Disconnect to phone company from my outdoor Phone network box

[iAMme]

Hi,
I want to use my existing phone wiring in the house so I plug obi200 phone jack to the wall. However, I read people suggest to disconnect the wire from the phone company in the outdoor phone network box so there will not have any issue when the phone company send a signal to kill my obi200.

I opened the box and saw 4 jacks. I have no idea which one I should remove. Now I remove every jack. I realized after doing it, some of my phone ports don't work. My question is how do I identify which jack is the one that get signal from the phone company? Also, why I got 4 jacks not just one? Thank you very much.

[SteveInWA]

What kind of telephone service is it, that you are trying to disconnect.  Be clear and detailed.  Is it plain old fashioned telephone service (POTS) from a landline telephone company?  Is it from a cable company, or what, exactly? 

Is this a single-family house, or is it an apartment complex or duplex or some other multi-family building?

What kind of internet service do you have - cable, DSL, fiber optic or satellite?

Do you have a home security alarm with central office monitoring?

[iAMme]

Before we moved to the house, the previous owner already wired the phone lines through the whole house. I believe it was AT&T.
We've never installed any real phone line from any company. However, the phone box does have the jacks that connect to the phone company. They just don't send the signal since we don't use the service. I just want to disconnect the phone company to feel safer avoiding one day they may send some test signals that may damage my Obi200.

My house is a single-family house. My internet service is Comcast cable so it does not go into the box. I do not have home security alarm system. I only use smartthings to do some basic monitoring.

According to the above information I provided, I think it was the plain old fashioned telephone service (POTS) from a landline telephone company. Again, I do not use the service. I just have the line connects in the box without signal. My goal is just to disconnect it. However, there are four jacks in the box. I do not know which one is the one I should disconnect. Currently, I disconnect all. Thank you very much.

[SteveInWA]

Thank you.  Yes, I understand your goal.  Given the information you provided, I don't know why you would have four jacks.  I'm guessing that they just used a box that is capable of handling four lines, but not all of those lines are connected.  If any of the jacks had short phone cords with modular (RJ-11) plugs on them, that were/are plugged into the four jacks, just unplug them, and that will disconnect the jack(s) from the phone company.

Regarding your question about some of the house wiring not working:

It is possible that whoever built the house didn't connect all the in-wall phone jacks to one main pair of wires.  Instead, they might have had several independent wire runs.  It's impossible to know without physically being there, with a meter in my hand.  So, it might look like this:

Code Select Expand


----wire from the phone company--->NID (Network Interface Device, the junction box)|---->some house wiring
                                                                                   |---->some more house wiring
                                                                                   |---->some more house wiring


There is no way for anyone here to guess and be able to tell you which wires are which.  I suggest that you hire an electrician to solve any wiring problem you can't handle.  Otherwise, use only a cordless phone system with a base station plugged into the OBi and forget about the house wiring.