I finally contacted SBC about the problem I’d been having with my voice mail. The person who took my call was very helpful – tried calling me while I held on the line to see if they could replicate the problem, of course they couldn’t, but then they passed it along to a tech. He called me within a few hours (sooner than they could promise) and confirmed that they had found the problem – not enough trunk lines (though perhaps not in the obvious place) – and that it would have been producing exactly the symptoms I described – my line ringing and not going to voice mail AND busy signals at the call-in number.

He indicated it would be fixed by today, if not sooner. He was very apologetic, and he took time with me to talk through the problem and the solution.

It hasn’t recurred since then, but with any intermittent problem, one never knows. But I’m very hopeful that it’s all fixed and very pleased with how nice the SBC people both were – how they were willing to listen and also take time to make sure I was comfortable.

At the same time, I asked them to check if my Caller-ID was working – they said it was, but I get VERY few numbers coming through – it’s less than 10% of my calls. Even the tech who called back with the update on my problem report didn’t have a number come through. Bummer….