Telephone problems - Help/Advice PLEASE

Was suddenly contronted with the Sunday a.m. and can't find appropriate forum to address it. Verizon is of little/no help, except to say they will send a tech out on Friday the 18th. Situation: 1.No dial tone; unable to place outgoing calls 2. All incoming calls are diverted to VZ provided Voice Mail box, where they are available for retrieval if I use a second off- premises phone and call in using VZ's procedures. 3. My DSL works fine. It is not a home run from NID to PC, but is simply picked up out of the wall.

Factors bearing on the problem: 1. Have checked out 2 telephones by taking to neighbors house. Using either one, plugged directly into the NID, situations 1 and 2 remain unchanged 3. Have unplugged, house from NID. Situation 2 remains unchanged.

Was sort of hoping there was a lineman out there who could provide some advice. If anyone is aware of a better forum in which I might seek advice on this, I would appreciate it. FWIW, talked to a long retired VZ tech yesterday, and he says problem is their, not mine; that there is probably a short/open somewhere off premises that they will have to track down, and that sending tech here won't help, except to confirm what I am telling them. (He also added that it may suddenly myseteriously disappear, and that everyone will shrug their shoulders and never admit who flipped the proper switch somewhere in their system) Live a couple of blocks from the C.O. Am going to try and talk my way in there today to see if I can get them to help. TIA for any help

Reply to
Roy Starrin
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short somewhere

Reply to
MaxMaxwell

Yes, the true test is go to the NID, and see if you get dial tone there with a known (tested) working phone and the house wiring completely disconnected. If still no dial tone under those conditions it is a phone company issue.

Reply to
Jackson

This newsgroup is appropriate. Are you often confronted by Sunday A.M.s?

Five days out? Is your neighborhood flooded and under water? Was there a wide-spread, natural disaster a day or two earlier? A five-day commitment for OOS (out of service) trouble is really, REALLY poor service. I'd scream like a banshee unless the conditions I asked about apply.

FWIW, you probably misunderstood their commitment. The usual line is "We will repair your service as quickly as possible but no later than xx date." Given that, your service may be restored well before Friday.

The trouble is in the telco facilities.

OOS trouble here is repaired within 24 hours. For a day or so following particularly severe weather, the interval is occasionally 48 hours. You should expect a similar level of service.

Oh, gawd! Not the ole "flip a switch" thing. After >34-years in the business, I am still amazed that that misconception persists. There is no - and has never been a - "switch" that is flipped to move a service, much less to RESTORE a faulted service. I mean, think about it: That would imply that someone flipped a switch to KILL your service. No way.

There's a short in the cable pair somewhere. A locator pinched your pair when closing a terminal cover. A mouse chewed the insulation from your pair. A car jumped a curb and ran over a splice closure. A piece of wire debris lodged between the pins for your pair in the C.O. (I've seen that exactly ONCE in 34 years.)

A Central Office Technician? HA! Good luck. They have newspapers to read and coffee to drink. Unless the trouble is actually IN the C.O. (VERY unlikely), they might offer a tour of the facility. Take 'em up on the offer

- then wait for the Network Technician that will actually REPAIR your line.

DSL - Digital Subscriber Line - works almost as well on ONE conductor as it does on a pair. A shorted pair has little effect on DSL. In other words, you can easily have working DSL but NO dialtone.

With the exception of the weather-related conditions I mentioned above, if your telco takes more than 48-hours to restore your service, you should complain loudly - and even to your state's public service commission. Good luck!

Reply to
Jim Redelfs

I believe the phrase "flipped the switch" does not necessarily mean someone literally flipped a switch. It just means the fix was trivial (and the cause for the failure might also be trivial), once you can get someone to admit there is a problem at their end.

And it definitely happens sometimes that things break for trivial reasons, and the fixes are trivial. For example, I once had DSL break, because some idiot at Sprint decided to change my static IP address without bothering to tell me. The fix was to get them to tell me the new address, once they admitted that the problem was on their end.

Reply to
Tim Smith

In many areas the phone company can do an automatic remote test on the line right from the CO via a computer command. That will usually tell if there is a break, short, etc, basicly give some indication if it is their problem. Verizon here in NJ can do that on my line while I'm on the cell phone with them.

Reply to
trader4

Once a week. Suffering from lack of coffee when I wrote that

In my discussion with the techs I found sitting in their trucks outside the CO, they mentioned that they have been advised that morning that Virginia Beach was so far behind that additional troops were being deployed from northern VA and would be there (here) before the day was out.

First, thanks for the comprehensive input:

Interestingly, the problem went away, announced by a computerized phone call, which contained no other information, at 5 p.m. yesterday

- about 30 hours. It cleared up after, per the instructions in the phone book, I emailed their consumer complaint folks around noon and told them that having no 911 for 5 days was totally unsat, and the next email was going to the SCC, just as they also provide for in the book. I also found that calling them is a farce - especially when you have no phone. In my initial trouble call, when I finally got to a real person, I discussed with the "agent" at great length all I had done to I.D. that the problem was outside my premises. When I finally found out how to handle the situation on line therough their repair page, I called up the report, and it contained the following: No dial tone This morning, that same page still contains the same information, with an ETR of 1800 Friday the 18th, in spite of my having updated it and their acknowledgment that they got the update. And the repair history indicates that no repairs have been associated with my number for the past 14 days. Am going to let it sit for a day to see if it gets updated. Then I'll cancel it if it is still active. Again, thanks to all for all the inputs

Reply to
Roy Starrin

DSL Might be using line 2 = yellow and black pair from Pole..

Home analog line is/should be green/red..

Normally there is a "DSL Splitter" that uses a "resistor" to split or remove the signal..

Like everyone said.. Connect to the NID outside your house with a working 1 line analog phone..

Dial tone and works = your house has dirty cable No dial tone = Phone company problem..

Reply to
Joe

This is a common misconception. It's a FILTER, not a splitter.

With the VERY occasional exception, DSL and dialtone "ride" along the same, SINGLE pair of wires the entire way from the DSLAM to the premises.

Everything on the line (read: EVERYTHING), except the DSL modem itself, must be filtered to constrain the device(s) to the narrow bandwidth required by POTS equipment. This leaves the rest of the bandwidth to be used for DSL.

With an unfiltered device on the line (w/DSL), an incoming call will cause the DSL sync to fail, interrupting internet service. Also, when using an unfiltered telephone, the local user will hear all manner of "white noise" on the line. Often, simply picking-up an unfiltered telephone will bring down the DSL connection.

Reply to
Jim Redelfs

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