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No dial tone from my home phone

My home phone has no dial tone for 5 days since Wed, Sept. 1st. I cannot make any incoming or out-coming calls.
But the DSL internet works fine, that's why I can post this problem here.

First  I thought my phone & cable might be broken, so I bought new phone & cable set and connected directly them to the phone jack. But still, there is no dial tone at all.

I went Verizon website's HELP page, and tried their automated device checking system. And the result was just "your phone system is working fine." But I don't hear any dial tone! Completely silence!

I live in the Hotel residence and our building manager said that all the other phones are working fine, only my pnohe has problem and there is no box device exist in the building to adjust my home phone nor internet connection.

From pay-phone outside my room (since I don't own cell-phone), I called Verizon customer service, but there were no live technical assistant available over the phone. Their automated customer service just set up the schedule for sending their technician to my residence. And their scheduled date will be Sept 9th, a week later!

That means that I have to survive more than a week without phone!

Now I am seriously worried about what the real problem with my home phone.

Does anyone have any idea? My phone jack has problem?
Then why DSL internet works fine??

Also, should I call Verizon customer service again to e-confirm their technician's visiting date for avoiding their
not showing-up?

Comments

mniart1

I just seached out so many simiar cases like mine in this Forum...NO DIAL TONE.

And also, I see none of the cases are solved yet and no one knows the exact cause of this problem or how to fix it.

I am very worried about living without my home phone since I don't own cell phone.

I have been a Verizon customer for past 15 years, but should I move on to more reliable phone company?

mniart1

I found an article about this problem.

"You pick up the phone to make a call and there is no dial tone on the phone. What do you do? One option is to call the phone company and let them charge you money to tell you that you need to buy a new phone. A better option is to do a some detective work first. If you do end up calling the phone company (from a different phone,) they will ask you questions. With a little investigation, you will know the answer.

The phone line is connected to your house at a junction box. Phone geeks call the junction box a “network interface device.” It is usually outside the home near the foundation. A no dial tone problem will fall into two categories. The phone company is responsible for any problem with the junction box or the phone line beyond. The homeowner is responsible for anything wrong from the junction box into the home. That is true unless the homeowner has purchased a service agreement from the phone company. Part of the investigation will be to determine who has to pay to fix the problem, the homeowner or the phone company.

Determine if the problem is with one phone or all of the phones in the home. If another phone is working, unplug it and plug it in where the trouble phone was. If the new phone works, you know the problem is in the phone that was plugged in there. To check further, plug the dysfunctional phone into a working phone jack. It will not work there either. It is time to buy a new phone.

If no phone in the house has a dial tone, unplug one and take it to the junction box. When you open the junction box, you will see a phone jack. Unplug the wire from the jack and plug in the phone. Does the phone have a dial tone now? If it does, it means that the problem is in the wiring to the house. If it doesn’t, it is time to call the phone company because the problem is theirs." http://www.essortment.com/home/homerepairtrou_swcy.htm

---Actually I found the junction box (Phone geeks call the junction box a “network interface device) in my building.

However, tthere are too many wires and no room numbers written in the box.

Since all other rooms phone is working, I cannot touch their system.

How can I find out which wire is connected to my phone jack????

lasagna

The short answer is that if you are in a mutil-dwelling facility, then you can't troubleshoot this with normal tools -- you need to call the phone company or have the building manager engage a resource to fix the problem. The instructions posted are for a single-family home.

mimi3908

thanks mniart for at least solving my problem. I have the same problem but I live in a single family home. Been looking for more instructions to check my own box and able to verify myself that I have no dial tone outside of my box so a tech is coming to resolve.

rt1954

I have been having the same problem for over a month now. Broadband or DSL does not need a dialtone to work. The problem is most likely NOT in your phones or jacks. Verizon tech support tells me lots of people are having this problem. They re-set my phone line, and then it will work for a while. Sometimes only an hour or two. Sometimes for a day. The longest period was for the recent 7 or so days, and then yesterday it went out again. Interestingly, I had the same problem about a year ago, off and on for a couple of months. Technicians checked my outside box, but the problem turned out to be somewhere in the Verizon lines a few streets over. The tech I call says they can't figure out what's going on now. The only thing he knows is that recently Verizon upgraded its office software.. So, you're not alone out there. It's frustrating, very much so.

GaryDoug

The DSL works off a splitter from the phone line. It's possible the wire going from the phone to the splitter or filter is defective, leaving the DSL ok. If all you see are two wall jacks for the phone and DSL, then the splitter is probably not in your room but rather between the jacks and the Network interface box. Or maybe even inside the box. You refered to a phone jack, so I'm guessing you cannot see the splitter. If you cannot see it, then you will have to wait for the repair folks.

mniart1

Hi, I am MNIART who posted this thread originally.
Thank you all for responding me.

