How do I Hook Up Broadband Telephone Using Jacks?

Step 1

Examine the exterior walls of the building until you find the telephone service junction box. It will be labeled "Telephone." In an area with overhead utilities it will be easy to find because you can just visually follow the utilities from the nearest telephone pole. The phone line will likely be the thinner of the wires and will be lower on the pole than the electricity wires. With underground utility service, you may find the junction box in the house itself.

Step 2

Open the junction box labeled "Telephone" and disconnect the phone line coming from the street at the terminal block with the flat head screwdriver. The line will be marked. This will disconnect your old, incoming phone line from the home's internal phone wiring. Ignore the side of the box that is restricted to phone-company access; it may well be locked anyway.

Step 3

Connect a phone cable between the telephone modem, or telephone modem combination Internet gateway, and the nearest wall jack. The jack is labeled "Phone" or "Line 1" on the modem and will not be labeled at the wall but will look like a regular phone jack. Plug a regular home phone into any other jack in the home, and reboot the modem by turning it off and then on again after a minute. Allow the modem to register on the Internet Service Provider's network. This can take five minutes or more.