Hi,
We have 8 landlines in an office in San Diego. Local & Long distance services are from AT&T. All the lines are connected to a phone system (TalkSwitch, to be more specific) I tested all the lines and extensions one by one, calling from my cell phone with no problem. AT&T also tested from their end and saw no problems what so ever.
Here is the annoying problem: Once in every 9-10 calls, caller's voice is so bad we cannot understand anything. The line itself sound very clear, but caller's voice is all staticy. Sounds like a radio that is little out-of-frequency. No static/humming on the line itself, but it's the voice that is terrible. When we tell them to call us back again, and if they do, there is no problem at all (even if the receiving line and extensions were exactly the same as before)
This suggests either phone system is bad/configured wrong and acting randomly, or long distance calls have problems. I don't know if this question sounds stupid but, is it possible to have such a bad connection because of some switch/circuit that is available for that particular call between point A and point B (like recalling the ISP to get the next available modem to eliminate the bad modem)
My knowledge is limited about phones and I am expected to troublshoot this, but I don't know exactly where to start. I also have some settings on the phone box that can be set for the lines (600 ohms, 600 complex, 900 ohms, 900 complex -- set to 900 complex by itself -- not sure what it is).
Thanks in advance.
- Deniz
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Your problem, that of intermittent noise, is a very difficult one to diagnose, but here is a starting point, based on a real-life experience of mine from thirty or thirty five years ago. I would make calls wherever, late at night, and every second or third call I made, this god-awful noise and rattling sound came back at me right after I dialed the seven digits but before the call had set up. Not _every_ time, but 'only' every second or third call attempt. No set pattern, and all I could do was abandon the call and dial again. Bell never could figure it out (nor did they try very hard, IMO) but I finally got to speak with a tech in the local Bell office one day. His question to me was, don't you have two lines there? I said I did, so his response to that was, the next time this happens, do me a favor; keep that line 'up', put it on hold and use your other line to call me at (a direct number to reach him in the frames). It happend again (admittedly I tried to make it happen) and when that terrible noise started, I lifted the plunger on my phone (I had one of the old two-line/life the plunger/twist the turn button style phones) and called this technician direct as he had asked. Good, he said, now stay put a minute, I am going to trace your line here in the office. When he came back with the report about five minutes later, it really surprised me. He said there was a bad line 'selector' between the office where I was located, and the office I was attempting to call. He continued saying the 'bad' equipment was the 'first choice' in a group of several trunks running from the one office to the other one. He further said that during the daytime hours, only quite rarely would someone land on the first selector (the one which was in trouble), they would get the same noisy conditions, hang up in disgust and dial again. But in the middle of the day -- the busy hours -- the troubled first selection trunk was having repeated seizures by various subscribers; no one ever managed to land on it twice in a row; no way to pin it down. When the subscriber dialed a second time, naturally their call would hunt right past the troubled selector (which had then been seized by some other subscriber) so of course their call went through normally.
But, he said, you, Mr. Townson, insist on making your calls during the off hours, very late at night, time and again you are going to land on that first selected trunk line, and get the trouble over and over. I have 'busied it out' at my end, now _no one_ is going to land on that line, until it gets fixed. Sure enough, that was the end of my troubles. Keep the above in mind, please.
Now you talked about modems and your 'phone box'. Is there any order or organization in which your inbound calls arrive, sort of like a 'first selected trunk', etc? Load up all your incoming lines with calls, somehow isolate the line with the noise and investigate that line completely. Try to detirmine if the trouble is at your end or if it is arriving from AT&T on one of their incoming lines. If you are able to isolate the disturbance _on your own equipment_ using this method, then do whatever you need to do. If you find that the trouble continues even when your own equipment is out of the way on that line, then the problem goes to AT&T. But be prepared to have the troubled line 'up' or in use when you notify AT&T about it, so they can zero in on the trouble.
Yes, I know you shouldn't have to go to that much trouble, of isolating the specific line, etc, but you know most telco repair guys are _not_ going to do anything about it otherwise. And anyway, it may well turn out to be your 'privately owned equipment' in trouble, so you may as well eliminate all that so Bell has no excuses for fixing the trouble it it turns out to be their problem. PAT]