Re: Since the list is so quiet....

Since the list is so quiet, I figured I might be able to appeal to the
leashed brain power & expertise for advice on a problem that arrives
suddenly after more than 10 years of dial up... So I'm hopelessly
backward, but that's well known -- who else would take up gum printing in
old age?

My problem is -- I'm still doing e-mail by dial up --which actually has
many advantages, including that I get to spend the oodles of money saved
on more intellectual pursuits (although the real reason I do it is (a)
stubborness... and (b) simplicity, I have enough systems, services,
contrivances, and "service providers" in this house for an army). Besides
which I can really excuse myself from web hopping, which makes me old
before my time.... So what's the problem?

A couple of weeks ago I started getting an intermittent "no dial tone"
message from my attempts via terminal emulator (Z-term) to log on...
though I could lift up the phone and get a dial tone. Trying an hour or
two later, I did get a tone, so I figured there was just too much
traffic... somewhere.

But today I couldn't get a dial tone all day, so tonight (12:30-ish AM) I
plugged into an extension of my husband's office phone which is nearby (I
mean sometimes I HAVE to use touch tone, since my dearly beloved white
antique wall phone is rotary... And, I'll have you know, I could get $45
for that on e-bay. I think folks use them as planters, or ash trays, or
something.)

So there is a dial tone out there & the problem is... something in the old
phone? (Sob !)... That's intermittent? The demons got tired of Carmen and
found me? Sliding down the telephone wire?

But how could my rotary phone be working, give me a dial tone and calls in
and out but say it has no dial tone for a connection? And some time
later, with the same configuration, same connections, etc., decides to
work, then maybe the next week won't? A loose connection? A flaky thumb
plug?

Verizon has lately been taking an overdose of dumb pills and was
absolutely no use at all... they for instance left me one of those robot
messages to say a non-working outlet was due to my faulty phone, when it
belonged to somebody else in the house who had already had it fixed -- by
verizon.

So verizon said this problem was caused by my service provider, but it
seems rather to be lodged in my old phone, a split personality of some
sort. Anyway, I suppose that old phone which doesn't hear as well as I do
any more is due to be replaced (ash tray anyone?). Can you still buy a
landline phone? Anyway, thanks for listening, if anyone has a suggestion,
that would be even better...

Judy
Received on 08/09/06-10:38:54 PM Z