911 on a "dead" line?

Our household does not currently have phone service.

IIRC, FCC regulations require your house's phone line to take a 911 call even if you don't have service or a dial-tone. I hooked the terminal block in our basment back up, making our home's wall jacks "live" again.

I'd like to test the disused phone line to be sure that I can make a 911 call, but I obviously don't want to make a false 911 call.

I confirmed that we do at least have an outside connection, because our old corded handset has light up buttons that run off the phone line voltage. There is no AC wall-wart and no batteries supplying the phone. If there was no connection, they would not light up when I pick up the reciever.


My wife and I have been mostly "cellular only" for the past three years. We had Vonage VOIP broadband phone service for about 8 months, but we dropped the service because we never used it. Otherwise, in terms of price and features it was great, I'd recomend Vonage to anyone who has broadband, we just didn't use the Vonage line, sticking to the celluars in our pockets. But now that we have four babies in diapers, the stakes are obviously higher.

On occasion, we misplace a cell phone, or leave it at work overnight etc. That concerns us as we then have no contact with the ourside world in an emergency.

Can anyone think of a way to test and be sure the local phone company switch will respond to the phone even if I don't have dial tone? Like some other code that gets me a non emergency operator who can confirm I can at least get through?

That way I can leave one dedicated "red phone" so to speak for 911 only as a backup to our cell phones.

I'd call the Police Business line and ask what options are available for testing your connectivity to 911. What's the local phone company?; whoever is responsible for the wiring may be responsible for providing the 911 connection.

I've called 911 many times (not frivilously though, of course) with non-emergency issues... Just immediately tell them that this is not an emergency call and that you have a police question.

as cratz2 stated, you can call 911 and tell them you are just testing the line. Just be CALM when you do call them. By law (911 access on disconnects )applies to cell phones as well.........

I'm sure if you call during a time at which they are least likely to be busy, immediately let them know that there is no emergency, and that you just needed to test your phone, that that ould be fine.

Yeah, it's not a big deal. When they answer just say you got a new phone and were testing it to make sure that it works. Also, let us know what happened, I've never tried this myself and have wondered whether it will work.

It's been a while since I worked for the phone company, and laws vary by location...


If you have dial tone, you should be able to call 611 for the phone company (so you can order service) and 911 for emergencies. The phone company had fancy names for that particular condition... I think it was disconnect in place along with dedicated outside plant. My memory's foggy.

If you don't have dial tone I'm pretty sure you will not be able to call anywhere. I would not chance it.

I work for Verizon, but don't have to deal with this kind of thing too often.

If you have dial tone, you should be able to make a local or 911 call; if you just get "battery" (voltage on the line) but no dial tone, don't count on it.

Most phone companies will leave outgoing local phone service and simply disable incoming calls to disconnected lines (it will still have a phone number associated with it). Depending on the state, they can completely disconnect facilities if your service is terminated. Depending on how much "churn" (or growth) there is in an area, this can lead to physical disconnects at the CO or cross-connect boxes in the field (only so many idle pairs in a bundle before you're faced with keeping non-paying customers active vs installing new bundles for paying customers).

I'm fairly certain that California has some stringent laws about leaving disconnected lines active in case of emergency. Verizon has all sorts of problems with deadbeat customers in CA - the laws there are rather advantageous for the consumer that doesn't want to pay...

If you're going to depend on that infrastructure for an emergency, shouldn't you contribute to its upkeep? You cannot beat the wireline POTS network for reliability and local carriers are under increasing pressure from "cellphone only" households, VoIP providers, and cable companies - none of whom can match "dial tone" reliability standards (the so-called "five nines"). In fact, VoIP and the cable companies still have to interface with local carriers to provide seamless coverage.

A ~$20someodd local landline is cheap insurance and corded handsets don't tend to wander off. Also, if you're not a customer, maintaining whatever facilities your line runs on isn't going to be a priority for the telco.

idleprocess said:

I work for Verizon, but don't have to deal with this kind of thing too often....If you're going to depend on that infrastructure for an emergency, shouldn't you contribute to its upkeep? You cannot beat the wireline POTS network for reliability and local carriers are under increasing pressure from "cellphone only" households, VoIP providers, and cable companies - none of whom can match "dial tone" reliability standards (the so-called "five nines"). In fact, VoIP and the cable companies still have to interface with local carriers to provide seamless coverage.

Click to expand...

AFAIK, in Wisconsin I already pay telecom taxes and fees to support the 911 system whether it's through my cell phones, or POTS. That's why they're forced to at least thereoretcaly, take a 911 call on a dead drop.

