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?

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?

Julie wrote:
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.

If you mean by this that you plugged a telephone (without a separate
power jack) into the Network Interface box somewhere on the outside of
your residence, then you definitely need to call Verizon; it's their
problem, in some fashion. Electrical storms can certainly burn out or
stress equipment and something may need replacement. Given that you've
had problems with more than one piece of *your* equipment, feel free to
assume it's a more general problem.

Make sure that you double-check by *opening* the box and plugging into
the *internal* jack. There's often a short ~6" dongle attached that goes
outside, and it can get loose as well.

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.

Don't worry too much. Their field engineers see this sort of problem
*all* the time. No matter what you say, really, they're going to do
their own investigation and yes, perhaps, only if they've already been
out and you RE-report the problem will they actually do much more than
what I outlined above, i.e. what you the customer can do.

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 ?

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

We had this problem after a storm also. Turned out that water was
getting into the NIC (box on the house where phone line comes in). By
rectifying this, the problem went away.

Curmudgeon wrote:
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".

And that testing from the office is not fail-proof, and if you know the
problem is not yours, then file a complaint with your state corporation
commision. I've had my share of fighting and threatening the first-level
techs just to get a supervisor on the phone in order to get someone to the
house to track down a Verizon-responsible problem.

"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

Julie posted for all of us....

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?



What's a hot call box? If you unplug the modem & this hot call box thingie do
you get dial tone? Modems blow in electrical storms...
--
Tekkie

"Tekkie" wrote in message
t...

What's a hot call box? If you unplug the modem & this hot call box
thingie do
you get dial tone? Modems blow in electrical storms...
--
Tekkie

A hot call box is a box that rings if there's an incoming call when you're
on-line. It's cheaper than getting a second line and requires only call
waiting. Thus the telephone and modem are sharing the same line. But I
don't get a dial tone on either the phone or the modem (and I'm able to get
on-line; at this moment I'm just doing so with a lightning fast 19.2k
connection). It's just that every so often the dial tone goes away
completely, only to return when some unwitting good samaritan happens to
call us. Or when I send my husband 6 miles round trip to the nearest pay
phone...

Julie

Julie wrote:
"Tekkie" wrote in message
t...

What's a hot call box? If you unplug the modem & this hot call box

thingie do

you get dial tone? Modems blow in electrical storms...
--
Tekkie


A hot call box is a box that rings if there's an incoming call when you're
on-line. It's cheaper than getting a second line and requires only call
waiting. Thus the telephone and modem are sharing the same line. But I
don't get a dial tone on either the phone or the modem (and I'm able to get
on-line; at this moment I'm just doing so with a lightning fast 19.2k
connection). It's just that every so often the dial tone goes away
completely, only to return when some unwitting good samaritan happens to
call us. Or when I send my husband 6 miles round trip to the nearest pay
phone...

Julie


Hi,
If you are talking about dial tone from modem it has volume control or
mute on set up string. How many phones in your house? If more than one,
unplug all but one and see.
Tony

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

Example of why no dial tone: the second storm was just enough to cause
a driver transistor to short and not enough to burn out that
transistor. When that computer is powered on, then it holds phone
line 'off-hook'. Dial tone eventually degrades to loud beeping (phone
off hook) and then into a disconnected line. Turn off the computer
and phone line is released (equivalent to phone places on-hook). This
would explain your intermittent loss of dial tone.

Now for the loss in modem speed. Again, this could be due to
something inside the house. If inside the house, Verizon will charge
to fix it. Better you find that problem right now. As others have
suggested, connect directly to the Verizon network inside their NID.
IOW run a long telephone wire from your computer directly into that
network connection. Do not use any wires inside your house. Now make
that modem connection and obsever modem speed. If you get 40K+ on the
modem, then you know the problem is created by something inside your
house. If you don't get properly modem speed, then you now have
something to show the telco repairman.

If is possible that one of the two surge protectors inside the NID
has failed shorted. This could cause modem speed reduction. A simple
30 second repair for that telco employee - but only if you give him
enough information that he can see the problem immediately. This type
of surge protector failure is not obvious which is why you need
something (ie modem speed when connected directly into NID) to
demonstrate the problem.

After all this, you do want to take a further lesson in effective
protection. Destructive surges rarely enter a building through
thephone lines. As demonstrated here, the telco installs effective
'whole house' protector inside their Network Interface Device (NID).
You need same on other incoming utility lines. Concepts and solutions
discussed previously:
"RJ-11 line protection?" on 31 Dec 2003 in pdx.computing at
http://tinyurl.com/2hl53
"strange problem after power surge/thunderstorm" in comp.dcom.modems
on 31 Mar 2003 at
http://tinyurl.com/2gumt

Unfortunately my suggestions require some work - both physical and
reading. Sorry for the too many solutions.

"Julie" noaddress@nospam wrote in message ...
A hot call box is a box that rings if there's an incoming call when you're
on-line. It's cheaper than getting a second line and requires only call
waiting. Thus the telephone and modem are sharing the same line. But I
don't get a dial tone on either the phone or the modem (and I'm able to get
on-line; at this moment I'm just doing so with a lightning fast 19.2k
connection). It's just that every so often the dial tone goes away
completely, only to return when some unwitting good samaritan happens to
call us. Or when I send my husband 6 miles round trip to the nearest pay
phone...

Julie