For the past week the phones where my daughter works have been having a lot of trouble. At first the clinic was told that there had been a power surge and it had affected the lines. While conducting business, the phone line would go dead. I was talking to my daughter and this happened so I know it is true. As the week progressed, other things would or would not happen. She could call out but could not receive calls.

Since they contact insurace agencies and other businesses around the state, they would immediately upon calling someone explain that they might get cut off. To my daughter's surprise, others are having the same problems. This is the state of Ky.

Personally, I keep getting phone calls from a pay phone several times a day. After many calls, I started immediately calling the pay phone nyumber back only to receive a sound similar to a fax. I have Caller ID which tells me it was a pay phone and the number. Now I am getting out of area calls with no answer. Weird.

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), August 02, 1999

Answers

In the last few days, my pager has begun going off up to 3 times for one call to it. I do not claim to know what the cause is for this, but it is certainly strange.

my website: www.y2ksafeminnesota.com

-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), August 02, 1999.

I have been having trouble using my home phone for about ten days. At times it will appear to work correctly only to return to a dial tone after I have finished dialing.Other times it makes high pitched noises instead of a dial tone.I have had the phone company check it out (it works about half the time)and they said that there is nothing wrong with the system .By the way, I have three different phones and it seems to make no difference which one is used...

-- littlesister (littlesister123@yahoo.com), August 02, 1999.

For what it's worth, we've been having problems for several months. Try to call someone (local calls only are affected, apparently), and you get a "fast busy signal" or get a dial tone. Phone company says it's because of all us folks using an extra line for computer, fax, kids' lines, etc. and the company hasn't bothered to spend the money to keep up with the demand. Lots of businesses are getting upset, I'm told.

JOJ

-- jumpoffjoe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), August 02, 1999.

We have Southern Bell here in NC. I have been having trouble dialing numbers over in the 336 area code (which is next door basically) but if I redial the number a few times it hooks in finally. Telephones have always been screwy around here so it will have to get a lot worse before I start attributing it to y2k.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), August 03, 1999.

No change in phone idiosyncracies here lately.

-- No Spam Please (nos_pam_please@hotmail.com), August 03, 1999.

If y2k isn't our undoing, the constant advances in technology will be. OT-- I just heard that the airlines are up 40% in delays. One of the reasons cited was the constant upgrades by FAA.

The IT industry has to deal with new programming languages. The rules are constantly changing. Things don't work like they used to. When they don't work, you slow down or come to a halt. Frankly, the crap looks good, but it's unreliable. You can't count on it working. I don't have the stability with an older language.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), August 03, 1999.