Fone whoas

Back in the dark ages, my town only had dial up access to the internet. Need to get phone calls made us get two phone lines (this was back in 1998).

We now have DSL and are happily cugging along like everyone else with an extensive home wireless network with multiple systems accessing the net and through the wonders of bandwith sharing, we can call on the phone at the same time!!!

Until last Wednesday a string of events lead to an even MORE interesting TURN of events.

I tried calling home and got a busy signal. We do not have caller annoy by saying hang on and trying in vein to access a second line (aka caller ID). Or any of those anti-social phone company extra's. So a busy signal is not uncommon. The next break being busy was moreso concerning. As my e-mail home proved that no one was online.

So when I got home I went through the typical trouble shooting. Unplugging the phones to see where the culprit was. When that didnt yeild anything I went down to the basement and started checking the various connections only to get a bag of mixed reactions.

This prompted me to put in a trouble ticket with the phone company. They came out and they went through and found I had not disconnected the TiVO. Dial tone came back and we were good to go.

Until....

The DSL and phone went out on Friday 12-22. I put in another trouble ticket and the guy came out and verified I had dial tone to the house. That means he can charge me to do phone line stuff. So be it. He replaced some stuff and re-wired some stuff and we had dial tone but no DSL. He was unable to determine why the DSL wasnt there as he was a 'phone guy' and did not have DSL stuff.

So I go to call up my phone service and put in a DSL fix request. Here it gets interesting. One of the inhuman (non-human) voice maze thingys asks if you are calling in to report the phone number you are calling in on....

thats confusing.... Lets do an EXAMPLE!

inhuman bodyless voice of doom-> I'm sorry your haveing troubles would you like to start a trouble ticket?

Hapless Human - > Yes, you souless machine!

inhuman bodyless voice of doom-> I did not understand your last response please say it again.

Hapless Human - > Yes. . .

inhuman bodyless voice of doom-> I see, okay will this trouble ticket be about (pause) 4..4..0..6..8..8..8..0..0..0..0.. or a different phone number?

Hapless Human - > um... a different phone... er.. wait...... (hangs up)

So you see the phone number the souless machine rattled off was SUPPOSED to be the phone number I was calling in from. It was my OLD dial in number.

My mind quickly figured out what happened, once upon a time there were several males living in a house across the street from an unammed institution of higher learning *cough* cal-tech *cough*. They had found a live phone line and would connect it and make long distance phone calls that would not be billed to anyone... (alleged, cant prove anything).

So my OLD dial up internet line had been lurking live under the house the ACTUAL problem with my phone line was up at the box.

If I put in a DSL call they would come out on January 2nd because DSL is a non-vital service (I do not understand that either)

So I opted to call back to the phone company and sure enough they got the guy back out to my house in about an hour and after a red faced explination they re attached the correct lines and said they wouldnt charge me for the line work they did.

So it ended well...