Thanks Dave.
I don't know the best way to check for proper ground, but I'm
getting the same voltage across hot to neutral as hot to ground. There is
continuity from the electric ground wire to an old well pipe. The phone
line used to be grounded at that point, but at some point in time was
changed to be grounded to a riser pipe from the steam heat. I reconnected it
to the well ground, but didn't help the hum on the phone line. If I still
get the hum at the network interface device, wouldn't that pretty much rule
out any problem with the house wiring, phone or electric?

"Dave C." wrote in message
...
I have a hum on the phone line. Verizon has been out several times,
and
found no problem. The hum is affecting incoming voice quality, and the
answering machine recording is poor. They did AC voltage, stress test,
DC
volts and leakage test. All were "clean". I plugged in different phones
at
the NID, and hum was still there.(they say they don't here it)
After unplugging different wires and phones, I noticed the same hum
was
coming from the computer speakers.
If I unplug the phone wire from the back of the computer, the hum is
gone from the computer speakers, but not from the phone line.
All this tells me that the hum is on the phone line itself and
causing
interference.
My question is what is the tel co missing. I have DSL, but the noise
was
there before. That hum from the computer speakers was also there for a
long
time, but I did not relate it to the phone line. It seems The digital
answering machine is more sensitive to the hum than an answering mach
with
tape.
Also, if I do a memo recording on the phone without the phone line
connected, the recording is OK; plug the line back in, and the recording
is
poor.

Thanks for any ideas!!

Have you had your house electrical wiring checked? To me, this sounds
like
a house that is improperly grounded (floating ground?). Thus, audio
through
your phone devices is distorted by unclean local power. It would explain
why the phone company found nothing wrong. It would also explain why
there
is no noise without the phone line connected. (if "ground" is
different/correct on the phone line, the noise could be a product of
mixing
with the "ground" of your electrical devices, but only when a phone line
is
connected to an electrical device) Another way of looking at it . . . if
the phone line power is clean (likely) and your house power is not
(possible?), every device in your home might work OK until a phone line is
plugged into it. If the hum is low in frequency, this would further
reinforce my suspician that there might be something wrong with the
electrical wiring, not the phone wiring. Good luck, -Dave