Phone line has loud static noise

[Chucker]

I have had my FPL since last May and everything was working fine until recently where the phone just makes a loud noise and I can't hear anything when people call. The ATA is a linksys and everything was configured and worked well. Does anyone know what the solution might be?

[FONGO_steve]

I'd suggest giving your account a try on our softphone (or any softphone, such as X-Lite). That will help you narrow it down to definitely being ATA troubles, rather than network, ISP, far-end, etc. If it doesn't happen in a softphone, then we know the ATA must be investigated further.

[Chucker]

Thanks FPL-Steve.

The freephoneline account works perfectly. Would you know what else could be wrong?
We can't hear anything, but other can hear us just a little bit but lots of static they say.

Chucker

[laurent]

The first thing that comes to mind is to try another phone. If your ATA is wired to your house's internal phone wiring, try to remove that and plug the phone directly in the device, to test it.

There's a few additional theories:

1. It's possible (small probability) that your ATA was damaged through a static discharge. This would require replacing the ATA entirely. If your ATA has two lines, setup line 2 exactly as line 1, disable line 1, plug your phone in line 2 and try it.

2. The configuration might have become corrupt. You could write down all values (or screenshot them), then do a complete factory reset of your ATA, and then progressively reprogram it.

3. The firmware of the ATA could have become corrupt. Re-flashing it with the same, or maybe even a newer firmware revision could help.

All three possible causes I am thinking of are not an easy task to diagnose, unfortunately.