The cable repairman arrived to check out the new digital phone system in an old New England home. The resident had switched over to cable telephone while getting Internet service the prior month. The phone line would go dead intermittently for no rhyme or reason, but always seemed to fix itself. The dead phone started working just minutes before the repairman arrived.

Just as the repairman was about to leave, the phone went dead again. He was flagged down by the lady of the house and came back in time to confirm that the phone was definitely dead. "Seems like there's a phone off the hook", he offered, "We need to disconnect all the phones in the house and also make sure that no computers are connected to any phone jacks".