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re: credit freeze section.
You do raise a lot of questions, but few answers.
What is the "identity theft protection" your reader is paying for? How can you say a credit freeze is "similar protection", when you don't know the features of their current service? Many of these have liability insurance, which of course a credit freeze will not. And to compare the cost, you need to know a LOT more details, like how often they plan on changing cell phone companies (or getting any credit), and if there is a spouse involved. The current charge is $13/mo, or $156/year. Unfreezing a couple's credit and then refreezing after a short while would be $120 each and every time, wouldn't it? ($10/person/agency for unfreezing, and $10/person/agency for freezing). If so, would your recommendation change (by knowing the person's details and the details of the current protection)?
My personal leaning is that the $10 per agency for freezing is a SCAM (the $10, not the feature) that uses fear to create an enormous profit center. They each have a verified on-line account (I think) that could have an option to [un]freeze our credit report with one click. They could charge $1 for [un]freezing and STILL make almost 100% profit, since it cost them nothing.
OK. This is an example of some things that are wrong in our current society.
1) First problem: customer support people who are incompetent or will just plain lie. I agree with SP Red that the explanation of possibly what's wrong is so far fetched and absurd as to be laughable. a) it is very unlikely that the modem is making "random" calls. b) if it were, why would it only be dialing 411, which is high unlikely to be in any address book on the computer. c) even then, if it were, there should be a log of outgoing calls.
And to have the phone company say that changing a cable might fix this makes as much sense as replacing the plumbing to your house because your washer isn't getting hot enough.
The most likely answers here are that someone in the house is dialing, or that there is a glitch in the phone company's computer. Which do you think is more likely after hearing both sides? What the phone company should have done is communicate the exact time these are happening and have the subscriber call every day or so to see if any more 411 calls were logged, then try to remember where the family was at the time. Then trying turning off the computer and night or when not in use. Then if a 411 call was recorded at 1am (for example) when the computer was off, the phone company wouldn't have a leg to stand on. (Unless, of course, someone was sleepwalking to the phone and only dialling 411, which is much more likely than fixing the problem by changing a cable)
2) Second problem: typing as journalism. This looks like your just typing what one person said, calling the company, then typing what they said. I'm sorry if that sound a bit harsh, but I believe that as a reporter, you should be exposing the lies, wrongs, and absurdities in the world. A little more critical thinking and a bit of research - five minutes on Google or even calling your tech department - should have exposed how ridiculous the phone company's answer was.