"Steve Stone" wrote in message
et...
When you say no dial tone do you mean you pick up the phone and do not get
dial tone but
if you blow into the phone you can hear yourself blowing or when you
pickup the phone is
it totally dead like it was never plugged into the wall ?


Thanks for your input and insights everyone. I did call Verizon today and
they're coming on Thursday, despite the fact that I can't reproduce the
problem. The woman I spoke with did confirm that it would be a free service
call.

As for various questions: I, ummmm, didn't think to blow into the phone
last time we had no dial tone; next time it happens I'll give it a try (as
long as the kids aren't watching...). And to answer other questions, yes,
I opened the box and plugged directly into the jack inside the box, and
still no dial tone. The "airy" sound I'm describing is sort of the sound of
a connected line with no one at the other end. It is quite different from
the complete lack of sound that happens when the line is completely
disconnected.

Other recent weirdness includes the Hot Call box ringing for no reason, and
an inability to connect to my ISP at any reasonable speed. I have a dial-up
connection and normally I connect at around 45-46k, but today I've been
getting speeds anywhere from 9 - 35k. I tried bypassing the Hot Call box
and plugging directly into the wall, but that didn't improve the connection
speeds I was getting.

Hopefully we'll get it all resolved on Thursday. 24k pretty much stinks.
This storm was really quite something -- our well got hit and fried some
sort of switch box in the pump in the basement -- so I do suspect it was
related. But oddly, the day after the storm after we got the phone back, I
was still connecting at decent speeds. The speed thing has only started up
during the past few days. My ISP, a group of very honest folks, says they
haven't been having issues there.

Thanks again for your help.

Julie