How many telephone lines do you pay for in this house?
Before you called the telephone company, did you open the NID and plug in a known, working telephone?
If so, how did the line sound?
X-battery going toward the house will be almost an impossibility if you have only one line. I suspect that the "technician" mis-read the meter and saw, instead, a ground, or a slight ground, called an "escape".
What type of service wire feeds your house? Buried? Aerial?