I have to say what happened today Sept 9th, the scheduled date of the tech person showing up to my home for fixing my problem.  He showed up at 9AM. That was quite earlier than I expected and I was glad he came so soon. He checked the dial tone from my Phone jack and said, the problem was not my side, nothing wrong with my phone nor phone jack. All the problem was caused from Verizon side. Then he said, my phone was going to recover the dial tone again by noon. He also said to me, checking the dial tone in every 15 minutes. He also said that he would call me around noon to check if I still had the dial tone problem. If so, he said he would return to fix it within the day.  He left at 9:30 AM. Then after a half hour, my phone got back the dial tone! I was so glad and made phone calls to my friends & clients to inform them that my phone recovered!

Then at noon, the dial tone once received was gone again. Silence.

I waited for another 2 hours hoping the dial tone would come back, but that didn't happen. At 2 PM, I called Verizon customer service. I heard the automate voice response again and when I tried to reach the live customer service for phone tech support, the line disconnected, as usual.   So, I called Verizon again, this time to the 24 hours Internet tech support. Because I knew that Internet tech support people are always responding to customers unlike customer service for telephone support. So I reached to the Internet tech support in person and asked him to connect me to telephone tech support. He kindly did it (he also gave me the direct number of them too) and finally I was able to talk to live customer service for telephone support at 2:30PM.

The live customer service for telephone support said, "we are sorry to hear the problem was not solved, but we will send tech support to your home again within today." So I wait at home another 2 hours, and by 4PM, nobody showed up.

I called the customer service for telephone support again. Gladly I reached the live person, and when I asked her what time the tech person would come to my house today, the person said,

"No one was scheduled to come to your house today. You are scheduled to get another tech support on Sept. 16th."

HOW INSANE IS THIS WHOLE MATTER???   I wait all day today to get my phone repair, unable to go to work, unable to do anything! I don't own cell phone, I have no way to making nor receiving calls for past 10 days. I have to go to pay phone outside to to make phone call.
I DON'T HAVE PHONE SINCE SEPT 1ST, AND THEY SAID I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL 16TH?!!
AND THEY KNEW ALL PROBLEM CAUSED THEM NOT US?? VERIZON MUST BE OUT OF MIND...

mniart1

Below is the answer I just got from Verizon Troubleshooter.

"Pending Repair Request

You have requested a Repair on 09/09/2010 18:30 regarding this issue. Verizon is committed to solving this issue by 09/16/2010 21:00 to fix this issue. We are working to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible. For your reference your ticket number is [ {edited for privacy}
Thank you for using Verizon Troubleshooter."

----I am trully afraid now that I will live without phone forever unless switching to another provider.

mimi3908

As I mentioned, we share similar problems except that I live on a single family home in NY. Thanks to you I was able to check first to make sure the problem is verizon's and had a schedule for 9/7. On that day, I had a call from some Verizon local support # to reconfirm my appointment for that day and she told me someone will be there between 2 to 6 pm. I figured it was a date. After 5:30 pm, I started to wonder if anyone was coming and called the main support line where some other lady comes on the line and said I must be mistaken! that the day of service repair was for 9/8??? I was flabbergasted by that her claims. Of course, to no avail and blaming me no less for the confusion, she said nothing they can do but to wait for next day?? Furthermore that same rep even challenged how I can check my Internet for service status when I had no dial tone?? say what? she doesn't even know that I can have DSL without a dial tone?? At that point I knew I was talking to the bottom of the barrel personnel and she claimed no supervisor was available so I knew that this was complete waste of time. Disappointed I called the earlier local number captured on my cell phone from the caller who had confirmed my appointment and spoke to this other lady who then confirmed that I was correct that the day of servicing was today and she doesn't know why no one came out. She apologized profusely for Verizon and I guess that was all she can do... but it just **bleep** me off that some of these unqualified reps just can't freaking admit that they didn't keep their appt.

The next day, I was suppose to get a call from the tech first but instead heard my yard door open mid day and saw the guy opening my box. When asked why a call wasn't made to make sure i was here, he just said - well I'm here now... I guess you get what you pay for... simple land line service... anyway, aside from that the guy confirmed problem was verizon's and climbed up a few poles to correct the problem. Said my outside connection on telephone poles were corroded and he rewired a connection directly to one of those mega phone boxes on a main pole line a few houses down the road. He hinted to me that landline servicing is really not the focus of Verizon and these are very old infrastructure supporting traditional dial tone and rain/snow etc will corrupt the line from time to time. Hint: get FIOS. After my line was re-established within the hour, I did call customer service and got a pretty interesting offer that was too price competitive to ignore for at least 2 years going forward.... so nothing to lose on my end except potential headaches on dealing with new wiring for FIOS+different Internet setup etc.. But I got 30 days to cancel if i don't like it so again, can't see any downside. Anyway, good luck to you and it appears a lot of people face similar problems that you faced. No choice but to just deal with it best you can.

Pjd1020

yeah, I got the same automatic response when I checked my scheduled appointment of 9/02; and the funny thing is that the verizon software still shows it active, even though it's already 24 hours past due. dont' expect to see anyone for a long time, and I figured out from the forum complaints that verizon got hit with a major SNAFU. I suggest you spend a few bucks and get yourself a cheap cellphone. that's what I did. only I made sure not to buy from verizon.

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