I'm not going to feel too guilty. If everyone thinks I'm not going to get a fine for dialing 911 once and stating clearly and immediately it's a line test, I'll just do that. YMMMV, if I get dinged, I won't blame anyone here. I imagine they get so many "stupid" calls about garbage pickup, cats up trees, kids playing kickball in the street, cars parked legally outside thier house, and they just don't like it etc. that a test call would be fine by them.

If I can get three-way, caller ID, call waiting, voicemail, call forwarding, and blanket long-distance within CONUS, from my cell provider for two phones for 2000 minutes peak, unlimited off peak, and free phone-to-phone anytime within the cell carrier for $75, or, ALL THAT for a flat $29 from VONAGE, and take the VOIP adapter with me to any broadband drop anywhere and have service within 30 seconds, I am NEVER going to go back to POTS, and pay nearly $100 to SBC. That and the numerous customer service issues I've had over the years that prove to me that my experience with them wasn't just "bad luck" but is institutionaly ingrained in that company...

Never. Never ever never, ever, ever again.

Baby bells can go pound sand. With E911 now in our area, I'll probably never even need my POTS 911-only "red phone" anyway.

I've placed test calls on 911 on several occasions when setting up new PBXs or changing outbound routes. The advice given earlier here is correct - remain calm and immediately announce that this is a test call to verify connectivity so please don't dispatch. As long as you don't place frequent "test calls" from the same number, they'll be ok with it.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

I dialed 911 by mistake trying to get information 411. I got a call back, but they did not leave a message. About an hour and half later a cop showed up circled the house then knocked on the door. Said they had a 911 hang up. I told him what happened, he asked for my id, went back to his car came back and told me to have a nice day.

Did I mention it took an hour and half for him to show up and he did not ask to come in and survey the house?

Cant say Ive been impressed with the phone service. Living in rural areas its out a lot. Sometimes incoming calls get a disconencted or fast busy signal. Outgoing calls are noisy and difficult to get online or stay online. I am paying 41 dollars a month for basic service, a few taxes and the extended calling area. I doubt I would save much going the broadband/dsl/cable net service with vonage.

AJ_Dual said:

... I am NEVER going to go back to POTS, and pay nearly $100 to SBC. That and the numerous customer service issues I've had over the years that prove to me that my experience with them wasn't just "bad luck" but is institutionaly ingrained in that company...

Click to expand...

Ah, well, SBC... I've heard all sorts of horror stories about them from both customers and employees.

I also doubt my employer is immune to those complaints [shrugs]. I don't work for that part of the business.

I don't know squat about telco end of it, but my wife is a 911 dispatcher and I can guarantee you that many days she wishes a test call is the most frivolous call she gets...
People call 911 for everything from weather reports to (frequently) just lonely & need someone to talk to, and what could be better attention than to have a nice friendly officer stop by for a chat? :thinking:

I use to maintain 911 equipment here, its no big deal to call their line. I can remember many times when they would get calls while I was working on something and it would be a wrong number??? someone asking for them to transfer them to Walmart, someone asking for Pizza huts number, all kinds of crazyness. It's quite funny what people call 911 for.
Also, here in IA, last I knew, home phone service was not required to allow 911 calls unless you have service, if you dont have service, you do not have a dial tone and cannot dial anything.
This is why you have a huge 911 tax on your cell phone bil.

For the record, be sure to say something, ANYTHING to the 911 operator. Don't just call and verify you get an answer!

That's probably worse that calling to report a false crime as if you get a younger cop, he's likely to be on VERY high alert when he/she arrives. More experienced folks will realize that a large percentage of calls, even suspicious sounding ones, are false alarms or small kids calling because they heard the number, older kids calling because they are brats etc...

Just simply call 911 and say your name and address. State your testing the line to make sure it's able to dial 911. You will not have a issue. I work on switches all day and make calls to numerous 911 facilities to ensure people are able to dial 911.

I also want to point out certain things. In a power outage, most (if not all)VoIP provider are unable to provide 911 service because of lack of power.
If a catastrophie (sp) happened, your cell phone might have issues. Again, they work off of radio waves.

As Idleprocess stated, the telco line is provided extremely inexpensive and can't be beat in emergency situations. $20 a month is cheap insurance. Would you want to risk somebodies life for $20?

As a fact, in todays high tech digital world of T-1's, T-3's and huge pipelines, they ALL keep POTS lines from telco as backup! Even the 911 centers......

Just a thought.