What you are referring to is what we call supervision in the alarm business. In older simple panels, they were not smart enough to sense the idle 48 volts or active 6-10 volts on the phone line. So, adding a resistor in the loop through the jack itself, the connecting this loop across an input zone, you get supervision. If that jack is unplugged, the panel doesn't see the supervision resistance, and goes into trouble. Often this is a 'tamper' situation, in commercial installations we tamper all devices. Otherwise, the employee could open the panel, disable the alarm while on duty, then come back at nite with the key and unload your stuff. So, we have tamper switches on the devices and the panel that prevent anyone opening devices and such without authorization.
The purpose of the RJ-31X is two-fold. First, it is designed to disconnect everything downstream from the panel (i.e. all the phones in the house/business) so that the burglar can't interupt the phone call. Second, they allow the panel to take over in the event of an emergency and interupt communications on that line. The panel will sieze the line, draw a new dial tone, and call the alarm monitoring center even if the line was in use for a voice call.
Now newer panels will monitor the voltage on the phone line input. Most are programmable for how long you want to have it wait before reporting the line as not present. Generally we set those to 15 minutes or so. Then you have the choice to make the system go into trouble or alarm. Normally we choose trouble. So, if you were rebuilding the NID or splicing or something and took dialtone away for over 15 minutes, the panel would beep inside indicating a loss of phone line. Often the telco's i deal with will take a line down for several minutes for testing/splicing, etc. Of course, if the crook cuts the line before the NID and then breaks in, it won't be able to call the police. You are dependant on a local siren alarm to get attention from the neighbors, or a back up cellular phone connnected to the panel.
Hope that helps.
It is only my opinion, based on my experience and education...I am always willing to learn, educate me!
Daron J. Wilson, RCDD
daron.wilson@lhmorris.com