Land Line Voice and DSL outage problems

If this is the wrong place to post this topic please move it (or delete it).

I recently moved from Jacksonville, Fl to the mountains of North Carolina. I have an AT&T land line so I can get DSL. No other source up here in the woods.

It's my understanding that the DSL is "piggy-backed" on the land line at a different frequency than the voice signal.

Sometimes the DSL goes out for hours (most recent outage was 36 hours) and recently I've been losing my voice dial tone. I don't recall losing both at the same time. Efforts to contact a live person at AT&T have so far been impossible.

The question I want to discuss is this. If, when I lose my voice dial tone, I still have my DSL signal then since they are both on the same physical wire, the dial tone loss can't be a break in the line or loose condition at the telephone line junction box on the outside of my house. If that were the case, then logically (to me) I would lose both signals.

It would seem to me that if I have either signal when the other one goes out, then the problem is not between the telephone pole and my equipment inside my house. Possible exception if modem/router fails then DSL loss is my problem, but I can test for that.

Comments?

 

Before calling out AT&T you must be absolutely certain that the fault is not with any internal cables or filters between the box on the outside of your house and your router and telephone, otherwise a pretty hefty bill could arrive. Domestic standard phone cables, splitters and filters are rubbish quality so I would replace them all before approaching AT&T.

I'm sure you will have checked that absolutely everything plugged into any telephone point is protected by its own ADSL filter?

 

Whenever you have a voice outage, take a non-cordless phone to the access box on the outside of the house and plug it in there. Do you get voice? Yes=your problem, no=something up the line on the phone company. While you're there, look at how many lines are going into the house, unplug any not in use.

Speaking of cordless phones, some run on the same frequency as your wifi network. Make sure that you have the base for the cordless phone well away from the wifi access point of your house. Change channels on the phone or wifi. You're probably already fine on all this but just throwing it out there.

While the voice and data are piggy backed on each other coming off the line from the street, the actual access points to the voice network and the internet are likely not in the same place, especially if they piggy backed onto an existing voice system that could be antique by most people's standards. I'm not giving them a pass on this, just thinking why one would go down but not the other. Since there's only one line coming into your house and not separate data and voice lines (physical cables), then there's a "voice modem" in/on your house. That may be faulty, which is ATT's responsiblity, usually. That voice modem should have a battery as well, but that shouldn't come into play unless the modem itself loses power. You may check to see if that's working correctly (something plugged in that you've never plugged in out in the garage that you've unplugged maybe?).

 

Secretcodbreaker, from experience with AT&T I know it is possible to have internet when the landline phone is not working. We had storms here a few years ago that took out phone lines and power lines for miles around. So no electricity and no phones. No cell phone service either. We were able to plug the DSL and the computer up to the generator and have internet even though we did not have a dial tone on the phone.

 

cabbiinc said: "Whenever you have a voice outage, take a non-cordless phone to the access box on the outside of the house and plug it in there. Do you get voice? Yes=your problem, no=something up the line on the phone company. While you're there, look at how many lines are going into the house, unplug any not in use."

I used to do that in Jacksonville. When I tried it here in Waynesville, I got the box open but couldn't get to the "test plug" or any other connection that would accept a common "plug into wall fixture" so I could connect a phone.

The owner before me had four or five TV cables coming from the dish on the roof and were connected to cables leading to rooms that were going through filters at the phone box connection. Also had many, many wires going who knows where and the obvious phone wire connection leading into the house had been disconnected.

All in all a real mess of wires of various colors, some connected behind a shield that I couldn't open and others just laying around inside the phone box.

So I'm left with the assumption that if either the DSL or voice land line is working then the outage is an AT&T problem. That has been the case so far. It happens about once every two weeks, most often a DSL failure.

Earthling said- "I'm sure you will have checked that absolutely everything plugged into any telephone point is protected by its own ADSL filter?"

Absolutely. And when I lose voice land line I disconnect all those filtered lines going to the three remotes and then see if I get a dial tone on the non-remote phone. In effect, removing from the "network" all the remotes. That is as close as I can come to "testing" the line.

The images AT&T show on the web site along with the instructions for doing a line test look nothing like what I see when I open the phone box on the outside of my house. There is absolutely no place to plug in a working phone. When I lived in Jacksonville, I had a "test" phone permanently plugged in, since the phone box was inside my garage (out of the weather) and all I needed to do was go out to the garage and pick up the handset and listen for a dial tone. In 30 years, I don't recall it every being "my" problem when I lost voice (or DSL for that matter).

Thanks for all your replies. If you see an AT&T repair man in your travels tell him to stop by my place in Waynesville and explain where I can hook into a "test" connection.

 

It sounds like you've been wired wrong. Either by a sloppy contractor working for ATT or by some DIY job, and from the what you're saying I'm leaning towards a DIY job.

