Not gun related - is it possible to sue the phone company?
Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2018 8:45 am
On May 10th of this year I signed a lease on an apartment.
CenturyLink was supposed to setup my landline on the 11th.
I stayed at the apartment all that day and no one showed up and plugging in a phone resulted in a dead line, no dial tone.
Let me point out that 50 years ago in the Navy one of my responsibilities and training was servicing of dial telephone systems.
I bought new cordless phones specifically for this service.
I contacted CenturyLink using my cell phone, (Of course customer service is overseas.) and got an appointment with service tech in two weeks. When he showed up he said that the phone number had been activated at the local office but that no one bothered to check to see if it was wired. It hadn't been. Also it was mis-wired in a connection box between there and my building.
I had dial tone.
About a week later I got a visit from the two of the county's finest wanting to know if I was all right. It seems that my phone line was somehow showing off hook which triggers a report to the local 911 dispatcher.
I called CenturyLink on my cell and reported the problem and was again scheduled for a service call in a week or so.
I called the non-emergency police number and talked to a dispatcher and told her the situation, that my phone line was causing the bogus "perm alarms".
(That's an old phone exchange term for an unreleased phone line. You get that if you knock your phone off hook, in about 90 seconds you will hear an annoying sound and a recording that starts with "If you wish to make a call....)
About two hours later a Century Link telephone tech (that actually knew what he was doing and had special telephone diagnostic equipment with him was knocking on my door. My reaction was "Wow, CenturyLink actually has fast service."
He responded, "Not really, I'm the CenturyLink dedicated tech for the county 911 service."
He checked out my apartment (all three jacks) and the building and assured me that the problem was definitely NOT at my end.
He told me he was going to track the line back to the office and would report back what he found.
He never did.
During the next weeks I noticed my phone ringing a short ring then nothing. When I would pick up there would be no one there and no dial tone. If I waited long enough the "If you want to make a call...." recording would come on but I couldn't hang up.
If I went online and went to CLs troubleshooting page and test my phone number I would get a report that the line tested GOOD.
With a little experimenting I found that if I called my landline with my cell phone I'd get the short ring, the land line would lock up, and my cell phone would indicate loss of connection. At this point the land line would be locked up with no dial tone, but if I used my computer to test the line it would unlock and the test would report a good line.
A little phone science:
Due to the long distances involved with landlines back in the early 20th century automatic (dial) telephone systems react to specific CURRENT values rather than voltages. When you pick up the handset of an analog telephone the phone places a resistance across the line and current exceeds a certain value and the phone exchange sees that you want to make a call and sends you an AC dial tone the line voltage at this time is on the order of about 20 volts.
If your phone is "on hook" and someone is trying to call you the local office sends "ring voltage" down your line. This is about a 90 volt low frequency "ring voltage". (BTW - getting hit with ring voltage hurts like hell).
When the office is sending that ring voltage and sees a sudden increase in line current it "knows" that someone has picked up the phone receiver and turns off the ringing and connects the caller to the called line.
Now, in the case of my line (I Googled this and it's not that rare) some where between my building and the phone exchange there is a high resistance short across the line or to ground.
Everything is fine until someone tries to call me. The line voltage jumps from 20 volts to 90 volts AC and the higher voltage causes the short to conduct which the phone equipment sees as me picking up so it stops ringing the line and connects the caller to a dead line which can't be released.
I see this as both an electrical problem (a partial short circuit) and computer software that is too quick to trigger. If I could tweek the phone software I'd add delays to mimic the old mechanical switch timing. Right now it's reacting in microseconds to something that used to be done over a period of several milliseconds.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant.
Today I got my online phone bill. Instead of being about $28 it is $168.08!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are charges of $139.78 for 27 calls to directory assistance. WTH!!!!!!!
This is the second month that calls like this have appeared on my bill.
Obviously, for some reason, the CenturyLink computer is seeing the locked up line as a call to directory assistance and charging $4.99 for each call.
For two months I've been waiting to get RELIABLE land line phone service.
I still do not have a landline I can use.
I'm being billed for directory assistance calls I haven't made.
(That's an obvious software error.)
Every time someone tries to call me my phone produces one short ring that 99% of the time I don't hear. (I'm hearing impaired).
Scheduling a service call takes 3 weeks.
This is ridiculous.
Again, sorry for the long rant.
I'm reminded of the movie "The President's Analyst" where the super villain is "TPC", The Phone Company.
For 7 years, at my previous location, I had a CenturyLink land line and 30 MPS dsl line and never was without phone service for more than a hour. Of course, we lived just up the road from the Trump winery and a CenturyLink employee lived next door. One of those facts MIGHT have been why service was so good.
