Grah.

[camwyn]

Verizon saga

Verizon claims they turned on my service on Friday 4 February at 10 AM. I get no dial tone at the apartment. I have used an old phone with a cord to test this, so battery charging is not an issue. I plugged in a partly charged new phone yesterday and got nothing. I checked for dial tone on two separate jacks using the cord phone and got nothing. I dialed my old number from my cell phone and got the message saying that the number had been changed to $NEW_NUMBER, which is what I requested. I then dialed $NEW_NUMBER and got ringing, but no answer. About six or ten rings in I got sent to Verizon residential voice mail, which is another service I requested.

I tried dialing this number from work, and got rings as well. I did not stick around for the voice mail.

Last night (7 February 2005, around 7 PM) I plugged in the new telephone and let it charge for several hours. Then I picked up my cellular phone and dialed $NEW_NUMBER. The cell phone got ringing, but the telephone plugged into the wall did not ring no matter how long I waited.

I called Verizon this morning at 800-427-8977. I was told that this was probably a problem with the jacks and that it would cost $99 a visit, but Verizon didn't care if someone else fooled with the wiring, so if I had a handy relative or a building superintendent then it would be all right to let them do the check up. I called building management around 10 AM at $MANAGEMENT_NUMBER. The girl there said that as far as she knew, they didn't do anything whatsoever with the phone wires. That was the phone company's responsibility.

I called my father's cell phone but got his voice mail. (Dad is a former employee of The Telephone Company, from the old days when there was a The Telephone Company.) I left a message.

It is now 10:56 AM. I am going to call 800-427-8977 again.

Got an automated spiel about the possibility of a box called a Network Interface Device in the closet, which can apparently be used for testing. Will try that when I get home. Tech has been scheduled to come out tomorrow between 8 AM and 12 noon anyway even though it will cost $99. bugger.

Comments

[camwyn]

Never even heard of it. My dad was mail room, then internal security, then management at Bell Telephone, which was The Phone Company prior to Judge Greene (thanks ever so, you bastard). Hence my phrasing. That, and the episode of WKRP where they hooked up a pirate phone, and when the police came to the station for something else one of the guys started screaming "AAAAH! IT'S THE PHONE COPS!"

[mephron]

I recommend it. It's a bit dated and some of the jokes fall a little flat, but it's still a brilliant pastiche of the era's spy movies, along with poking fun at conspiracies, the Cold War, and psychoanalysis in general.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Plus, James Coburn. Who rocks my world. :->

[sdelmonte]

It's absurd how well I remember that and other episodes of WKRP - the best show not likely to ever be on DVD.

Johnny Fever was scared of the phone cops because he had just smashed a phone. Which cut him and Venus Flytrap off from the world. As they were holed up at the station transmitter. To avoid a mad bomber. Who had actually planted the bomb at the transmitter.

When the authorities came to get Johnny and Venus out, Johnny was convinced that it was the phone cops, and went running into the night, with a concerned Venus behind him. Naturally, this saved their lives.

Like I said, I remember this way too well.