[TheForge] Phone & electrical problems

Thu Jul 8 14:25:27 EDT 2004

I've had electrical and phone problems for a couple of weeks since a tree
fell on the power line across the road. The transformers sounded like
cannons. Now my Miller 185 MIG doesn't work right. Just deposits the wire in
a molten blob on top of the work. It was working fine 2 weeks before that.
Also, when the AC turns on, the lights get brighter; then they flicker &
dim. Also, when I turn on the belt grinder the TV goes haywire. The phones
just quit when they feel like it and the cordless phone gives all sorts of
weird signals and gave up the ghost. I tried to call my neighbor on my cell
phone and the recording said To roam on Verizon, dial 1, & the area code. I
have Alltel, not Verison. The power company says there is nothing wrong
with the power but it worries me - something isn't right. Do any of you have
any ideas?

Thanks,

Ron C 

-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Bruce Freeman
Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 12:35 PM
To: theforge at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [TheForge] [YAK -- really] Re: Disgusting Ironwork

It's worse than that, even.  I've had noise on my line for years now, to
such an extent that for the last few months using the internet from home
has been tedious - 960 Baud rather than 9600 baud (wherease 5X THAT
should be possible).

So I phone Verizon for a repair.  THEY plan to charge ME $91 to come
out to check THEIR line - THEIR side of the connection.  Oh, if they
find a problem there will be no charge, but if they DON'T, I have to eat
their $91 charge.  (They assume the problem is on my end, NOT that it
may only occur evenings or weekends when I'm actually using the phone
line.)  Their test - they connect a telephone to the box and listen for
noise.  No electronic test.  No linking to the exchange.  Nothing.  Just
listen for noise.  

I plan to listen for noise myself.  Then, whether I hear any or not,
I'm going to write to the board of public utility commissioners and let
THEM communicate my dissatisfaction to Verizon.

Bruce
NJ

===============

After divestiture, if it did quit, if *anything* inboard of the demarc
died, the customer had to eat it.  Ergo only crappy phones were made
thereafter.

>>> Mike Spencer <mspencer at tallships.ca> 7/7/2004 7:31:05 PM >>>

Andy wrote:

    I asked one of the old timers what was up with that.  He told me
    that AT&T had spent millions of dollars on a marketing study to
    determine customer expectations on phone quality.  Apparently they
    found that most customers expected their phones to break at about
    two years and need replacement.  With this information they
    engineered their phones to last almost precisely that long....

There's something whrong with that.  Perhaps only with the words your
or your informant chose.  But don't you remember?  Before divestiture,
phones *didn't break*.  Kick it down stairs and it's fine.  Smash the
case and it still works. [1]

So: People *didn't* expect their phones to quit in a couple of years.
We expected them to last forever.  But before divestiture, if the
phone *did* break, the telco had to fix it.  Ergo only indestructible
phones were installed. 

After divestiture, if it did quit, if *anything* inboard of the demarc
died, the customer had to eat it.  Ergo only crappy phones were made
thereafter.

You should see what the NS telco hands out now if you want them to
supply a low-end phone instead of going to the nice phone store and
shelling out for a piece of telephonic decorator doo-dah in your
choice of styles and colors. Gak! [2]

- Mike

[1] Last month, we were switched from pulse to tone by accident and
    ignorance of the marketing guy who was playing tech during the
    strike.  Until then we were using old dial phones (1200 sets?)
    installed in 1973.  Some years ago I slugged a hand hewn rafter
    truss in an ill-conceived attempt to seat it better.  It came
    un-pegged and popped clear out of its rebates.  Annnd the skis,
    spare molding, kids' jr. high projects and pine boards stored up
    there came down around my ears, missing me completely but smashing
    several square inches out of the bedside phone case.  It' was
    still working fine when they switched off pulse last month.

[2] I've had my son (who lives in Halifax) watching for 2500-sets for
    a couple of years when he visits junk stores.  Those are the ones
    that look more or less like an iconic dial phone but have a key
    pad in place of the dial.  Last made circa 1986 I think.  We have
    4, two of which work and two of which will probably make one good
    one.  And also a "fake" 2500 set, made by Lucent, that isn't
    indestructo like the "real" ones but is tone/pulse
    switchable. Total cost circa $15.  So we were all set when they
    switched us over without notice.  It's going to be fun when I take
    the dial phones (for which we've been more or less stupidly paying
    rent) back and have the conversation with whoever is manning the
    telco counter.  I anticipate a 20-year-old who has never seen a
    dial phone and doesn't believe these are real phones.

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

-- 

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