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The telephone wars: waiting for Godot? — 16 Comments

  1. Much sympathy. I went through nearly the same thing last year. All three jacks in my house weren’t working. Verizon told me to do the same test you mention, which confirmed it was a problem with the outside line, thus it was their responsibility and they would come fix it for free. After they came and “fixed” it, only one of my inside jacks worked. The other two still had the same problem. I told Verizon this and they told me that since one of my jacks worked, it was now an inside line problem, and I would have to pay to get it fixed. Grrr. Grrr. Grrr.

  2. dicentra: So far, neither have the repairmen (sorry to be so PC, but where I live they’re always men). And they only have 21 minutes left to go before they have officially stood me up.

    On the other hand, my cell phone charger came in today’s mail. So there is hope.

  3. Neo:

    I went from Verizon – curses be upon their heads – to completely wireless via Cingular.

    Costs a bit more, but I can use my homephone number anywhere in the USA and other countries. Don’t have to worry about forwarded calls any more…

    Give it a try…

  4. See new post for photo explanation.

    On my computer it’s not dark. But if the consensus is that it’s too dark, I can always put up a lighter version. Everyone’s computer seems to have a different color setting, I’ve noticed.

  5. On those dark days when I am forced to call Verizon and talk to a human, s(he) starts the conversation with “How can I provide you with excellent service today?”

  6. An important thing:

    Make sure you resecure that box – really. It is an ouside jack with no security other than your lock that is *your* phone line. Were I to come over to your house, open it, plug my phone in, and make 10,000 dollars of 900 numbers it’s your bill and little you can do about it. You do not want it where anyone can just walk up and plug a phone in – that is the reason it was so hard to reach.

    However simple or hard it was for you to get too it is the same for anyone else. Nearly all houses built in the last few decades have those boxes and all the phones phreakers know about them. If you know they are there you can see them all over the place, I cringe when I see them at eye level (or below) and simply cliped, not locked with a pad lock.

  7. Add me to the Verizon detractors. Best service I’ve had was T-Mobile….sadly they have no service here so I had to switch. My land line is through my cable company though, not one of the phone companies, and I’ve had actually quite terrific service from them. As in they are here when they say they will be every time thus far. Like the new pic neo….you look much younger with the darker hair! Add me too to the group whose monitor makes it appear rather dark. Sheesh Stropy….never thought of that and my box is both unlocked and at waist level!! Add to shopping list a smallish pad lock. Then again, here in teeny, teeny town Tennessee I’m unlikely to have a problem. 🙂

  8. I live in Knoxville Tn, I have quite a few friends in small Tennessee towns that also know of this (Grey, Kingsport, Rutledge, etc). As far as I know none of us ever used the knowledge, but that is more because of how I meet and choose my friends than all small town hackers have a sense of moral responsibility.

    Especially with the internet now, knowledge crimes like this have nothing to do with the size of the town you live in. Especially given that most of these crimes are done by teenagers not really thinking about the consequences of thier actions (“hey look! mom/dad will not let me do this from our house – I can go next door and do it this way and no one will ever know!”), not by a focused criminal.

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