Seems to me your local telco doesn't want competition and is deliberately making that a long-distance call. I know of another person this has happened to, and maybe she'll come along and add her response to this.

You could contact your local congressman and complain about monopolies. Only sorta kidding.

Grandms, did they get the problem corrected?

Well, at least I know it's nothing personal; when I called the ISP again, I was told that two other customers in my area had called and were unable to get logged on, so it's a switching thing related to our prefix. Whether or not they will fix it remains to be seen.

Rather fight than switch? You didn't mention cost of current non-service. Have you checked out satellite internet?

I am the one that Grandms was talking about above. No, it is not corrected, and most likely never will be. I had telephone company isp twice before, and have never liked it. Had allvantage which I loved, it sold out to peoplepc, which I hated, so went with copper.net. It is also an excellent isp, and not very much money. Well, now all the access lines (4 of them here) have been blocked and are long distance, so only thing available is back to local telephone company, and they are overloaded now, and the lag is terrible. Also have a chance for DSL, since they have ran the lines, but they are very expensive with the DSL also. Oh and by the way, the phone company dial up is 3 times what I was paying elsewhere. Several of us here have checked with FCC to find out if all this is legal, and they say it is. Just seems very unfair to me somehow. I should add, that the numbers I had to dial in were not the same as my rural telephone numbers, since the dial in numbers were under the city exchange. Those lines were also owned by another telephone company, but the bigger telephone company bought them out and imediately closed down the lines, so they could be the monoply. Off my soap box now. Hope you get your situation fixed. My soloution is to sell this house, and move out of the area, and we are trying, but real estate is very bad in this area right now.

cat, Do you have cell phone service in your area? I just went with my cell phone carrier (Verizon) so I could get broadband and so far I really like it. We do not have cable in my area nor do we have dsl through our phone lines. We do have satelite, but geez the internet connection is so expensive so I called my cell phone company to see what they offered. I was able to get a usb modem (cost $50.00 with a $50.00 rebate) and the service per month cost $59.00. I got rid of my second phoneline ($20.00 per month) and dropped my isp ($12.95 per month) so the extra cost isn't over the top. The connection is very quick and downloads are speedy! This service doesn't offer email or a home page, but Hotmail or one of the others work very well. If you have cell phone service in your area this might be the answer to you problems.

Good Luck!

Yes, we have cell phone service, but I am not really interested in that. I do not like hotmail or any of the web based email programs, for one thing, and, I have computers in several places in the house, so would be more or less a nightmare. I have held off on the DSL, or Sattelite because of the expense of set up, when it may have to be disconnected if the real estate market perks up here and houses start to sell. Also, DSL and Sattelite and cell phone, are all still affiliated with the phone company, and I would like to avoid them all together. I am at the point, where I dont want to give them 1 cent more than absolutely necessary.

Here's what happened:

Yesterday, I called the phone company bright and early and explained the problem. The guy said "We'll call you right back." And he did, claiming it was fixed. Alas, it was not, and I called him again to let him know it still wasn't working. This time, they tell me "we'll get a guy working on it, and call you back."
(I guess the little Brownie that lives in the office wasn't able to figure it out, so they needed "a guy"...)

Later that afternoon, I called my ISP and found out that four of their customers in the my area had no service. Four customers doesn't sound like much, but you have to remember the town has about 370 people. It's a rural area, not exactly booming economically (KWIM), so if you have 10% of the people with a computer online, you're doing good. Out of that number (let's round up and say 40), over half half are going to sign on with the phone company because they don't know enough about computers to even look for another option. You could divide the remaining twenty in half again, for wireless service, with the remaining ten divided between satellite and the only other dial up ISP with a local number for this area. So, four is about right. Yes, there are only two companies in the entire world that offer local dial up service to this area. Lots of companies *claim* to offer a local number, and it probably would be if we had service with another phone compnay, but we do not. It is what it is. My ISP tells me that if the routing has changed, it might not be a localnumber anymore, and if they can't fix it to call accounting to see about a refund.

