Cable phone not working

:cry My neighbors keeps bugging me to use my phone as hers "works sometimes but not all the time, won't dial some numbers". Says she needed new cordless phone but can't afford it. I gave her a 2 year old cordless phone that worked just fine up until 10 minutes before in my bedroom using regular jacks from our local phone co. It won't work on her cable phone modem either.
Turns out she had Atlantic Broadband cable TV, INTERNET and phone service until recently. Then she sold the computer and dropped the INTERNET service to save money. But kept the cable TV and phone service still.
My question: Can you even have cable phone service without an INTERNET connection or computer? Of course she no longer is hooked up to the regular local phone service so the wall connections are all disconnected and won't work with a corded phone, I tried it. Please help she is driving my insane and is not very assertive to figure this out any time soon!

 

Tell her to call the cable company, if she is paying for phone, they'll have to fix it.

 

I used to work for what is now Comcast Cable. They had TV, Phone, Internet. It's technically Voip but you don't need to buy internet service to make it work since the Voip modem is in a box either in the garage or on the outside of the house. (yes internet is there, no you can't tap into and use it) If it didn't work at all without internet you wouldn't be able to receive or make any phone calls at all, and it sounds like it's intermittent.

At any rate, the problem you describe sounds like something that is caused by too clean a phone. The modem relies on picking up the "static" on the line to activate. If you have an older corded phone you may get better results. Where I was working for a company to offer phone service they need to provide 99.9% up time or face fines. If you contact the company with a connection problem they have 24 hours to fix it or face fines (acts of God can waive these fines). Call the cable company. There may be a line that's messed up in the house.

 

You may also try finding the telephone access point (the Voip modem, might say Telephony on the outside), open the user access panel, and just plug directly into that RJ-11 jack with the wireless base, obviously running the lines inside. The user access panel will either be a clip or flathead screwdriver. The non-user access panel will have a specialized screwdriver or a tag locking you out. Just use common sense as to which is meant to be accessed by the homeowner and what is supposed to be off limits.

 

Thnks. She thinks there is something wrong with wiring inside the house and they will charge her to come out to fix it. What wiring within the house? The electrical outlet works fine as cable modem lights up. The only other connections inside the house is the cable wire connection w splitter (tv to phone) connectors. I think I may have to move.

 

Yeah I supposed it probably has. If they had just bought phone service to begin with they may have a phone modem on the outside, but since they downgraded their service the cable company likely just left the current modem in place.

The cabling that I'd be concerned with is the actual RG-6 cable from the outside of the house to the inside. There should be an access point somewhere on the outside of the house. You could try plugging the modem into that just to diagnose if that has a problem. If that shows good service, then the inside wiring of the house doesn't you'll know what area to attack. If the modem isn't any better outside than it is inside then it may very well be a faulty modem. Again though, it's phone service and the company responsible should be the one to diagnose this crap. If your neighbor had someone trying to break in are they going to run next door to call the cops at 3:30 in the morning?

I decided to go the other way, dump the phone line, got high speed internet, got a Majic Jack Plus, and enjoyed free long distance and the internet for whatever price the internet is (which is about the cost of home phone service) plus $20 a year for the Magic Jack. I also bought an antenna and digital tuner, but now my TV has a tuner so just need the antenna. I do miss some cable shows, but after 28 days or so you quit shaking.:-D :strong

 

Thanks everyone, I just finally told her that I won't be letting her use my phone anymore, that she will have to call the cable co to fix her problem. She's on the porch now bugging the neighbor across the way to use her phone. I shut the blinds. Thanks again!