Requesting service when living in an apartment building

[gm20151]

Hi, I've stopped receiving a dial tone in my apartment (neither of my two phones are working), although oddly my Verizon Internet service still works fine, and calls to my home do get picked up from my phone's caller ID display, the phone line itself is dead though (can't speak or hear.)   I just have standard high-speed internet, not FIOS.  

I guess I'll need to get a Verizon support technician in my apartment to see what the problem is.  My question is what would it cost for a technician to visit me, and do they separate the cost of the visit and the cost of the repair?  The problem is that I live in a 7-story apartment building and my landlord says I'm responsible for the repair no matter where in the building the problem is (sounds dubious but so be it), so I would like to pay for just a service call just to find out what the problem is before I decide to approve and pay for the repair (if it can't be solved on the spot).  If it turns out a wire is broken on the third floor and I live on the sixth and it will cost me $5000 to rewire several floors of the apartment building, I obviously don't want to be responsible for that, I will just switch to cable telephone instead. Can I pay for a service call without necessarily approving (and paying for) the repair?  And what does Verizon charge for such service calls?

Thanks,

Glen

[Telcoguru]

You are only responsible after the demarc jack in your apartment. If the problem is before that Verizon has to fix it for free. If the problem is after that it is about $91 for Verizon to come to the apartment but it includes the first 1/2 hour of repair. In an apartment the demarc jack usually is either in the kitchen or in a closet.

[gs0b · Accepted solution]

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@gm2015 wrote:

Hi, I've stopped receiving a dial tone in my apartment (neither of my two phones are working), ...

<snip>

I guess I'll need to get a Verizon support technician in my apartment to see what the problem is.  My question is what would it cost for a technician to visit me, and do they separate the cost of the visit and the cost of the repair? 

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Welcome to the forums.  You're talking to other customers here.  You'll have to contact Verizon to find out what they charge.

That said, a few of pointers to help you:

• It's not unusual for DSL to keep working when there is a problem with phone service.
• If CallerID is coming through on your phones, that suggests a problem with one or more of your phones, jacks or DSL filters.  Try removing alll phones but one and then swapping them in and out.  You may find that one of your phones has failed.
• Try a similar test with different jacks in the home.
• Try a similar test with the DSL filters in your home.
• If the problem is in Verizon's wires, they should not charge you anything.  Verizon's wires end at the demarcation point between their network and the building's wires.  This is usually located just where Verizon's wires enter the building.  The landlord is correct that the wires inside the building are not Verizon's responsibility.  It is between you and your landlord to determine who is responsible for wires outside of your unit but within the building.
• If you have a "wire maintenance plan." that may cover in building wires.
• If a technician visits you and finds a problem in your (or the buildings wire), they should quote you a rate to fix it.  That rate will depend on the problem.  There may also be a fixed fee just for the visit.
• Many apartment buildings have extra wire pairs installed, so the fix may be as simple as switching to another wire pair.  A Verizon technician can easily handle this.

Good Luck.

[gm20151]

Thanks for the replies.  It turned out to be a Verizon problem before it even got to my apartment building's phone cabinet, so it didn't cost me anything to get it fixed.  It can be a messy issue when the problem is with the phone wires between the building phone cabinet and my apartment, landlords obviously don't want to pay anything even though it's unreasonable to ask a tenant to pay for a wiring issue outside of the apartment.  Thankfully, though, a repair of this nature has not yet been necessary for me.