sullivan@EDN-VAX.ARPA (Pat Sullivan) (01/08/86)
The problem is simply stated; my apartment has two extensions, one a plastic drugstore fone and one a GTE touch-tone. For long periods of time (but intermittantly and unpredictably) callers from outside trying to reach us get a busy signal, when the extensions are solidly hung up. The corollary of this from inside seems to be an event where, for long periods of time etc., we can't get a dial tone. This has been going on since last April, when we moved in. C & P says they can't find any problem (we've never been able to get them to monitor the line for a 24-hour period). Does anyone have any good insights into this? Any possibility that it's an "outside" problem? What prompts that question is that the telco junction boxes or whatever they're called for the apt bldgs appear to be very poorly secured; often I'll see one with the door hanging open. Thanks for all info, Pat Sullivan Reston, VA.
telecom@ucbvax.UUCP (01/14/86)
> The problem is simply stated; my apartment has two extensions, > one a plastic drugstore fone and one a GTE touch-tone. For long > periods of time (but intermittantly and unpredictably) callers > from outside trying to reach us get a busy signal, when the extensions > are solidly hung up. The corollary of this from inside seems to be > an event where, for long periods of time etc., we can't get a dial tone. > This has been going on since last April, when we moved in. > C & P says they can't find any problem (we've never been able to get them > to monitor the line for a 24-hour period). > Does anyone have any good insights into this? Any possibility that it's > an "outside" problem? What prompts that question is that the telco junction > boxes or whatever they're called for the apt bldgs appear to be very > poorly secured; often I'll see one with the door hanging open. There could be a variety of reasons, including a telephone company problem in the central office (although that has the least probability). Since the telephone company has not been able to solve the problem, I guess it's up to you. I would therefore use the next time when you have no dial tone to perform some diagnosis: (1) Unplug both phones; can you get dial tone when only ONE telephone is plugged in? If so, then the OTHER phone is probably bad. Make certain that you can reproduce the problem before reaching a final conclusion. (2) Assuming (1) didn't tell you anything, what exactly do you HEAR when picking up the telephone without dial tone? If you hear a loud 60 Hz hum, or a hum mixed with dial tone, then you no doubt have a cable problem (hopefully in the telephone company's cable, and not your inside wiring). Do you hear sidetone (i.e., can you hear yourself talk), but WITHOUT any hum? If so, I would suspect a telephone company line equipment problem. (3) During times when the telephone works normally, do you hear excessive hum or noise (especially a scratching type noise)? Does it get worse during wet weather? If so, then it is most likely a telephone company outside cable problem. If it appears that you have hum or noise as above, call the telephone company and get on their case! In order of likelihood, here are the telephone company's trouble possibilities: (1) Bad outside cable. (2) Bad subscriber premises protector. (3) Bad central office protector. (4) Bad central office line equipment. (5) Overloaded (by traffic) or otherwise bad subscriber line concentrator, if your line is so equipped. While it is not too likely that your line is run through a line concentrator, your symptoms could be exactly caused by an line concentrator during an all paths busy condition; in this case there is really no hardware problem - just poor traffic engineering. (6) Bad subscriber line carrier equipment, if your line is so equipped. ==> Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York <== ==> UUCP {decvax|dual|rocksanne|rocksvax|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry <== ==> VOICE 716/741-9185 {rice|shell}!baylor!/ <== ==> FAX 716/741-9635 {G1, G2, G3 modes} duke!ethos!/ <== ==> seismo!/ <== ==> "Have you hugged your cat today?" ihnp4!/ <==