Phone line not working right

[Mike S.]

Can anyone tell me why landline telephones wouldn't be getting information on the caller id screen when someone calls?

My grandmother has been having this problem. She says it started months ago after a storm. Most of the time the caller ids work, but every once in awhile they don't. Like the other day, someone called while I was there but nothing showed up on any of the caller id screens. But someone had called two hours earlier and the information had shown up.

She's had problems with her phone line in the past where there would be no dial tone. It was always something outside, usually on her property. She has DSL and there haven't been any problems with that. But as I'm writing this I remembered something. When I plugged in her phone at the computer desk, I don't remember there being a DSL filter anywhere. Could that be causing the problem? There used to be one there but someone could have removed it. So far, three cordless phone displays were damaged so something is going on. Basically, the displays were all garbled so you couldn't tell who was calling.

It would be nice to get an idea of what the problem is and if it's located inside or out. Any ideas?

Mike S.

[sligoNoSPAMjoe]

Maybe the phone itself is having a problem.

[James]

He said there were THREE phones having the problem. Do you think that all three phones are defective ???????????

-------------------------------------------

Maybe the phone itself is having a problem.

[HeyBub]

The caller may not be sending caller-id.

Not all telephone systems have the capability. Plus, there's no requirement that the calling customer provide it. Some may suppress caller-id and there are even ways to spoof what's shown on the receiving end.

About 10% of the calls we receive at work show "No data sent," "Not provided," or "Unknown name."

[Chris]

I don't have a good answer but I see the same happening to my phones and have narrowed down to some phones picking up the caller id and sort of preventing other phones from seeing it for that call.

Should be easy to verify if this is what's happening if your grandma phones memorize the caller ids. Or she could plug in one phone at a time and verify that each one is capturing the caller id...

[Rick-Meister]

The caller ID info is sent down the line between the first and second ring. If your phone company isn't getting the information, it can't send it.

When phone portability (the ability to keep your phone number even if you change carriers) went into effect, the phone companies set up 5 regional centers to route phone calls to the proper port. When a customer changes phone companies, like from a Bell carrier to Vonage, the new company has to send the information to the regional center. That can take up to 10 days for all the other phone companies to get the new info into their systems.

If there wasn't a filter on the phone, you would have heard a lot of static from the DSL. On the other hand, no filter could screw up the caller ID transmission. But that doesn't explain why it's intermittent.

But hey, why are you writing us? Why not just call the phone company and tell them?

[Jim Redelfs]

Does she live MILES away from the provider's Central Office or DSLAM?

Some line conditioning done to enable fringe DSL is done at the expense of reliable Caller ID display.

If it gets annoying enough, a call to the phone company at least for a line test is in order. Good luck.