And… it’s out again

Well, reports of my phone line being back from the dead were greatly exaggerated. The first time someone tried to call me, I heard a split-second ring and then silence, which was the same thing that happened when the line went dead back in September. Indeed, the line was out again. I jiggled the cord in the jack — somehow it’s in so tight I can’t remove it, just move it around — with the speakerphone turned on so I could hear when I restored a dial tone. But when I tried calling my landline from my cell, the line instantly went dead again the moment the incoming call started to ring on my cell. I tried again, same result.

So I e-mailed the phone company, and we’ll see what happens. Evidently the problem is the same thing that happened in September. The technician at the time diagnosed it as a problem with the cord and provided a replacement, but it now seems the problem may be with the jack.

I think this must be what caused the outage for the past week and a half, and when I got that automatic call to tell me the problem had somehow been fixed remotely, I’m betting that they didn’t do anything at all; it was my fiddling with the cord just afterward that restored a dial tone, but only temporarily. Maybe that auto-call was some kind of glitch. Or maybe it was about the temporary internet outage I reported to them. (Oh, and that speed increase in loading a couple of generally slow websites turned out to be temporary.)

So now I’ll have to see if I have to wait a similarly long time for a technician. Now that I’ve narrowed it down to the same problem I had in September, some issue with the jack, maybe it’ll be quicker to get service. Or maybe not, given how few techs they have who are still trained in the old technology. (I don’t think fiber-optic phone lines use the same jacks, from my quick web search just now.)

I sometimes wonder if I should just abandon the landline, given that I rarely use it and it goes out so often. But the cellular signal is spotty in my apartment, and my landline is the main contact number I’ve used over the years, so I don’t even know how many people/agencies/etc. I’d have to notify of a change.