CenturyLink was supposed to setup my landline on the 11th.
I stayed at the apartment all that day and no one showed up and plugging in a phone resulted in a dead line, no dial tone.
Let me point out that 50 years ago in the Navy one of my responsibilities and training was servicing of dial telephone systems.
I bought new cordless phones specifically for this service.
I contacted CenturyLink using my cell phone, (Of course customer service is overseas.) and got an appointment with service tech in two weeks. When he showed up he said that the phone number had been activated at the local office but that no one bothered to check to see if it was wired. It hadn't been. Also it was mis-wired in a connection box between there and my building.
I had dial tone.
About a week later I got a visit from the two of the county's finest wanting to know if I was all right. It seems that my phone line was somehow showing off hook which triggers a report to the local 911 dispatcher.
I called CenturyLink on my cell and reported the problem and was again scheduled for a service call in a week or so.
I called the non-emergency police number and talked to a dispatcher and told her the situation, that my phone line was causing the bogus "perm alarms".
(That's an old phone exchange term for an unreleased phone line. You get that if you knock your phone off hook, in about 90 seconds you will hear an annoying sound and a recording that starts with "If you wish to make a call....)
About two hours later a Century Link telephone tech (that actually knew what he was doing and had special telephone diagnostic equipment with him was knocking on my door. My reaction was "Wow, CenturyLink actually has fast service."
He responded, "Not really, I'm the CenturyLink dedicated tech for the county 911 service."
He checked out my apartment (all three jacks) and the building and assured me that the problem was definitely NOT at my end.
He told me he was going to track the line back to the office and would report back what he found.
He never did.
During the next weeks I noticed my phone ringing a short ring then nothing. When I would pick up there would be no one there and no dial tone. If I waited long enough the "If you want to make a call...." recording would come on but I couldn't hang up.
If I went online and went to CLs troubleshooting page and test my phone number I would get a report that the line tested GOOD.
With a little experimenting I found that if I called my landline with my cell phone I'd get the short ring, the land line would lock up, and my cell phone would indicate loss of connection. At this point the land line would be locked up with no dial tone, but if I used my computer to test the line it would unlock and the test would report a good line.
A little phone science:
Due to the long distances involved with landlines back in the early 20th century automatic (dial) telephone systems react to specific CURRENT values rather than voltages. When you pick up the handset of an analog telephone the phone places a resistance across the line and current exceeds a certain value and the phone exchange sees that you want to make a call and sends you an AC dial tone the line voltage at this time is on the order of about 20 volts.
If your phone is "on hook" and someone is trying to call you the local office sends "ring voltage" down your line. This is about a 90 volt low frequency "ring voltage". (BTW - getting hit with ring voltage hurts like hell).
When the office is sending that ring voltage and sees a sudden increase in line current it "knows" that someone has picked up the phone receiver and turns off the ringing and connects the caller to the called line.
Now, in the case of my line (I Googled this and it's not that rare) some where between my building and the phone exchange there is a high resistance short across the line or to ground.
Everything is fine until someone tries to call me. The line voltage jumps from 20 volts to 90 volts AC and the higher voltage causes the short to conduct which the phone equipment sees as me picking up so it stops ringing the line and connects the caller to a dead line which can't be released.
I see this as both an electrical problem (a partial short circuit) and computer software that is too quick to trigger. If I could tweek the phone software I'd add delays to mimic the old mechanical switch timing. Right now it's reacting in microseconds to something that used to be done over a period of several milliseconds.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant.
Today I got my online phone bill. Instead of being about $28 it is $168.08!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are charges of $139.78 for 27 calls to directory assistance. WTH!!!!!!!
This is the second month that calls like this have appeared on my bill.
Obviously, for some reason, the CenturyLink computer is seeing the locked up line as a call to directory assistance and charging $4.99 for each call.
For two months I've been waiting to get RELIABLE land line phone service.
I still do not have a landline I can use.
I'm being billed for directory assistance calls I haven't made.
(That's an obvious software error.)
Every time someone tries to call me my phone produces one short ring that 99% of the time I don't hear. (I'm hearing impaired).
Scheduling a service call takes 3 weeks.
This is ridiculous.
Again, sorry for the long rant.
I'm reminded of the movie "The President's Analyst" where the super villain is "TPC", The Phone Company.
For 7 years, at my previous location, I had a CenturyLink land line and 30 MPS dsl line and never was without phone service for more than a hour. Of course, we lived just up the road from the Trump winery and a CenturyLink employee lived next door. One of those facts MIGHT have been why service was so good.