This topic

No engaged or busy tone

VeraRose — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 13:53:57 GMT

My daughter is typing this as I am severely sighted. Since moving to digital voice when I am engaged my family and friends do not get a busy/engaged tone. This confuses and worries them, they do not know if my phone is working correctly. BT offered a Digital Hand set, but I need five big button handsets around the house as I cannot move very fast. I need big button handsets as I can just about make out the names on the menu to dial people. BT offered me call waiting and I am afraid to say that would confuse me more if I heard a beeping on the line. Again, I cannot have the message service. I get confused doing anything than ringing people. Digital voice may be the future, but there are still people like me who have their phone as a lifeline and cannot cope with change. I just want friends and family to hear the old fashioned engaged tone when they ring me.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

licquorice — Fri, 02 Jun 2023 14:10:00 GMT

There is a facility with Digital Voice to make/receive 2 calls simultaneously. To get engaged tone when on a call this facility needs to be turned off. In the menu screen go to Settings > Line Settings > Call Settings and make sure call mode is set to Single Call rather than Multi Call.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

VeraRose — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 09:43:23 GMT

Thank you, but the big button bt phone does not have the settings you mentioned.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

licquorice — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 10:55:19 GMT

No, you need to use the Digital Voice handset to perform the task. The big button phone is an analogue phone utilising the adaptor built into the hub.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

VeraRose — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 12:59:17 GMT

I may still have the digital phone BT sent mum. Can I connect it. Do as you suggest and then remove it? Mum needs big button phone as severely sighted.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

RIC9380 — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 13:02:57 GMT

Yes. Connect it directly into the phone socket on the back of the Hub, carry out what is described in post 2, remove the DV handset from the Hub and plug the adaptor and analogue phone back in.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

licquorice — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 13:25:15 GMT

No, you don't connect the DV handset to the rear of the hub. You need to register it to the hub.

The hub is a DECT (cordless) base station and the DV handset is a DECT handset.

Once you have made the changes, you can either continue to use the big button phones in conjunction with the DV handset, or simply de-register it.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

RIC9380 — Sat, 03 Jun 2023 13:32:09 GMT

Sorry, of course you are quite correct @licquorice. My apologies for not thinking it quite through before posting.

RIC9380

Re: No engaged or busy tone

Tim123 — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 00:47:09 GMT

Is there really no way of deactivating 'Multi Call' other than via a Digital Voice handset? Can't we call BT Customer Service on 150 and ask them to do it for us?

Re: No engaged or busy tone

licquorice — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 07:03:57 GMT

Quite possibly, however, if one has a Digital Voice handset it is a 30 second job rather than spending hours trying to talk to customer services.

Re: No engaged or busy tone

Tim123 — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 19:29:11 GMT

@licquorice - Of course, that goes without saying. I was thinking of (mainly) older people, particularly those who 'don't do cordless', who want to continue using their analogue phones after switchover and will choose to take up BT's offer of a free Digital Voice adaptor, rather than a free DV handset that they will not use.

There appears to be similar confusion about disabling Voicemail on Digital Voice (which is pre-enabled, unlike on PSTN). BT just assume that everyone will want it and give no official instruction on their website for how to disable it. Some users on this forum suggest that it can be disabled in 'My BT', while others insist that they can't see that option in their account. Switching it off without permanently cancelling the feature, by dialling 1571 (option 0), apparently doesn't work at all on Digital Voice. Again, I would hope that Customer Service can do this for subscribers over the phone (as they can do with the PSTN version of 1571).

Re: No engaged or busy tone

TimCurtis — Tue, 06 Jun 2023 14:45:29 GMT

@Tim123

Making adjustments to the DV Voicemail set up is a real pain.

Initially I set mine up to send a text to my nominated mobile when a message is left but decided at 20p a time I'd rather not do this.

There appears to be no way that it's possible to remove this simply. The only solution I came up with was to raise an order to cancel voicemail which took an hour plus to action AND cutoff my broadband for that time. Then raise another order to activate voicemail - another long wait - and then set my preferences.

Should be much simpler like it used to be pre-DV days.

@PaddyB please note.