If you ever get through to ATT, have them come out to look at it. If they say it's all good on their end then tell them that you don't have the legally required access point in the box to affect your own repairs. Once you start saying things like "legally required" you'll at the very least have their attention. If you haven't purchased the linebacker insurance (assuming ATT offers it in your area) then anything past your access box into the house is your responsibility, but you can't affect any repairs without that access point. If you do have linebackers insurance (usually pennies a month) then they'll take care of any repairs, assuming you can actually get ahold of them.

 

The box is an AT&T box. It's just the insides that don't look like the images on the "repair it yourself AT&T web site" nor can I find the "test connection" where I am supposed to plug in a known working phone.

Also, I was present when the AT&T service man came out two years ago and activated my line. I vaguely recall him saying that he was familiar with the installation and knew what all the wires were for. He may have even activated the TV lines (I need two - one for living room and one for bedroom) but that may have been the DirecTV guy.

cabbiinc said: "If you ever get through to ATT, have them come out to look at it."

That's what I've been trying to do. Anyone know how to get past the automated "report telephone problem" litany of menus and actually talk to a person that can tell a service man to come out and have a look?

I've tried to get to them via the web site and the 800 number. I've literally spent hours trying to get a person to talk to me, not to mention every time I leave the house keeping my eyes peeled for a service truck.

 

I've heard that if you press the number for spanish you'll get through easier. And the person on the other end should be bilingual.

Google the service number. There's websites out there that give the numbers to press to talk to someone faster.

Upload a snapshot of your box/wiring. Who knows, it may be something easy.

 

That might have worked. Had to do a little "fake out" Told automated system I want to up-grade my system and then pressed Operator many times and finally got a salesman, that said he would have a service man call me and schedule a visit to look at the outside box. We'll see.

cabbiinc suggested -"Upload a snapshot of your box/wiring." I have three 55 kb images of the installation - Outside box - Box opened - Close-up of inside of box.

Don't know how to do an upload to this forum. I may have a "cloud" site that I can upload to and provide a link to the image. Haven't tried that recently, so it may take some time.

 

Here are three links to images of the BellSouth (AT&T) connection box on the outside of my house.

http://1x2x.atspace.com/BoxOnHouse.jpg

http://1x2x.atspace.com/OpenBox2.jpg

http://1x2x.atspace.com/OpenBox.jpg

For some reason, clicking on them doesn't seem to work. You must copy and paste the URL into your browser (Paste & Go) to get to the page with the image.

 

Yesterday, voice went out again and I was determined to make contact with an actual person to report the problems I've been having this past month with loss of dial tone.

I signed on to Chat with the U-verse section of the web site (the Home Phone section of the web site always says Chat is not Available at this time) and got to explain I was having trouble getting to talk to someone to report the problem. After being told that this was the wrong place to discuss home telephone problems I was given the old 800-288-2020 number to call. I told the chat person that I had tried that many times and could never get to a real person, it was totally automated. She finally condescended to give me a tech support for home phones number - 877-737-2478.

That starts out with the same old automated crap, but when it gets toward the end, it asks if you want to hear any other menus. At that point I kept saying Technician - Agent and it finally said I understand you want to talk to an agent, so I'll switch you to an agent. Then after ringing a couple of times it tells you that all the agents are busy with customers and the queue is xxx minutes long and you can hold for the next available agent. During the twenty minute I waited, it was suggested that I would be better off going to the repair web site. Been there many, many, times to no avail. Finally a young woman answered my call and I spend another twenty minutes explaining my problems and requested that a repairman be sent to my home so I could explain everything to him. She promised that it would be done and that I could call back if nothing happened and refer to my home phone number which was the number she had assigned to the request.

My land line was down for 24 hours from the time I made that call. This afternoon my land phone rang and it was a repairman calling from the switch box about a mile from my house and telling me he had found the problem (faulty switch on the voice side of the line) and wanted to be sure that I now had a dial tone and a DSL signal, which I did. Then surprisingly, he gave me his cell phone number and first name and told me to call him if I ever had anymore problems with my land line.

Since he was so close, I asked him if he had time to stop by and let me show him the connection box on the outside of my house that didn't look anything like the connection box shown on the web site.

He agreed and 10 minutes later, pulled into my drive. He opened the box and agreed that it was not like the box shown on the web site. He said it was a newer version, and showed me that the place to plug in a phone to test the line was inaccessible. He went back to his truck and got a pair of wire cutters, opened up the repairman side of the box with the special key and snipped off a plastic tab that was preventing me form sliding back a lever and exposing the socket where a phone could be plugged in for testing the line.

He then indicated that people complained all the time about the web site and that I should be sure to call him directly if I had any problems with the phone line.