I live in Md. and have Verizon copper for phone and DSL. The phone I
use mostly and for these incidents is hard-wired, though fwliw the
base of that phone is also the connection for cordless phones that are
available to it, but none have been in use during this problem: Lately
there have been seemingly random interruptions in my ability to hear,
though others can always hear me.

3 times I've been in a long conversation with a friend on a cell phone
with a headset, and for substantial periods, 5 minutes or more, I
couldn't hear her. She'd had trouble with headsets before so we
thought that's what it was. But I was on the phone with a bank
yesterday, and again I couldn't hear him for 3 or 4 minutes.

I tried wiggling, pushing and pulling the plug into the handset and
banging on the handset with my hand, and it had no effect. I didn't
touch the base of the phone this time or any of these times, and
nothing strange appeared on the computer which I sometimes use while
on the phone. (The phone is a Uniden, also with cordless phones
available but not in use.)

Then all of a sudden it started working again and did so for the rest
of the phone call, 10 minutes or more, and today it worked fine for 90
minutes.

Verizon provides the phone and the DSL for the computer. Nothing for
TV. Any idea what the problem could be? ;-) Or what I should try
next?