I have multiple phone lines in my house. When putting in new jacks or tracing wires, I used to be able to clip a handset phone to the wires, dial 970, and after a slight pause, a tone would sound and a computerized voice would announce the phone number from which I was calling.
It’s been a couple years since I needed to do any phone work, but this weekend I ran a new line out to my barn (mice chewed through the old ones.) The line works just fine - everything’s cool - but when I went to check the line by dialing ‘970’ nothing happened. After a moment of silence, Ma Bell told me the number I was dialing was incomplete.
Actually I think it might have been *511, now that I think about it. Maybe yours has added a * to the 970, because of the demand for phone numbers they need to use the 970 exchange?
It’s MCI’s customer service number, the first thing you’ll hear is your phone number repeated to you. You can hang up before an operator comes on the line.
That MCI number is going to be your best choice for determining the number of a phone line as it’s not likely to change.
The various codes used by telephone installers change pretty often. For some reason, they just can’t seem to stand the idea that people might be able to know the number of the phone the’re using.
Of course, another way is to call your cell phone, but if the line is set for caller-ID blocking, you won’t get the number to display.
Wish they wouldn’t change the loopbacks so often, but I guess **gotpasswords **is right - the telcos seem to mess with 'em every so often just to keep the rest of us off balance.
