Land line out

[abunaitoo]

Phone is still out.
Guy came today and said another main line needs to be changed.
He said he saw a crew was changing a line down the street.
He checked the line on the pole just to be sure.
Nothing more he could do.
He put in another service ticket.
He suggested a change to fiber.
At least the computer is still working.
Slower than before, but still working.

[uscra112]

Question, as long as we're talking about Magic Jack.

I have AT&T landline. Living where I do there is no cell signal at all, and no possibility of Internet except satellite. The landline has gone out three times in the last 3-4 years, once for four solid weeks. At my age and state of health I don't like being without any phone at all. My only communication with the outside world is email, if the phone ain't working. Or I can drive 10 minutes up the road to get cell signal. Something that might be impossible if I were in need of EMT services.

Now, my Hughes link is now fast enough to handle VOIP, but the latency is such that I would not like to have VOIP over it as my only phone.

Soooo - if I install Magic Jack for emergencies only, can I share the AT&T number with it, or would I have to have a separate number?

[Rick N Bama]

It's sad that Phone Companies customer service has gone downhill so much. When I worked as a service tech for Bellsouth if a report came in by 3:00 it was dispatched on that day and if at all possible repairs were made that day. It would be rare that a trouble report would be carried over until the next day.

[Bird]

Question, as long as we're talking about Magic Jack.

I have AT&T landline. Living where I do there is no cell signal at all, and no possibility of Internet except satellite. The landline has gone out three times in the last 3-4 years, once for four solid weeks. At my age and state of health I don't like being without any phone at all. My only communication with the outside world is email, if the phone ain't working. Or I can drive 10 minutes up the road to get cell signal. Something that might be impossible if I were in need of EMT services.

Now, my Hughes link is now fast enough to handle VOIP, but the latency is such that I would not like to have VOIP over it as my only phone.

Soooo - if I install Magic Jack for emergencies only, can I share the AT&T number with it, or would I have to have a separate number?

http://wp.magicjack.com/features/typ...ble-magicjack/

Appears it will not work well with Hughes.

[Boaz]

Magic Jack ……...Good deal ! Haven't paid a penny for home phone in 8-10 years and works as long as internet is up .

[MT Gianni]

utility companys have had to cut back on personal and repair money. When I started as an electrical lineman in the early 80s we had 10 lineman in our office, two bosses and two secretarys. today they have 5 lineman one how is the working boss and that's it. We had about an unlimited budget to repair old stuff and did routine rebuilds on older lines every year. Today they don't rebuild something till it falls down and repairs are done as cheaply as possible. Im sure they first had to attempt to fix your line and found it was beyond repair and had to replace it. If they would have come there and replaced a line that could have been fairly easy to get up and running with a few bandaids. how would you think rate payers 10 miles away that phone bill is relative to maintance costs would have reacted to them spending there phone bill money on something that didn't need replacing. This is the type of thing you have to except if you want reasonable utility bills. When I first worked we never had ANYONE out of power for more then 24 hours. If we thought it was a possibility we called in help from other districts and even other utility companys. Todays reality is cost cutting has made that impossible and 2 and 3 day outages are getting common. people that don't work in these fields tend to think with a narrow forcus. they think these workers are at the shop sitting around and laughing while there phone or power is out. the forget that there are thousands of other customers that 2 or 3 guys have to keep up and running. Ask yourself this. Would you approve a rate hike in your phone bill if you had the option to vote to insure this never happened again or are you going to look at it logicaly and say it never happened before and it probably wont ever happen again so am I going to vote to increase my bill in case someone else has this happen to them?

While that is true a report of a month long outage to the PSC would result in a hire order in most States. The monopoly was given to the Utility with the expectation of prompt service. Failure to maintain such can and should result in the loss of a franchise though this might take 10 years.
The problem is so few people are using landlines the employees are running to maintain service. Where they had 100,000 customers many now have 20,000. At some point it may be as necessary as coal deliveries and just be dropped altogether.

[Rick N Bama]

While that is true a report of a month long outage to the PSC would result in a hire order in most States. The monopoly was given to the Utility with the expectation of prompt service. Failure to maintain such can and should result in the loss of a franchise though this might take 10 years.
The problem is so few people are using landlines the employees are running to maintain service. Where they had 100,000 customers many now have 20,000. At some point it may be as necessary as coal deliveries and just be dropped altogether.

