rpw3%rigden.wpd@sgi.com (Rob Warnock) (06/30/90)
A mysterious thing happened to me a couple of days ago. I woke up to discover my primary home telephone was dead -- no battery voltage. (My modem line was still o.k.) After checking to make sure I'd paid my bill (!), I called repair service. [From the old-Telco-habits-die-hard file: Them: "What time will someone be home to let the repair person into the house?" Me: "I've checked at the demarc and there's no dial tone and no battery voltage." Them: "<pause> Oh. Okay. Is there a number where we can we call you to let you know when we've fixed it?" Me: "<my mobile number>."] About an hour later I get a call on the mobile. It's the repairman, who says it's all fixed. Now here's the strange thing. He says that out on the pole the "jumper" [didn't say whether it was a bridging clip or a real pair of wires] was missing! Just gone. Not there. He declined to provide any speculation as to how such a thing had happened. My question: Do such things happen often? I can understand the horror stories I've heard about pair-starved apartment buildings in downtown Chicago or New York, but this is in a medium-low-density "single-family dwelling" neighborhood 25 miles away from a "real" city. (O.k., San Mateo's a city, but it's not San Francisco or San Jose. It's not even Palo Alto!) I have a 6-pair drop cable to the house (of which only two happen to be live these days). Is this likely to have been an installer's random goof? ... or some sort of vandalism? ... or a prelude to a burglary? Just paranoid I guess. Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311 [Moderator's Note: Is it possible it was somehow loose / not properly attached and eventually worked its way off and fell to the ground? Have you noticed any difference in the behavior (or lack of it) in the other pairs which you say are not currently active coming from the pole? I would attribute it to error. PT]