Fax : No Dial Tone, Then Dials

I have a vista ultimate quad core 32 bit machine. It works great. I had to fax a doc yesterday and I couldn't do it. I loaded the program, went to the page, typed in phone number and other info. I hear the fax program dial ... on my speakers, not the modem speaker - the stereo speakers. I do not hear the dial tone - it just dials the number and then it rings 18 or 20 times and gives up. Two minutes later, it redials. I took DSL filter and telephone wire and connected to my backup celeron 1.7 machine and BVP (I think it is) software, I can print-fax a document. So, I know the wire and the dsl filter is ok. I got the fax off my desk but it sure is inconvenient. The kicker is that I did fax from the program 6-12 months ago. It was prior to upgrading vista to service pack 1.