Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rpi!bu.edu!telecom-request From: FLINTON@eagle.wesleyan.edu (Fred E.J. Linton) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Do Network Interface Devices Make Fraud Easy? Message-ID: Date: 22 Feb 91 05:08:10 GMT Sender: news@bu.edu.bu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 28 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 146, Message 2 of 8 In TELECOM Digest Volume 11, Issue 134, Message 8 of 9 [about plugging your phone into the network interface to determine if a problem is the telco's network, your inside wire, or your phone ... ] After the third time that squirrels ate through my pole feed, I interposed a DPDT knife switch between the incoming line and my premises wiring, with incoming line going to the two "common" 's, premises wiring going to the two poles at one throw, and an RJ11 test jack going to the two poles at the other throw. It was then a cinch to verify (with a phone known to be good in the test jack, and the knife switch in the "test" position) that I had no dial tone, no battery, no nothin'; what's more, the voice at 611 Repair Service understood immediately that the problem _had_ to be outside the demarc; and the linesman who came to undo the squirrels' handiwork opined that he wouldn't mind at all if such a quick way to disconnect premises wiring were to be made mandatory. Re security: no locked housing around the knife switch -- it's within my basement, high and dry, just a few inches from the sill through which the copper enters the house (and the house is a single-family). Cost: maybe 29 cents, a spare RJ11, and a spare hour for installation. Fred or