitter/patch panel and room for modem/router at a later date. We’re part way through renovating and decided to get the phone on, so we can go back to wired broadband and enjoy ADSL2 speeds when they arrive next year.

I located the phone lines when we moved in; they travel underground until they reach the corner of the house, then the wire ran under the house towards the back door. As it wasn’t connected to anything, I ran up the wall and into the roof; where I have my box of tricks.

This is what the cable looks like (Yellow/Black & Brown/White)





From my research these are two pairs; allowing two separate phone lines.


So Chorus came out last week and supposedly activated the phone line and gave it the thumbs up. I’m getting 48v on the Yellow/Black pair, which I’d assumed were reserved for line two. However when I connect a phone to the yellow/black pair; all I get is what’s known as a “Fast Engaged Tone”. If you call the phone, you can hear it ringing but doesn’t ring at my end.

From what I’ve read, as the phone enters the house it should terminate at a master phone socket. I’m wondering if the master socket (with capacitor), is required for line testing and/or to make the phone ring. Or is it completely redundant in a 2-wire phone connection?

I have Chorus coming out on Monday to investigate but don’t want to waste there time (and my money) if I’m just missing something simple. Any ideas?