Originally Posted by baddog

Well, you are the one that called it an answer machine, not me . . . anyway, with 30+ years experience in telefony trouble shooting I can assure you that you definitely have a short on that line.

A phone being off the hook puts a short on the line, so if you unplug everything . . . phones, modems, whatever . . from ALL phone jacks and it goes straight to VoiceMail (VMS), you have a short.

Now, on the outside of your house should be a box that the phone lines come to. There should be a small connector that looks like a phone cord that you would plug into your jack.

Unplug them (going on the presumption that you have 2 lines, and easier to unplug all that to try and teach you how to determine which is for line 1 and which is line 2). Call your number again. If it does not go straight to VMS then the trouble is inside your house. If it still goes straight to VMS the trouble is outside and you will need to call the phone company to fix it.