Of course her new computer doesn’t have a modem, it has an Ethernet port. The local computer expert had stuck an RJ-11 plug into an RJ-45 slot. I don’t really know why that made the phone line act as if it were off the hook, but it did. I ordered Mom a USB modem from Amazon; she’ll get it Friday.
I should mention that Mom now lives in Kentucky, a state that believes the words creation and museum belong together. The local computer expert is a product of the state’s education system and therefore should be treated with sympathy, not disdain.