Strange noises on telephone line

Had similar experience, but sounded like standing in a cave and hitting the side of a garbage can. You got a bong, followed by repetitive decaying bongs. I recall that sound comes from lack of echo cancellation in the boost amplifier circuitry. Boost amplifier amplification goes either towards you or away from you so when one side acts up only one person hears it. They have a lot of anti-echo in them, but sometimes....

Definitely COMPLAIN.If you can record, do so. Your telephone carrier has a monopoly *AND* a charter to supply you certain quality of telco line, when it does not, the Utilities Commission should get involved. If the sound prevents you from successfully completely a call, they have failed in supplying you with 'minimal' service. Until they repair, ask for reduction in service cost.

Second, but not as likely, is a cable bundle that has 'failed' and lines are crossing and disrupting each other. We had that problem once and after any call so disrupted, I called to complain, giving time, length of disruption, and type of disruption. Only took three months, but they finally found the problem: one of those huge buried cable bundles with multitude of telephone pairs had gone wanky. Random noise, and worse, randomly lines would cross to other lines. They pulled a new bundle - a major operation, and voila! clean phone service again.

There is a third potential, but that is most likely heard at both ends

- your phone is tapped. illegally tapped probably. If you check with phone company they'll deny, assuring you there is no tap on your line and no way to tap your line without their knowledge. Yeah, right. ...still shuddering from personal experience on that one.

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I think the OP surmise is closer to being correct. I worked at Bell Labs for 44 years in local switching area, so not totally uninformed.

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The CO is 30 miles from my house so yes I'm certain that there are many opportunities along the way to access my line, but you're probably correct in that it's most likely something else. I don't believe anything they tell me either. The phone company is notorious for keeping secrets. The boost amplifier echo cancellation theory sounds like a more likely scenario. I will suggest that to them. When I was a kid we would go down to the basement of the apartment building in which I lived with a 500 set with clip leads. so I know how easy it is to tap a line. Thanks, Lenny

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Just reread your original posting. ASK each time you hear if the other person is on a landline or cellphone.

Cellphones have a distinct delay between microphone pickup and transmission. They are notorious for creating weird echo's. How many times have we heard the convesation 6 or 7 times?! and had to break, and re-establish the connection to even talk?

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I got the opportunity to speak to the "tech" at the phone company yesterday. Unlike companies such as Verizon or Southern Bell, this part of the state is serviced by a very small independent telephone company that services just several small towns. It's relatively friendly. They have just one senior tech. We spoke for awhile. I mentioned the boost amplifier theory and asked him how calls are processed in this area. He said that years ago everything went out on "T" lines. Today, in addition to the "main" CO. there is a "sub CO" here in town. The switch is a recent electronic one with enhanced 911. Nothing special happens on calls placed within town, however as soon as the call leaves town it gets converted to fiber and then depending on how it's routed and where, who knows what happens. So short of shot gunning the switch, which he's willing to try if all else fails, due to the extremely sporadic nature of this problem, he said that they really can't do anything about it right now. I can understand this. He has asked me to keep a log of the problem, recording date, time, which line, etc and then perhaps we'll notice a pattern. It would also be handy if I could catch an audio recording at will of this ghost as well. I'll have to work on that one. I could probably hang a cassette recorder with remote recording capability on the line, along with something like a Viking RC1 (I think it is), DTMF operated gate controller. It gives you a relay output when it hears a pre programmed DTMF code. I would need one for each line though, unless you guys have a better idea. Lenny

We have had a problem with a buried cable in our neighborhood which was installed in the 1960s that has had water penetration for 7 years. We lose our dial tone when it rains. After having technicians switch our line back and forth between a staticy line and the no dial tone line for years, we were told by a tech that AT&T won't replace the line and Uverse is more than a year away. We haven't had a dial tone in over 2 weeks so we are switching to cable internet and phone. I didn't think of the Utility commission but I will report them now. It is really sad what AT&T has become. Chuck

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The phone company charges for a 'connection' to your home, whether you use it or not. Therefore, *IF* they don't provide a connection to your home, they CANNOT, by law [my understanding] charge for services they DO NOT provide. I used to ask, and get, a refund everytime the phone company failed to provide. Hey, two bits her, two bits there, it all adds up.

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Yeah wet cables are a whole different problem. I've had my share of them. But that is not what I'm experiencing though. My lines off hook without dial tone are clean. Lenny

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Chuck It's truly amazing that these companies can get away with this shit. Is it ATT who is responsible for that cable or is it your local telco? I would start with your local PUC. They should be able to rattle a few cages. Lenny

Do you have a REALLY old phone exchange for your area? This noise is typical of Western Electric (AT&T) crossbar switches, which I haven't heard in decades. But, when switching other lines they did produce a VERY loud and distinctive bell-like ringing when the contacts had become dirty. They had to clean them periodically, like every year or so to eliminate this noise.

Hmm, that's a little odd, I think the crossbar bongs would be heard on both ends. The fact you get it on both lines (do you use the same phone for both lines?) seems to indicate it may not be a phone co. problem, but in your house wiring or whatever.

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also contact your local represenatatives who granted this monopoly. You'd be surprised how much they enjoy having something to do.

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Lenny,

It's AT&T. That's why I find their indifference to repairing this long term problem so amazing. Chuck

I don't. I had five WATTS lines down one friday at a TV station. I got a very abusive woman on the AT&T longlines support number. I explained that we had paid a $10,000 deposit for ten WATTS lines for a

12 day telethon. She started cursing that it was Friday, and minutes from quitting time, then yelled, ""What the hell do you expect me to do, pull someone of another job, for your problem?" I reminded her that we were guaranteed a 30 minute response, per our contract. She screamed, "You'll be #$%^&*() lucky if we get to you by next @#$%^&*() friday!!!" I said, OK, Our telethon starts in 15 minutes. I'd hate to have to tell our viewers that you refused to honor your contract, just because we're a Christian TV station. She whispered "You wouldn't!" I said, I'd hate to have to and hung up. The first truck arrived exactly seven minutes later. A total of seven trucks arrived, including the district field supervisor. All of them were laughing about what a panic the dispatch office was in, and laughed even harder when i told them what I'd done. All five lines were out, due to a failed SLIC and were repaired just seconds before the telethon started.

I've had an open work order with Centurylink for over two years. My line will get extremely noisy, or go dead. Before they arrive, it usually starts working. In one cause they found it was still out. Rather than isolate the problem they swapped the line to another pair and a different port on the SLIC, as well as a different pair to the house. They left the pedestal unlocked so I could try to catch it, but so far I've had no luck. It quits when it's dry, but if someone calls my number, it starts working again. I'm about ready to drop it altogether and go with the flaky VIOP phone service from the cable company.

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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

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A string and two cans might be a bit more reliable.Lenny

Michael, Sorry to hear you have the same problem that I had. We just switched to cable voip two days ago and so far so good. Chuck

Sure, if you only want to call next door. Or Progresso. ;-)

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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.

My dad tried it from the same cable company. Their cable box/VOIP kept locking up, so when the cable tuner didn't work, they couldn't call for a reset.

The low quality of this cable company ticks me off. 30 years ago I went to work for a cable company in Cincinnati. It quickly rose to the highest rated in SW Ohio, since we moved all equipment repairs in house, and had a tech on duty on second shift to watch the headend, while repairing all types of CATV equipment. The lowest rated system in that market is the same one that I have now. Their analog channels vary more than 20 dB from channel to channel, but they refuse to do anything.

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You can't have a sense of humor, if you have no sense.