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.

Re: Digital Voice

CJT80 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 16:20:37 GMT

BT used to offer accessible phones (Big button being one product range), I think they still offer them but not sure if they are "digital voice" compatible. When you say it reads the number back, is that on every voicemail?

Re: Digital Voice

Ianf3 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 16:32:42 GMT

The most frustrating thing is that the voicemail reads the number back every time before the message, it would be lovely to be able to turn this off

Re: Digital Voice

WSH — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:27:28 GMT

If memory serves, you can ask for 1571 to be turned off but you'll need to phone customer services and request it.

If you have your own answer phone, what you can do is go into MyBT and the phone settings then increase the number of rings before it answers. That ensures your own answer phone picks up first.

Re: Digital Voice

Ianf3 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 17:49:02 GMT

Thank you, I’m going to use my own answerphone, it’ll be less frustrating

Re: Digital Voice

WSH — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:02:43 GMT

OK. As I said, I run a ten-year-old Panasonic KX-TGA6624EB. The base station is set to answer after 5 rings, and I have 1571 set to answer after 10 rings. It works fine. (And by leaving 1571 enabled, you have the advantage that in a power cut at least 1571 will still take a message for you). Settings are located here:

Go into MyBT, then Your products followed by Digital Voice. At the bottom of the page is Voicemail essentials. Click Manage and set it to 10 rings.

Re: Digital Voice

Ianf3 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:04:44 GMT

Much appreciated, I’ve set my Panasonic to 4 rings and 1571 to 9