[CenterIce]

MY house alarm system uses the phone line and I was woken up at about 4:30 this morning by the panel beeping because apparently the phone line is out. So I checked my actual phone and it was out indeed. My first thought was that thieves had cut the wires so I called Telus and they are still working on it.

What I don't understand is why, if I have voice-mail, do I get a busy signal when I try to call my home number? I could see that happening (obviously) if I used an answering machine. It shouldn't matter even if my house blew up. I thought the whole reason for having voice-mail was so that I could still get messages.

 

[JamesK]

^^^^
How do you know it's a cut line? The problem could be back in the central office and affect voice mail too. If it was just the line that was cut, it would be the same as unplugging your phone from the jack and would not affect voice mail.

 

[CenterIce]

I didn't say it was cut. I said I thought it might be cut. Because why else does your phone go out in the middle of the night (rhetorical question ). Plus that was before I found out that the voice-mail wasn't working, which does suggest a system problem.

If the problem was in the central office, then I would have guessed (a) that they might have known about it and (b) it would have affected more than just me.

In any case, it's working now so the question really is moot.

 

[i6s1]

It's odd. A busy signal means a phone off the hook or a short. Since the alarm wouldn't have cared if a phone was off the hook, it must have been a short. But it still should have gone to voicemail.

-Telus Employee

 

[x katt x]

Voicemail and Webmail was down when lighting struck an edmonton office, damaging a whole bunch of equipment. I'm wondering if that's what happened with your services.

When you called Customer service, what did they say?

 

[CenterIce]

I got tired of waiting on hold to ask so I'll just assume that it was a system problem. Other times when the power or phone lines go out voicemail is never affected so I'm not going to worry too much about it.

 

[CenterIce]

Well, well, well. I read our local paper today and it turns out that a telephone line was cut by thieves not too far here. How that affects voicemail, which I would think is served from a central location, is beyond me.