This topic

Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

surreysteve1 — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 17:41:17 GMT

Hiya

I have recently(last month) been switched to Digital Voice and it's not working well. Call break up badly and people complain they cannot hear me. There also seems to be an irritating beeping which may be associated with the poor quality.

I have the latest BT Smart Hub router (Sep 2022) and two of the Essential Digital Voice HD handsets. All equipment is bang up to date with firmware.

My router is in the loft and my problems occur one floor below and about 25m away, I have a hard wired ethernet network and there is a Ubiquity Wireless access point right beside the phone. My internet speed is good with 60mb down , 12mb up and a ping around 10

Ive done a fair bit of debugging which is listed below together with most of my finding so far.

Rebooting Smart Hub (including factory reset) - no difference
Re-pairing handsets with Smart Hub (using WPS button) - no difference
Resetting handsets - no difference
Beeping is not 1571 as alerts are switched off (it may be an "out of range" error- cant find documented anywhere)
Call quality (poor-terrible) is very dependent on exactly where I stand.

I'm not 100% sure exactly how the BT DV system works but am assuming that after pairing the digital handsets with the router that they can connect to any wireless access point? As mentioned the Ubiquity wireless point is right beside where the phone is being used.

My suspicion is that there IS a problem connecting through the Ubiquity wireless router or a setting on it needs changing. Sadly, I am not expert enough with the whole system to debug any further.

Any DV experts out there who can help?

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

jac_95 — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 17:42:16 GMT

Hi surreysteve1,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Community.

This is an automated response as I can see you have a question about BT’s Digital Voice service. Rather than waiting for a response from the Community, you may find an answer to your question by using the search bar on the Community homepage. We also have a thread that contains a wealth of info related to BT’s Digital Voice, click this link to take a look, Digital Voice FAQs.

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Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 17:46:37 GMT

The handsets are DECT not WiFi. I would guess that the both issues are indeed lack of range.

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

surreysteve1 — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 17:50:46 GMT

Hiya.

Thanks for this 🙂

I'm sure you are correct but I'm not even sure what DECT is? I assume it's a means of connecting the handsets to the router itself?

I'd assumed that with the digital handsets they became devices on my internal network - seems a shame if this is not the method.

If you can educate me further it would be greatly appreciated as it does make sense with what I'm experiencing 😞

is there anything I can do to improve the situation?

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Les-Gibson — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 17:57:14 GMT

The DV handsets are DECT (DECT phone frequency Information. (panasonic.eu) not Wi-Fi so they won't connect to your ubiquity router and 25 meters does seem a little ambitious for a phone operating on 1.9 Ghz with a full strength 2.4 Ghz signal right alongside it. It could be that the filters in the ubiquity have gone faulty allowing it to generate noise in the DECT band.

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 17:57:35 GMT

Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications is the method all modern cordless phones use to communicate with their bases.

Unfortunately BT have decided not to implement support for a repeater in the SH2, so the only real option is to relocate it more centrally in the house.

If by chance you have another cordless set that may perform better if the base is plugged directly into the SH2. Or BT supply an adapter but that also relies on DECT, so would need to be within range of the SH2.

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

surreysteve1 — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 18:03:53 GMT

Thanks.

This does make sense that there is interference as the call quality improves when I stand further away from the Ubiquity (which was making no sense to me until now). Ironically this is moving further away from the BT SH in the loft.

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

surreysteve1 — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 18:06:16 GMT

Is the repeater you mean the line-extender type device you can plug into a mains socket? Or am I mixing things up?

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Les-Gibson — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 18:06:33 GMT

Just for test purposes, try powering the ubiquity down and see if that resolves the problem. If it does then that would suggest that it is breaking through into the DECT band

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 18:16:07 GMT

Depends what you're thinking of. Probably easiest to Google DECT repeater. But as I said, it's of no use with the SH2.

This is the BT Adapter that allows another phone to be connected by DECT.

But what you describe supports @Les-Gibson's notion that the WAP could be interfering with the DECT, as both use 2.4GHz. So relocating that may help or if practical, try switching off 2.4GHz.

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

surreysteve1 — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 18:21:51 GMT

Nice idea. I'll give that a go tomorrow and report back 🙂

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Hilshils — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 07:48:27 GMT

We have exactly the same problem with the essential digital voice phones supplied by BT. We cannot move the SH2 from one end of the house (as far as I know) so that is 15m from the main part of the house.

We do find that using our old phones with a BT voice adapter (which they sent me for free) is a little better, but still a vastly inferior call quality to our old copper landline.

I find it hard to believe that this so called modern technology means we now have an inferior service. We don’t have a mobile signal indoors and have to go down the garden to get one so we are very disappointed. BT have no solution!!

I would like to try re-registering the handsets but don’t know how…no info on BT website.

And would paying for their premium phones help??

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Hilshils — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 07:51:47 GMT

So the ubiquity is the SH2? But then we wouldn’t get any broadband? Or am I going down the wrong alley?!

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Nov 2022 08:16:43 GMT

@Hilshils

You can move the SH2 anywhere you can run an ethernet cable to. I doubt re-registering will help, nor upgrading the phones.

Ubiquity is a mesh system attached to the OP's SH2, so not relevant to you.

Presumably you connection & call quality is OK near the SH2?

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Hilshils — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 17:05:57 GMT

I’ll check, I am not at home now and we rarely use the phones in the room where the SH2 is! Thank you for replying.

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Les-Gibson — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 17:16:08 GMT

@surreysteve1

Any Joy?

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

surreysteve1 — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 18:24:03 GMT

I made one call with the access point switched off and it was hard to tell if it was better or not.

I was going to turn down the 2.4 channel and see how it went over next week. I suspect it's a factor but possibly not the only one. As mentioned the router is in the loft and we also have some foil backed insulation in the floor joists that may not help.

It's not easy for me to relocate the router as I have a hard wired ethernet network that is all in the loft and the BT line also comes in there. It would be quite a rewiring job 😞

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

Les-Gibson — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 18:51:44 GMT

Rather you than me by the sounds of it. 🤔

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

FTTPlease — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 23:12:52 GMT

Upgrading the phones will not help one bit.

Both the Essential and the Advanced DV handsets use DECT in the same way.

Re: Digital Voice Quality Issues (and beeping)

JonMace — Sun, 06 Nov 2022 18:40:33 GMT

@Hilshils

Will not solve you problem, but with having no mobile service indoors, have you tried turning on wifi calling on the mobile phone?