In article fNnAi.450$hV.282@trnddc02, M Q
wrote:

Generally, the phone companies are not interested in fixing anything
unless service is actually out or there is some hazard for which they
could get sued. I have reported trees that had fallen over and
were held up by nothing more than the phone cable. They told me that
they would not do anything unless it came down.

Bingo.

I was dispatched to a rural home whose aerial "drop" ran through a
grove/thicket of scrub trees. The drop was stretched so tight that the
insulation had pulled away from the "p-clamp", exposing - and SHORTING - the
pair.

Knowing I would replace the drop anyway, I simply reached up and clipped the
taut drop. It snapped briskly back toward the thicket. A minute later there
was a loud crash back there. A ~30-foot, dead tree had been laying against
the old drop and, when the wire was cut, the tree fell.

BTW, no one was back there but it still made noise!
--

JR