I call the phone company back to see if this is going to be permanent, and he said they were "tracking the lines", which I recognize from past experience is a swell technical sounding phrase meant to placify the customer. He asked meexactly what was going on, and I explained that although this had been a local number for over a year, as of yesterday it stopped working. I could dial in using the area code, but the number wasn't supposed to be long distance. He thought that was curious. I didn't think it was curious so much as irritating, still, I realize it's not this guy's fault, so I don't get upset. We continue chatting and he says "You know, I think we have DSL available in your area."
(Technically they do, but despite that big fat cable buried right out in front of my home, the actual service stops two miles west. I called about it a month ago and was told that at this time there isn't enough "customer interest" to activate it further east anytime soon.)

Bless his heart, not knowing that, he said, "Have you thought about switching to our DSL? We're running a special, only 69.99 a month plus tax plus..."
(I'm thinking, Oooo, what a deal! That's only three times what I'm already paying the company that can't even keep a basic land line operational for 60 days in a row. I'm completely underwhelmed.)
I politely cut him off saying "Uh, You know, right now is probably NOT the best time to hit me with a sales pitch to upgrade my service for an even *more* expensive plan..."
He laughed and said "Yea, I know, but I'm supposed to..."
I said "Hey, I understand, it's like, 'would you like fries with that?' We both laughed, and he promised to give us a call when it was fixed. He really *is* very nice, even if he can't help.

Later that afternoon, I discovered that my ability to dial in using the area code had also gone pffffft. When I called the number direct, I got a "This number is no longer in service" message. Of course, that's not true, it's working number for everyone but us. When I called using the 1 plus area code, I got the recording that says 'We're sorry. It is not necessary to dial a 1 or the area code for this number. Please hang up and try your call again." With any other company, this might be discouraging, but coming from these guys it's means they're doing *something*, so that's progress. LOL

This morning, the 13th, I call and tell the guy what's going on with the line today and he says "We're aware of the problem". (I get the impression the other three customers might have beat me to the punch with the status update.)
Then he tells me, "We'll get someone working on it." I'm thinking, excuse me, but wasn't someone supposed to be "working on it" since yesterday? I'm sure there's a three dollar word for this kind of thing, but all I could think of at the time were the four letter ones. Not good. Instead, I tell him thank you, and go outside.

The deal is that my DH works on a pipeline, and they've been laid off for most of the winter. They just started a job this week, but the budget is a bit pinched for me to run out and order a more expensive internet service even if it were available. We're talking dialup or nothing. I just walked around in the yard admiring the crocus and quince and was telling God about it. I mean, he already knows, but it makes *me* feel better to have someone to listen to me rant. ;^)

So, I make my rounds inspecting the yard, finish my whine about the internet and said "and Bless my phone company". Now, that is the *first* time I have ever said that. Usually, if I think of them at all, my thoughts immedietly go over to the Dark Side. But there you go; here I was getting all warm and fuzzy over a utility company. I guess all the fresh air and sunshine went to my head.

On a whim, I came in, sat down at the desk, tried to connect again, and voil Here I am. Which means the line is *still* local. Looks like God really was listening. That, and someone just had that coffee maker plugged into the wrong outlet afterall...

You should send them a thank you note and a box of donuts,
... or something that doesnt require power.

How about a Connie Cola?

Great story!

My, my, what a nightmare is right. It's Fri night so I'm wondering if you will have service the weekend.

Can you say FCC?

I worked for the phone company for 30 years b4 retiring. Nothing will cause as much excitement from the top of the phone company, down to the very bottom, like a bad report to the FCC.
Document everything...including such things as "This morning, the 13th, I call and tell the guy what's going on with the line today and he says "We're aware of the problem". (I get the impression the other three customers might have beat me to the punch with the status update.)
Then he tells me, "We'll get someone working on it." I'm thinking, excuse me, but wasn't someone supposed to be "working on it" since yesterday?"

Years and years ago, (small co) there were party lines with 10 parties on them and a lot of the lines were 'open wire'. Wires fell down, or ran through trees and brush, thus the phone would be out whenever it was wet. Many customers would make a daily report on their phone until it was fixed. Many customers would just make one report, and assume someone would get it fixed. Well, the truth be known, the repair person assumed because they never reported it a second, third, or fourth time, that it must be working, or else they would have reported and complained again.

Document everything that happens, and everything that you are told. When you feel you have gathered enough data, then make a report with the FCC. I wish you a lot of luck, and hope you will keep us posted.

I too, love your writing style. I look forward to following this ongoing saga.

Sue