From: "Bishoop" 
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Phone Line Problem
Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 16:05:54 -0400


"Mike Muderick"  wrote in message 
news:2CGhe.4032$4d6.1163@trndny04...
> It's two days later and Mary's problem is probably fixed, but the answer
> that it is probably a short, could not be true because the dsl still 
> works.
> More likely a forgotten phone was off-hook, putting load on the line. 
> When
> Mary says she has no dialtone, does she have side-tone, i.e. can she her 
> own
> voice coming back in a phone when she picks up?  If so, most likely a 
> phone
> off-hook.
>
> mm
>
> "ML"  wrote in message
> news:u9ahe.1217$OT3.62@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com...
>> I discovered this morning that I have no dial tone on any of the phone
> lines
>> in my house.  I know it was working fine on Monday but I haven't used it
> in
>> the past few days.  When I used my cell phone to call my home, I got a
> busy
>> signal, even when I disconnected every phone line from the jacks.
> Strangely
>> enough, my DSL service was working fine.  I went to the outside phone box
>> and disconnected the test jack, opening up the connection between the
> phone
>> company's line and my inside lines.  When I called my home again, this
> time
>> I got a ring tone instead of the busy signal.  When I plugged a phone 
>> into
>> the test jack, I was able to make a phone call.  So I expect that the
> phone
>> company (SBC) will tell me that this means there is nothing wrong with 
>> the
>> line to my house, the problem is with the inside wiring, and that I will
>> have to pay them to come repair it.
>>
>> I would like to see if there's anything I can do to try to troubleshoot 
>> or
>> fix this myself before hiring someone to do it, since the quotes I've
> gotten
>> are for $90/hour.  Can anyone give me some suggestions or point me to 
>> some
>> Web sites that might help?  I tried Google but I wasn't able to find
>> anything helpful in the first few pages of results that it returned.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Mary

You're most likely correct.  As I was writing my reply I forgot about the 
DSL is working part of her original post.