On 11/12/09, John Sessoms, discombobulated, unleashed: >Works great ... unless the problem is on the telephone company's end. >Then who you gonna' call?
The fault was on the phone company's end, so I called them. Instead of telling them that I suspected a fault with their wiring, I just told them it was hanging of the wall in shreds with bare wires exposed (slight alteration of the truth) because they don't like things like bare wires exposed. They came out the next day after telling me that if the problem was 'on my side' of responsibility (your 'demark' point) then they would charge a couple of hundred quid. I knew it was on their side because I figured it out. I agreed. It was on their side. Mainly because the wiring was very old and we had no 'demark' point fitted on the house. The repair guy saw what I saw, said "it's on our side, I'll fix it". He did, and he put a brand new demark point in - perfect. > >I don't know what your FOC is, Free of Charge. >but in the US, we have what's called the >DEMARK - there's a connection box on the outside of the building where >responsibility for maintenance is handed off. See above > >Everything on the network side of the demark is the telephone service >provider's responsibility. Everything on the household side of the >demark is the home-owners' responsibility. Yessir. Same here. > >Unless you pay the service provider an extra monthly fee to maintain >your internal equipment as well. They'll still screw you when they bill >for the service call. I have no such service. I do it and it's my time. > >Commercial service to businesses is the same except the demark is >usually located inside in a telephone equipment room, and the inside >equipment service is contracted out. > >It's possible you might be able to troubleshoot to the modem and >determine for yourself whether the modem is working or not. I could. I trouble-shot all the way to the bad wiring. That's how I found it. UK phones are not that difficult to hook up ad-hoc. Two wires. A noisy line is a noisy line. A dead line has to start somewhere :-) >Once you determine the problem is with the service, and not the modem, >you're stuck with dealing with the service provider's "tech support". >And the level of service provided by that "tech support" is abysmal. True, but I've figured out how to motivate people. If I sound too smart then the tech droids can't cope with it. If I say that there's " some dangling wires outside and the occasional spark", they look it up on their flow chart: spark.....arcing....fire.....destruction.....death......lawsuits....send repairman pronto. When the repairman turns up, he's a bloke I can chat with on the same level and they just like the path of least resistance supplemented by an endless cascade of mugs of tea. "Where's the sparks then?" - "hmnm, must have been the sun glinting...another cup of tea?" "Ta mate - be done in ten minutes." -- Cheers, Cotty ___/\__ || (O) | People, Places, Pastiche ---------- http://www.cottysnaps.com _____________________________ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
