Who here has a truly "quiet" POTS line?

[GusHerb]

Just wondering, ours has on and off over the years had a faint hum and lately it's started humming again after AT&T did another "overhaul" in our neighborhood for the benefit of Uverse which is when the faint hum that sounds like poor ground appeared again. I called in a trouble report because I can hear it a little too well on a couple of my 500's and it's beginning to annoy me.
Honestly I don't remember if the line was even dead quiet before, I'm almost 100% certain that our second POTS line was dead quiet though. Unfortunately I can't compare the two anymore because it was converted over to VOIP.  The only one I've compared our POTS line to lately was my grandma's line, which seems quieter then our line.

This also makes me wonder how phone lines generally were back in the Ma Bell days in terms of "noise" on the line.

[twocvbloke]

I've noticed phone lines here in the UK getting more noisy as the years go by, be it interference, mains hum, crackling, I just attribute it to ancient copper wiring that BT use and refuse to upgrade or even replace when they fail...

Heck, we had a "working" phone line (it was termed as a "Stopped line", meaning it was live, but not functional) when we moved into this house, but due to a failed pair from the exchange to a house on the same street, a BT engineer disconnected our line and reattached it to someone else's house and reconnected it to their service at the exchange, and as there were no more free pairs above ground, we had to wait two days for an underground engineer to find a free pair in the underground lines to connect to the overhead lines to get to our house, and even now dialling 17070 (BT's engineer test facility) and getting a "quiet line" results in some noise on the line...

Then again, looking out the window during the day yields the possible cause, some of the lines are draped over the live overhead power cables (yes, these northern parts of England have overhead power cables!!), probably inducing a lovely 50hz hum into people's lines...

[Phonesrfun]

Even in the olden days of real POTS lines and mechanical switching, there was usually some noise on the line coming from various sources.  Crosstalk from cables. Hum from imbalances lines and muted clicks and pops from inducted noises from the electromechanical switches.  Generally, I think lines are quieter these days.  Even a POTS line these days may not be on a dedicated pair from the CO to your house, especially if you live a few miles away from the CO.

[dsk]

I have to report the same from Norway.

What we complained about 40 years ago is solved, Expensive calls, long time waiting for dial tone, not enough lines, so you could be waiting months, or even years for a telephone.  All solved.
We have got new problems, bad lines, lot of companies and contractors. all of them blames each other.
3 year ago, they used a week to to repair a 100 pairs cable someone had ruined with machine.

But of course we pay less than half of what we did 40 years ago, compaired to what we get payed.

Less noise on on skype. 

dsk

[jsowers]

I'm still on dialup internet at home and hum on the line is a disaster when I try to connect, which usually connects at 50 or 49.5 K.

I've had bad hum twice. Once it was damage from a severe ice storm, to my overhead line that crosses the road and then goes underground to the house, via a pole next to my driveway. The second time it was ANTS. That's what the telephone repairman blamed it on, and there was an anthill next to the end of my driveway, so I suppose it's possible that they ate the insulation between the wires and water got in.

My mom, who lives two houses up the road, had bad hum on her POTS line and it was bad pairs in the overhead line at the road. It started happening again and they kept blaming it on the inside wiring, so she switched to VOIP from the cable company. It still uses her 1953 inside wiring and works fine.

My telco is an independent telco and it sold out two years ago to Windstream, so the next time I have hum, I shudder to think how long it will be before it's fixed. The two times before, which was under the old management, they came the same day or the day after and it was fixed.

[Doug Rose]

What I miss most about my POTS lines are the great AM stations I used to receive. Music on Talk.  What a great feature! Sometimes there would be language courses. But since I didn't understand the language, it was a tough course. It was always my house wiring according to NET/Bell Atlantic/ Verizon, even though I got it at the Dmarc with the house wiring disconnected....... on my butt set. Best of all there was no extra charge for this/these feature(s). VOIP can't match that!....Doug

[Owain]

What I miss most about my POTS lines are the great AM stations I used to receive. Music on Talk.  What a great feature!

A local railway station near me gets occasional BBC Radio 4 breaking through on the tannoy. Very nice to listen to.

[Dennis Markham]

I currently have AT&T (POTS).  It's crystal clear.  On one occasion I had terrible static.  I called 'em up, they came over and did some work on the pole and that was that.  No complaints here.

[Dan/Panther]

Mine here is still very good, but I would imagine over the next few years you will start seeing all but interrupted service being put on the back burner, except maybe for the high end customers. JMHO. I think the goal is to have basically all wireless service throughout the entire world.
That way a computer can monitor evbery conversation and know what's going on all over the globe.

D/P

[Owain]

I think the goal is to have basically all wireless service throughout the entire world.
That way a computer can monitor evbery conversation and know what's going on all over the globe.

But that already happens.

[Dan]

My  landline is clear and is the most reliable service product I own. Love my Cincinnati Bell!

[dsk]

I have checked about my line, officially it is 2945meters long, revolved (twisted), with no loading coils. It has several different sizes, some terminals are krone, some are soldered/screw terminals. All buried in the ground.  Whats not a part of the truth is, when we got telephone the exchange was full, so we may still be supplied from another probably approx 10000 meters further.

The removal of lading coils is good for data, and bad for voice, but I get my data via the cable TV

dsk

[deedubya3800]

Our hoam line is very quiet. We live less than a quarter-mile from the CO with a traditional copper pair, and they're going to be upgrading us to fiber optic soon. Our line is really clear and rather high in fidelity. It carries bass and treble surprisingly well for a foan line. Verizon Wireless ringback tones sound almost nearby-AM-radio quality on my D1/E1. I can remember several years ago when we lived out in the country, there was a noticible mains hum in our line. It was charming, really, very similar to a soft old-style dial tone in the background.

[GusHerb]

I had an AT&T tech out today to have a look at the "hum" on our line and the random disconnect fits our Uverse internet has every week or so, while talking to him, and following him down to our neighborhoods crossbox and VRAD I learned something that I'm kinda shocked and pleasantly surprised about...it turns out that POTS for our neighborhood is still served on dedicated pairs from the CO! I always thought it was T1/pair gain and then later fiber for POTS service but nope! So that's a bit more incentive for me to wanna keep the landline, it's all traditional in set up (except for the internet part of it all)

As far as our internet goes he determined that the pair that our line was on (the original pair we've been using for 22 years) had about 100 feet worth of bridge taps on it. The second pair that we had originally been using for DSL, and the second POTS line was a perfectly clean line, so he switched us to that second pair.
As far as the phone improving, it hasn't, but I'm beginning to think my ears are just TOO good, I can only hear the hum when there is no dial tone and the line is dead quiet (such as between digits while dialing) and it is very faint, room even has to be quiet to hear it. Outside of that, the sound quality on the line is superb and crystal clear as it always has been and there is absolutely no interference (ALL of the wiring is underground from the house back to the CO).
(I think I'm just becoming too picky with having the second line on VOIP, which is TRULY quiet)

Also while this tech was here I had a good long talk with him about the local infrastructure, and this guy knows EVERYTHING about how everything is set up and laid out. He was able to confirm and answer all of my questions I had (including the ones I had in my last thread I created here)  I just LOVE talking to AT&T line technicians (I'm pretty sure I met this guy 8 years ago when the trunk to our neighborhood was cut)

[Phonesrfun]

Wow, that's great information.

Hope you got your hum resolved.