Thanks for this advice. It is almost certainly this that’s causing it and I’ve located the box I believe. Unfortunately my cable (and that of my neighbors on either side) was cut off this weekend (literally cut off- a construction worker cut through the cords while digging) but it’s supposed to be repaired today and I’m eager to try it.
Also thanks WhyNot- that’s also a great idea and I think I have one of those multi-sets in my storage house. (I have TVs, telephones, toaster ovens and you name it out the arse these days-3 perfectly good TV sets and at least 8 or more phones in storage.)
Well, Vonage should work with DSL (or any consistent broadband service; satellite, however, might be out because there might be too much latency), but I wouldn’t be unplugging or messing with the NID (the little, gray junction box we’ve been talking about) at that point. I haven’t seen the physical connection where DSL comes into the house, but if you start disconnecting phone company wires, you’ll probably be disconnecting your DSL service. And, as I understand it, if you have DSL, you typically already have the phone company’s phone service, thus removing the need for Vonage.
I was assuming Sampiro had a cable connection; otherwise, I’d think he already has phone service, and his DSL provider might not let him divorce the Internet connection from the phone service. Someone who knows more about DSL can correct me if I’m wrong about any of this.
Thanks to this board and specifically, the helpful advice in this thread, we finally have multiple phones in our house. We’ve had Vonage for nearly a year and it never occurred to us to disconnect the outside line coming so we could use our in-house wiring for multiple phones. This has already come in handy as we have satellite tv and three DVRs that haven’t made their weekly calls in several months.