So, What's In The Book?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Exerpt: No Dial Tone

Dial tone is something we all take for granted. When you reach for your telephone, you automatically expect to hear that one-note song. When you don't, try to keep calm. There can be a number of reasons for this trouble. And it may not be the phone company's fault.

Some of the most common problems are:

• The line is disconnected.
• A physical problem exists. (For example, you could have a broken wire, or worn insulation, which is allowing foreign voltage to leak in from another circuit.) It could be crossed wires, or the circuit has become grounded.
• A programming error could exist at your local phone company's switch. A programming error problem can be the result of the human factor, for example, a typographical error, misinterpretation of a service order, or incorrect data in a record-keeping system.

The disconnect problem can be determined by...

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Exerpt: Can't Call - A War Story

Once I came across a novel trouble report. The complaint was that the caller could not make a call to a local number. I observed the first law of troubleshooting. I tried to duplicate and verify the trouble by calling the number myself. To my surprise, I got a recording stating that the number I had dialed was disconnected. Then I called the customer who had called in the report. I told her that she was calling a number that had apparently been disconnected. She said that the line belonged to her boyfriend. Further, she had spoken to him the previous night and insisted that this line should not be disconnected. I agreed to check further and call her back in a short while. I hung up the phone and began to check the number being called. To my surprise, the line indeed was not disconnected. How could this be? I had just called this line and got a recording stating that the line was disconnected. Had someone just programmed the line as I was checking it?

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