On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 00:18:09 GMT,it is alleged that Bill
spake thusly in uk.d-i-y:

[snip]

Hadn't thought about that, but yes, the alarm is likely grabbing the
line to inform the monitoring centre the power's out...

Could be, but he says that the sockets down stairs continue to work
normally. If it had seized the line then you would not expect this.
Maybe try having a phone plugged in upstairs while disconnecting the
power to that ring and listen to what happens, does something try to
dial out?

Does the alarm panel contain a dialler?
If it does is it plugged into a proper phone socket or has some one hard
wired it into the phone circuit some where?

My thought was that it had been [improperly?] connected to 'the
nearest available phoneline' which may have not been the main incoming
cable as the engineers suspected?


[snippage]

--
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm
not sure about the former.
- Albert Einstein