"TheScullster" wrote in
:

Hi all

This weekend at about 12:30, I arrived home to find two messages on my
answer phone from the boss asking for help with his laptop.
So, incoming calls OK.
Using an old (unpowered) phone in an upstairs extension socket, so I
could be next to computer, I dialled his direct number.
The line was dead.
Next I went downstairs to try cordless phone, in different extension,
dead also.
So I unscrewed the customer side front plate on the master box to
disconnect all the extensions and plugged the unpowered phone in -
nothing. Finally I rang telephone company on mobile to ask if there
were reported faults locally (strangely I had seen one of their vans
parked just round the corner). They said that they would alert the
engineers, but if the fault was internal, I would be charged. They
rang our land line to prove incoming calls OK.
As soon as the call was over, I re-checked the powered phone for a
dial tone - surprise, it's working fine now.

Is this coincidence?
Is there a reason for lost dial tone? All I could think of was an
off-the-hook phone, but we had received incoming calls while absent.

It was a completely dead line? You don't have 1571? If a message is waiting
on 1571, then you get a different tone - not standard dial tone.

Yes - did read your post fully but just in case thought I'd drop my
pearl...

--
Rod