This topic

Digital Voice

Ianf3 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 13:39:28 GMT

My mother is 98 and really struggling with the modern handset , plus the voicemail now recites the callers number, which takes ages.

BT really need a handset suitable for these customers, as the demographic is the landline users.

Please can we have a way of turning off the voicemail reciting numbers.

Re: Digital Voice

licquorice — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:44:22 GMT

Why does she not use her previous handset?

Re: Digital Voice

Ianf3 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:58:23 GMT

She is but I still feel the new handsets need to be better suited to older customers

Re: Digital Voice

licquorice — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 15:10:09 GMT

Why would BT produce a different handset at extra cost just to suit a very small minority of customers that can use whatever handset they prefer in any case?

Re: Digital Voice

garybs29 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 20:22:33 GMT

Are you going to mention the same to all phone manufacturers?

Re: Digital Voice

Ianf3 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 20:25:53 GMT

I was hoping for some empathy here over my elderly mother’s experience,

Re: Digital Voice

WSH — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 21:10:15 GMT

When you say “modern handset”, how old was the previous one?

Most old phones will work fine plugged into the phone socket on the back of the hub. I still use a ten-year-old cordless phone and it works fine with digital voice. It would have to be really, really old not to work.

Even if it is on an extension, the extension can be connected to the hub phone socket and it should still work with the old phone. If you want advice on exactly how to do that, let us know.