AT&T has, or at least had, a goal of being copper free by the end of 2020. Whether or not it'll happen is anyone's guess. In my part of the world it's easy to see that they no longer care about maintaining the copper plant. Almost every day I pass by where a Pedestal was damaged by the County Bush Hogging two weeks ago and nothing has been done to repair it. I doubt if it ever will be repaired.

[Down South]

Land lines are going the way of the dinosaur, they are going into extinction. I cut my land line about 10 yrs ago.

[David2011]

We have very long conversations with family and friends several times a week. I would not want to do that with a cell phone just for discomfort reasons. Not a speakerphone fan either but we use it for family calls.

[Rick N Bama]

As a phone co retiree my monthly bill is under $10.00, I'll keep my landline as long as I can!

[MrWolf]

I had dropped my landline before moving here. With lousy cell coverage even after putting up a 43' tower I have the landline for safety reasons.

[Handloader109]

Hughesnet, dishnet wont work. If you turn on or use google, don't you notice you never have same location two days in a row? Satelitte internet has no ability for fixed ip address, and is just ****.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

[uscra112]

Hughesnet, dishnet wont work. If you turn on or use google, don't you notice you never have same location two days in a row? Satelitte internet has no ability for fixed ip address, and is just ****.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Haven't done a rigorous observation, but as far as I can see my IP addy doesn't change day to day. Will keep a close watch for a few days and report back.

BTW I avoid Guugle, and you should, too.

[abunaitoo]

After close to seven weeks, Our phone is working............for now.
Guy came today.
I told him what was done so far.
Told him the first guy said there's a short on the main line.
He checked and said there was a short on the main line.
He went up the pole and checked.
He jumped something and the phones work.
He had to call in to have them change something for the internet.
Now everything is working.....BUT.
He said they have to do something to repair something.
Another crew needs to come out.
So...he said it's working now, and he thinks it should be OK, until they do the repairs.
Well at least it's working now

[uscra112]

Hughesnet, dishnet wont work. If you turn on or use google, don't you notice you never have same location two days in a row? Satelitte internet has no ability for fixed ip address, and is just ****.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Been ten days. My IP address according to https://whatismyipaddress.com/ hasn't changed at all.

[Handloader109]

Check location, are you where it says you live? Even in the same state? Both of my desktops, and tablets never kept same location for more than a couple of days. In over 3 years, every time I logged into a secure bank, retirement or payment system, it would ask for extra login steps as it could Never identify any computer as being the same as last time.

New system is no issue at all. I wish no one had to use satellite internet.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

[uscra112]

Can't corroborate what you claim. My geolocation never changes, either. Always a spot in Kansas.

Nothing wrong with Hughes, unless you expect it to be something it's not. I'm not a gamer, never stream movies, never would even think of doing online banking or bill-payments. It works fine for me, although losing signal during heavy rainfall or snowfall is a bit of a bother when it happens.

My original question still stands: Do I need a dedicated phone number from AT&T to use VOIP? Or could I use the one I have, and simply plug it into the VOIP modem when I need it for backup? Getting a second physical landline here would involve burying another wire from the roadside junction box to the house, I assume. Several hundred yards. Could be spendy.

[abunaitoo]

Finally done this past week.
Longest it ever been a problem.
Our phone company is not owned by a local anymore.
Hasn't been for a while.
Most of the workers are good, hard working, but from talking to them, right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
I'm just glad it's fixed.

[uscra112]

When mine was out for two weeks, AT&T at least had the decency to credit my account for the downtime. Hope they'll do that for you.

[abunaitoo]

Spoke to soon.
Static on the phone line started up again.
Phone guy's worked on it. Changed more lines.
Helped, but still static on the line from tome to time.
They kept on suggesting I change to fiber optic.
When I call about it, they said it would cost more.
The last repair guy that came said it shouldn't cost anything more.
He called and found out that it wouldn't cost anymore.
Seems they just wanted to up grade me to get more money.
Told him if he could get them to put it in writing, I would change to fiber.
Got the letter and started the process to change to fiber.
They got it done last week.
It didn't help any with the internet that I could see.
I did do a speed test, and it shows it is faster. But I don't notice any difference.
What I do notice, is no more static on the phone.
We'll have to keep a close watch on the bill to be sure the rates don't go up.
Repair guy said if it does, I can cancel the fiber, and go back to copper line.
Hope they didn't lie to me in writing.