Conundrum...

We have new phones. These phones and the old phones have recently developed a very peculiar symptom. They can dial out and make calls. They can receive calls. But what they CAN'T do is progress through the classic phone menus ("Dial extension 25").

Kathy talked to one of the service people and he claims this has to do with a failure of the modem in the house. But I simply can't believe that, because it makes no sense at all. All other services (cable, internet, and regular phone operation) are fine. How is it possible that the modem could fail to recognize the EXACT SAME SIGNALS from the EXACT SAME PHONE *only* when that phone is trying to enter the signals when connected to some other number?

Now *I* can think of one way that could happen -- if the phones are sending ANALOG signals rather than standard tones, like a dial phone. Then it'd be sending a very fast series of clicks instead of a tone -- perfectly legit for dialing, but not at all workable for the pushbutton menus.  

However, I don't see a switch anywhere that could be an analog-digital switch.

Any ideas? Am I WRONG WRONG WRONG and it IS a strange modem failure (and if so, how?)

Worlds you want to visit...

Nicked from anghara , this site is looking for people to vote for the worlds one would most want to visit. Seems worth a vote at least, it's fun to think about the choices.

I chose Silverberg's Lord Valentine's Castle, Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, and I could not be honest and leave out Grand Central Arena by yours truly; I constructed the Arena to be my distillation of sense of wonder, so it would be utterly ridiculous for me to leave it out.