We lost dial tone at home. I tried everything – unplugged all the phones and fax machines – powercycled the alarm system and still NOTHING. No dialtone – not even a click – not even the kind of echo that you hear when you have a phone off the hook.
The phone line was dead. As if disconnected.
I was about to call the phone company and be a wimp – but then I noticed that somone had taken a phone wire connected to a wall plug and connected it into a free port on the 10/100 switch!
that was indeed out of the box thinking as a possible ereason why Internet would be down – but it made the phone system *very* unhappy. Unplugged the Ethernet switch from the phone jack and viola – all better.