On Fri, 09 Aug 2013 20:09:41 -0700, Paul wrote:

...snip...
When it comes to static, hum, clicks or other impairments,
you'd be surprised how many times it is actually the
house wiring. Back home, our problem was just "too many
goofy devices" )exceeded loading limit) connected to the
phone wiring (including a strobe light box, that flashed
when the phone would ring, for the basement area). And no,
I didn't add that crap. Other family members did.
In my own home, corrosion on the baseboard RJ-11 connector
boxes, resulted in my old dialup modem dropping to
only 33Kbit/sec operation. Disconnecting the house internal
wires, at the demarcation point, and running a brand new cable
and box to the upstairs, got the dialup modem back to 46K again
(of 53K max).
A friend had a similar issue, and for him, it was where the
cable went through the foundation of his house.
Our telco here, occasionally evaluates line quality. They set
up a table and patio umbrella a couple weeks ago, while
running tests from the CO to our remote box. They don't test
all that often, but we just had it done - they need high quality
lines for their expensive "bundled service packages" - they weren't
doing this to make my analog phone work better They only
do the work, to help them make more money off premium services.
Paul


Hear, hear. For me it was a 'branch' line. Remove branch, quiet phone.
Wires were solid, 'lab quality' bench wires, inside house that sounded
like someone was wadding up a newspaper. No idea the cause of
deterioration, but telephone company wanted to charge for problem being
inside. Luckily the telephone compnay repairman was kind enough to place
total blame on exteriror wiring in a cable out in the street. rerouting
there AND removing the branch made the line absolutely DEAD quiet.