Julie wrote:
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.

There's a bad connection somewhere. The 98V ring voltage is enough to
"jump" across the connection and restore it for a while, but at some
point when you take the phone off hook and the voltage drops to a
measly few volts it goes bad again. Sounds like the 48V on-hook voltage
isn't enough to "jump" the connection.

--
Spammers are people who are too lazy and cowardly to rob liquor stores, but
still want to make money by stealing instead of working.
-- Morely Dotes, The Open Sourceror's Apprentice