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Trouble calling America

elong169 — Sat, 06 Nov 2021 23:59:32 GMT

Hi,

I have a friend who I regularly call in America from landline to landline, but over the last couple of days, when I call, it doesn't ring. Instead, there's a long silence at the other end of the line, followed by a high pitched tone after about thirty seconds, which i guess is telling me that the call has failed or something. I'm in touch with my friend by other means and I don't think that the phone is out of order. What is likely to be the problem?

Re: Trouble calling America

Devon_Dave — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 05:07:56 GMT

Who supplies your phone service?

Have you tried calling from someone else's phone?

Re: Trouble calling America

elong169 — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 16:42:53 GMT

I'm on BT (hence why I'm here). I haven't tried calling from someone else's phone, but I got the international operator to call last night and they couldn't get thru either. My friend is getting local calls thru just fine tho. Is it worth asking BT about this or would the best option to get my friend to talk to their own phone company?

Re: Trouble calling America

Devon_Dave — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 06:05:56 GMT

I would suggest your friend gets the line checked out their end. Would not think there is a problem this side of the pond.

Re: Trouble calling America

elong169 — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 17:51:48 GMT

I got onto BT and they said that there was an outside fault that might be causing it and that it would be fixed by Friday, so I should try again then. Also, tho the operator couldn't get thru, i can get thru on a mobile (which costs a fortune and is of little help) and my friend is having no problems with local calls at all. It's all very variable and mysterious. I'm going to wait til Friday and see what happens then. She's offered to call her phone company too, but whether anything will come of that idk.

Re: Trouble calling America

PaddyB — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 19:39:26 GMT

Hi @elong169,

Please post back and let us know how things go on Friday.

Thanks,

Paddy

Re: Trouble calling America

Devon_Dave — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 07:45:22 GMT

Yes, please post back what the openreach engineers find. Would love to know how a fault local to you would stop you calling the states.

Had you considered calling them on another means? Messenger /Skype /WhatsApp?

Re: Trouble calling America

elong169 — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 09:45:06 GMT

Checking in here as requested. The outside fault that might have been causing it has been fixed but it has not changed the situation. Still can't call from the landline, neither can the operator.

We have ascertained that I can call by mobile, she can call me from her landline, I can call other landlines in California, but calls will not go thru from my landline to hers. BT engineer on the phone last night was of the opinion that it's a problem on the American side (I agree) but that has its own problems. My friend called her company and they kept her on hold for a bit then cut her off. Welcome to America : )

We do talk on Skype but this isn't always convenient for reasons, it's important to me to have a phone connection that I can all her on. Am going to look into what I can do via mobile maybe.

Re: Trouble calling America

iniltous — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 11:19:04 GMT

As others have said , not likely to be your side of the connection or anything you or your provider can influence , if you have broadband and your mobile phone supports wifi calling, you could try that.

Your friend may want to check that they haven’t inadvertently added your number to a blocked list , or barred international calls or something like that , as it’s possible any message generated at the American end ( something like ‘ this line doesn’t accept anonymous calls’ ) may not be passed back to you , and all you get is a meaningless tone, I know of an occasional where someone calling a line in France was having trouble getting through, calls met with a statement read out in French , (they didn’t speak french ) , it turned out that the statement translated into English was ‘ we don’t accept anonymous calls ‘, European phone systems had to be able to interact at an operational level, there is no such compatibility with American phone systems, so it’s likely that whatever system message is being passed back by the American phone service isn’t ‘understood’ at this end, resulting in a generic ‘tone’.

Re: Trouble calling America

elong169 — Sat, 13 Nov 2021 12:03:40 GMT

If it is a block, it will be on international calls as a whole, as the operator couldn't get thru on their own account, rather than when trying to connect me.

I expect it to be an outside fault or error somewhere, but my friend lives in a chaotic household where many things may indeed come to pass : )

Re: Trouble calling America

elong169 — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 09:32:33 GMT

OK, my friend apparently still gets her internet thru a modem (i have no idea why this is). She eventually got thru to the phone company, who told her to reboot the modem and there no longer seems to be a problem. It is amazing how many tech things can still be solved by saying "have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?"

Re: Trouble calling America

NeilO — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 11:00:33 GMT

@elong169 Thanks for keeping the thread updated, I'm glad your friend eventually managed to get that sorted at their end.

Thanks

Neil