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From: sullivan@EDN-VAX.ARPA.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
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Message-ID: <8705142153.AA02909@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu, 14-May-87 12:24:54 EDT
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Posted: Thu May 14 12:24:54 1987
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The phone line noise & outage problem you were talking about
was near and dear to me. In 1985, when we moved into our
current apartment, we were experiencing absence of dial tone
and busy-out of incoming calls for hours at a stretch. My
wife was pregnant with our daughter at the time, and it was
more than an inconvenience. The way we finally got C&P's 
attention was that we made two separate calls on the same day
(not planned that way, as it happens). My wife basically said
that she was 8 1/2 months pregnant and we needed a working phone.
I said the same thing, but also threatened to sue them and to
get the story on the local film-at-11. (We had contacted them
7 times up to that point and had gotten jerked around.) Oh, and
they weren't amused when I suggested partial payment on my fone
bill, since we were getting partial (and undependable) phone service.
Wanted it in full on time, thank you.

There was a good comment about "motivating" the telco to check
these problems out. It turned out they had all kinds of problems,
beginning with a leaky cable trench crossing the street to
junction boxes (wrong term but I can't think of the right one)
with the doors hanging open and the insides exposed to the weather.
Anyway, most of the problem went away after this, though not entirely.

Moral: We tried the nice polite we-don't-want-to-make-trouble
approach 7 times and got ignored. Only thing that worked for us
was threatening court action and publicity. I genuinely hate to
do business that way but i think many companies (not just the telco)
must have a policy of ignoring people until they really raise a fuss.

Best,
Pat Sullivan