If there's no dial tone at the "outdoor box" where the line enters the home,
then it's Verizon's problem...and their expense.
They'll do exactly what you did (I assume) ...plug a phone into the outdoor
junction box.
Better still, call 'em on a cell phone when you can't get a dial tone...they
can test that from their office while it's happening".

"Julie" noaddress@nospam wrote in message
...
Hi, all --

I'm guessing that this is a problem with our phone company (Verizon), but
I
figured I'd throw this out there in case anyone has had similar ghosts
lurking in their homes:

We have one standard phone line; no extras except call waiting. We have a
Hot Call box attached to it, with our phone plugged into that.

Last Thursday we had massive electrical storms. The phone line went out
while I was on-line between storms. On Friday AM we had no dial tone even
at the outdoor box, but after I returned from an errand, lo and behold
there
was a message on our answering machine and the dial tone was back. I
figured that Verizon had fixed us up post-storm, and that was that. Wrong.

On Saturday AM, we lost our dial tone again. We went out an hour later
and
asked a neighbor two doors down whether she had lost phone either after
the
storm or that day. No, she hadn't. When we returned home a few hours
later, there was still no dial tone, but then suddenly the phone rang, and
after hanging up from that call, we again had a dial tone. I believe I
was
on-line when I lost the connection.

Tonight, the same thing happened. I was on-line and lost my connection.
No
dial tone again (though you can hear an airy sound in the background). My
husband went out to a payphone and called our house. The phone rang, and
after answering it and hanging up, bingo -- dial tone again. When the
phone
has no dial tone, by the way, I believe that outgoing calls cannot be
made.
I haven't tried it from the phone (just read in an old thread on this
newsgroup that you can sometimes call out without a dial tone), but I did
unwittingly try to get on-line once without a dial tone, and there was no
answer. We are always unable to get a dial tone at the box, too.

Anyway, so I'm wondering if anyone else has had this problem. My husband
thinks it's related to being on-line, but I'm on-line a lot, so I'm not
convinced that that's not just coincidental. I'll give Verizon a call
tomorrow, but I'm afraid that they'll want to see the problem in action,
and
I'm not quite sure how to reproduce it.

Any thoughts?