DSL Phone Static Question for Lineman?

ultrarunner · Mar 6, 2018

I have had the same phone since 1980 and the line quality started out bad with lots of static and noise.... phone company never was able to make it clear but it worked OK for Dial Up Internet... Only one jack and it is direct through wall installation... no "Inside" wire to speak of.

In 2000 phone company sends out DSL OFFER and I accept... install crew has lots of issues as I am at outer limit and end up running a new line from quite a far away point...

Phone service is now crystal clear and DSL works great.

Since Christmas the line quality sucks... bad static, cannot hear callers often and DSL drops out all the time.

Call AT&T and they want to sell U-Verse... saying there isn't a lot that can be done with POTS service... not interested in cable for TV as I use rabbit ears.

Anyway, the only way to get the DSL working is to lift receiver on phone and then DSL will sync and works well.

So no Sync, Static on Line, High Open and have requested Metallic Loop Test.

Is there anything else I can do to prod AT&T?

Seems there should be some interest in keeping a loyal customer of 38 years or is POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) simply being left to rot in place?

PILOON · Mar 6, 2018

I once overheard some linemen chatting about how the bass was happy about how many land line clients they had lost.
The telecoms would cheer if everybody went to cell phone service as it is much more economical for them to maintain service.
Either you buy a new cellphone or they upgrade their computer.

With landlines they need a service vehicle, lots of trained staff and miles upon miles of wires to maintain and that is not counting poles that break and ice damage from storms.

Tractor Seabee · Mar 6, 2018

Piloon is absolutely right. I had a similar problem, finally a senior tech was sent out; he determined incoming from the pole was bad. He explained that we were on the end of a line that was 2 miles of old copper. There were only 6 subscribers on the 2 miles. He admitted that they would be pleased to lose those 6 so they could abandon that section as there was a not enough income to pay for updating the 2 miles. Some times there is a real reason why tech service seems to be less than desirable; deliberate means of losing customers not paying the freight to maintain service.

That tech explained that he was talking out of school but did not care as he was retiring in 6 months.

Ron

mddorange · Mar 7, 2018

I live out in the country and on our county road, they wouldn't even run cable as there are too few homes to make it payable.

I used to have DSL with Centurylink through the landline with the home phone at $69 a month, but it was very slow, < 1 mbps. When AT&T offered unlimited internet over their 4 lte cell towers for only $20 a month at a speed of 12 mbps, I jump at it and haven't looked back.

Now the POWER company is running fiber lines on their power poles and offering 100mbps of unlimited internet for $49.a month.

ultrarunner · Mar 7, 2018

This location is in the city... and at one time there was a wait list for lines... homes were ordering multiple lines back in the 80's...

Maybe it is no longer true but landline phone service is still under the PUC and highly regulated where as the alternatives not so much?

A lot of taxpayer money went into connecting America by Landline... friends in Santa Cruz are deep in a Redwood forest 7 miles from pavement and off grid EXCEPT the phone company put in miles of underground in 1970 as funds for rural service needed to be spent.

Maybe landline will go the way of the ice man?

thepumpguysc · Mar 7, 2018

I still have DSL thru my landline & when it arrived it had a "filter" that was supposed to plug into EVERY phone jack that had a phone attached to it..
Just for kicks I went & disconnected the filter & plugged the phone straight into the jack while reading this..
STATIC.!!!
Put the filter back in & its crystal clear..
I'll look around & if I have more filters, your welcome to them.. TPG

mddorange · Mar 7, 2018

I have six filters that I don't use, you are welcome to them.

k0ua · Mar 7, 2018

POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) simply being left to rot in place?

Yep.

Maybe landline will go the way of the ice man?

Yep.

The copper plant continues to deteriorate. The phone companies are interested in maintaining their fiber optic feeds to the cell towers and the other larger customers that they are feeding high speed data to.

kcflhrc · Mar 7, 2018

Some of this is true and some is definitely not. Being one of the biggest Telco's in the US we have no cell phone offering and no towers, I know, hard to believe right. I work at the local level doing Fiber to the premise, residential and business. We still maintain our copper plant but not a lot of new going into the ground, mostly just maintenance. So many limitations on copper as to very few limitations with fiber. Transport is big as well as cloud services but the cell market is just not a good business to be in, way too much competition. Everyone wants faster this and faster that, I get it. I don't run into the issues the guys that do copper plant get into, it can be a nightmare. Lots of stuff going on with CAF right now but still government mandate is still only 10 meg. Static can be caused by several factors, weather, bad connection, you name it. Fiber typically works or it doesn't. The filters you speak of have to go on every phone or at least 1 installed with all voice jacks connected to it. The jack for the DSL gets no filter. Good luck, sucks to live in the country. But when I go home at the end of the day to my rural 10 acres the last thing I want to do is get on the internet. And yes, land lines are regulated by the PUC for 911 purposes but broadband is not regulated in any way.

DrRod · Mar 7, 2018

We had terrible static on our line and changed out the little rectangle box in the line [filter?] and it got much better.

I have also gone through the self-assessment protocol [which is tough because you have to drive six miles for cell service to check in on each step] and found a loose wire in the outside box was the culprit. Do you have access to the outside box?

Just to pile on, Verizon couldn't care less about us out in the country. A truck knocked our line down last summer and the phone company insisted the problem was with the computers on their end and it would take two weeks to fix since they were all out fixing storm damage. I could see the line coiled on a fence post but they wouldn't hear of it. Then they made an appointment to fix it and didn't show up. I called and called and no one cared.

The bad thing is that we don't have cell service so without a land line you are isolated -- very bad in emergencies.