Landline Phantom Ringing

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Landline Phantom Ringing

thenwhat

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#318602 3-Feb-2025 11:59

Hi,

Our landline randomly rings roughly once a week - usually in the middle of the night, waking us up.

I've tried different combinations of phones on different sockets and it doesn't seem to make any difference.

We've asked Spark to send out an engineer several times and while he usually manages to find something non trivial wrong with the network to fix the problem remains.

We are on 'copper' that runs a a km or so back to a PCM (no ADSL) mux cabinet for the whole (rural) valley which then goes back to another cabinet (over 'two wires') back to another cabinet with fiber back hall. We're rural.

The problem could have been caused by a river flood that caught the cable where it crosses (attached to a metal beam) the river. It didn't break the cable but did put a sharp 90 degree kink in the cable (which then runs 200m up our drive to our house).

I keep asking the engineer to replace it at the kink, but he keeps finding other stuff wrong to fix (which I believe) and says he doubts the kink was a problem - it's been straightened out and he's wrapped some electricians tape around where the kink was.

What should I do - are they resisting fixing the wire because it requires an entirely new run or is there a waterproof connector they can use? I'm worried they're eventually go to say it's our home wiring and charge us. I'm pretty technically competent, are there some basic tests I can do on the house wiring to help, e.g. continuity, voltage and resistance tests?

We keep having to leave the phone disconnected - do you think there is any point asking Spark for some compensation for paying for a phone line that we can't leave connected?

Behodar

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#3338550 3-Feb-2025 12:03

What do you mean by "rings"? e.g. Is it a standard "ring ring, ring ring" pattern? Does it just do it once or twice or does it continue until you pick up? etc.

noroad

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#3338552 3-Feb-2025 12:08

hmm, you know the obvous answer to this problem :-)

freitasm

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#3338574 3-Feb-2025 13:19

Do you have a monitored alarm or any other device connected to the line - roof, under the house, etc?

geek3001

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#3338583 3-Feb-2025 14:05

If the ringing is the normal ringing pattern, perhaps a Spam / Nuisance Caller ignoring our time zone?

I have had that problem in the past.

As my phone provides the functionality, I now set my landline phone to Do Not Disturb each night before I go to bed, so that if the phone rings, it will be silent and not make any noise.

Groucho

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#3338627 3-Feb-2025 16:09

Years ago my parents in the early evening (between 6pm - 8pm) most days of the week a phone with a mechanical bell would just give a single ding. I don't think it was followed up on as wasn't a nuisance and consistent time of day vs a potential 'no fault found' fee but it eventually just stopped.

Adjacently related to this post, I learned a landline on fibre can have hardware issues as well. My office landline kept dropping and was killing the net connection every time the phone was picked up or rang. Turned out it was a faulty ONT power supply as couldn't draw enough power for the landline so ONT would die.

thenwhat

30 posts

Geek

#3338629 3-Feb-2025 16:12

To answer a previous question: It rings a couple of times then stops. No caller ID, never anyone on the end of the phone if I pick it up quickly. No monitored alarm on the line.

geek3001

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#3338634 3-Feb-2025 16:30

thenwhat:

To answer a previous question: It rings a couple of times then stops. No caller ID, never anyone on the end of the phone if I pick it up quickly. No monitored alarm on the line.

To me this sounds like one variation of a scammer call, where your number is not dialed by a human caller, but automatically by a computer searching for lines that are answered by a human.

If answered, there will initially be no reply when you say hello, just silence.

However, if you were to say "Hello.... hello.... is anyone there....?" your human voice would trigger a transfer of the call to a human in the Scammer's (ahem) Call Centre, and then they would start their spiel if you're still on the call.

But, of course, the line behaviour you are experiencing could be a fault, or also, perhaps, a "silent" call, from someone who is bored and making a nuisance of themselves during the night. If the latter is the case, then you should make a note of call times should they continue, and insist that Spark investigate the source of the calls, which they can do regardless of whether you see any Caller ID.

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muppet

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#3338705 3-Feb-2025 17:27

Some people will suggest cancellation of your landline, but while I can understand that, I also understand the comfort of having a landline available.

The more obvious and easier solution in my opinion would be to move house.

coffeebaron

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#3338723 3-Feb-2025 18:27

If its a "real" call, e.g. spam, prank, miss dial etc. There should be an incoming call record that Spark should be able to see. At least starting there you should be able to determine if there is an actual fault or not.

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#3339379 5-Feb-2025 06:47

What was the outcome of the thread you posted in 2019 regarding chorus database?

by the way, how are you getting internet at the moment?

DMWellington

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#3339405 5-Feb-2025 08:41

Sounds like a fault on the line, possibly water. The fact it happens at night will likely be due to temperature. A line tech will be able to chuck a meter on it and work out where the fault is. I'm an ex Telecom line tech and this was a common issue back in the day.

Bung

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#3339470 5-Feb-2025 09:53

Unless the phone is self powered with possibly a menu of ringer noise options any ringing cadence would have to come from exchange equipment. Line faults unless you're in contact with another line would just be odd noises.

toejam316

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#3339473 5-Feb-2025 10:00

Bung:

Unless the phone is self powered with possibly a menu of ringer noise options any ringing cadence would have to come from exchange equipment. Line faults unless you're in contact with another line would just be odd noises.

Nah you can definitely get phantom voltage that'll trigger ringing, I've heard of electric fences causing it, corrosion in a joint causing voltage to leak, and all sorts of other odd things. You can find all sorts of nasty wet joints in really old cable when you're rural, and it's a bundle of fun finding and fixing them when it's moisture because the heat of the day and sometimes even the heat of the voltage leak will clear up the fault just enough to make it a pig of a thing to find.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.