This topic

Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

David53 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:50:54 GMT

Hello,

We were begrudgingly moved to digital voice many months ago now. We have no mobile signal and live in an area which often has power cuts...

Ever since being moved to this service we have not been able to receive incoming calls consistently.
Calls from either landlines or mobiles will either not go through at all, or take 3-4 attempts for them to connect.
The caller can hear a single continuous tone when they attempt to call us
We have no problems making outgoing calls
We have tried multiple handsets - we are currently using BT branded HD digital voice phones
We have no broadband issues
Speaking to customer services we are getting no where. The last thing we tried was cancelling call diversion with no avail - although I'm positive we have never enabled that feature anyway.

Searching through the forums it appears we are not the only ones with this issue. Porting seems to come up fairly often as a potential reason for the issue. We have had the same landline number forever. When the move to digital voice is made, is the number "ported" to the digital service?

Any help very much appreciated.

Regards,

Dave

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

jac_95 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:55:02 GMT

Hi David53,

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.

To learn more about the nationwide change to this Internet based voice service visit landlinesgo.digital

If you have already looked for the answer to your question and have not found anything that can help, then please ignore this message. One of our Community members will be along shortly to help you further.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

iniltous — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:05:32 GMT

Porting is generally accepted to be moving between providers so in that respect migration to DV is not ‘porting’ .
The problems reported ( and as with most things , people report issues , they don’t report satisfactory service, so a false impression can be given of the scale of an issue ) generally are with numbers that have been moved around various networks, if your number has never been ported , then you don’t have an issue with porting , if the number has never been ported away from BT .
Obviously, unless you call yourself frequently, presumably your impression of this is anecdotal, someone calling you and claiming they struggled to get though…as with any third party report there is always the possibility that the issue is with the network they made their call from.

You may have an issue , there is no disputing that , is there plenty of other reports like yours suggesting it’s a systemic problem, no there isn’t .

If you feel incoming calls are not getting through , report it , although an Openreach visit would achieve little ( DV is a BT proprietary system ) but you could get a visit where the OR tech , sits by the DV phone ( preferably plugged directly into the hub ) and makes 5, 10 , 20 calls to it , if they are all successful, that pretty much gives it a clean bill of health , if as you claim , there will be some failures, hopefully the OR tech will involve BT by reassigning the fault report to them .

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

David53 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:08:17 GMT

RE: Porting - that was my assumption so looks like that's a dead end.

It's certainly not anecdotal, we have personally tried ourselves from both mobiles and various landlines on various different network providers. Just this morning I drove to a spot with good mobile coverage and tried calling and experienced the same issue.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:27:20 GMT

@David53

You need to look at the overall picture. A bit of history.

Prior to BT Digital Voice, all incoming calls would have been destined to your local exchange. This was achieved by merging call traffic from different providers at certain points of the network, typically exchanges that handled OLO (Other Licenced Operator) handovers. Salisbury Exchange was one of those sites.

Think of a tree with lots of branches all converging to form one trunk.

With the move to VOIP (Digital Voice) some of these interchange points no longer function, and the call traffic from all those providers have to be re-routed onto VOIP at specific parts of the network.

This was BTs vision for the 21cn network, where all traffic, including voice, would be carried over IP (Internet Protocol).

As you can probably imagine, this is a major task for the BT network, as it is for other providers.

During that complex process, its quite possible for some of these interlinks to be lost, meaning calls will have no destination routing.

The forum moderators do have access to the teams that can trace these missing links, and create routings for them.

The problem is first to identify which calling networks are not being routed, and at which point. Not an easy task.

If you can identify the origin of the calls that are failing, then a moderator can pass this information to the appropriate teams.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

c64z86 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:39:08 GMT

I'm also having the same problem.

Family members can't get through, businesses can't get through and the latest one is that the hairdresser could not ring us back.

It's not always consistent but it's been a big problem ever since we changed over to DV back in June/July.

The only advice I've been offered is to ask them what networks they are calling from, then it will be investigated by BT... but this is damn near impossible to find out sometimes as the workers do not know which phone company their office is using. So how am I supposed to tell BT what network they are calling from?

The BT person who called me said there was not any trouble for him getting through to me, so he doesn't see any problems... well no crud sherlock, you're on BT too so you won't have any problems getting through to me.

So I'm stuck with only a half working DV service because the guys at BT will not investigate until they know what networks are trying to get through to me.

Just wanted to say you're not alone, no matter how much others may try to minimize your problems on here.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:39:48 GMT

Another thing for people to be aware of, is that "short" local numbers no longer work, as they were locally routed through your exchange.

The full national number now has to be dialled, just like on a mobile. So anyone who had pre-programmed local number, or a paper phone diary, would need to make sure that any short codes were amended. Lots of people still have phone number in written form.

There are issues with DV, that are going to take a long time to sort out.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

c64z86 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:43:04 GMT

Not the OP here but I asked them to dial the full numbers (Because we can call out to them just fine) still the same problems.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

David53 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:03:38 GMT

It seems like this is a very common problem. Just scrolling through this forum only a couple of pages finds people in the same situation:

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/Digital-Voice-incoming-calls-from-non-BT-networks-quot-unable-to/td-p/2322997

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/Digital-Voice-incoming-calls-not-working/td-p/2327851

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

David53 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:44:33 GMT

Yes, we've also done the same. What I can't understand is some calls will eventually go through after many attempts. If it were a routing issue then would this happen or would it attempt different routes?

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:47:30 GMT

Think of this issue, then multiply it by the number of providers still offering a voice service, each with their own multiple nodes, and you can see what is coming.

Its hardly surprising that some ISPs are no long offer their own voice service, and advising customers to use third party VOIP providers, which often do not offer the same degree of security.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:57:51 GMT

@David53

Different routing for each call, that has always been the case to allow for network failures. The problem is, identifying the failing routes. A nightmare for sure, assuming records still exist, or are accurate. Many staff changes over the years, can result in such information getting lost. That applies to all providers.

Back to the days of the old mechanical Strowger exchanges, when call failure were very common, mostly down to faulty equipment, but occasionally bad routing by the "Traffic" people.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

c64z86 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 11:59:11 GMT

And this is the phone service the most vulnerable are relying on?

I can appreciate that it's hard hard hard work getting everything right and I am amazed by the feats of engineering that the people behind it have to pull off... but still some straightforward communication would have helped. Something like "You may potentially have problems receiving calls. We're looking into it and hope to have it sorted soon." before the DV service is ordered or switched over to it.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

iniltous — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:06:48 GMT

The links supplied don’t appear to show the same problem ( intermittent no incoming calls ) the first doesn’t mention DV at all , in fact it states the phone is connected directly to the wall socket which suggests that they have not been migrated to DV , if the intention is show evidence of a widespread problem with DV then a little more care needs to be taken linking to other posts , that one is a PSTN issue not DV .

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

David53 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:04:22 GMT

I'm curious, do you work for BT? You seem to have the same attitude. You are correct, I have removed the first link.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

iniltous — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:11:39 GMT

No I don’t work for BT , like most on here I’m a BT customer, and for full disclosure a shareholder , I like to think I’m ‘fair’ if it’s BT failure I’ll say so , often though ( understandably ) a complex issue with many variables is presented inaccurately.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:12:16 GMT

@David53

The only BT employees are the forum moderators. There are people posting that have worked for one of the BT parts in the past, and will try and help with advice.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

NeilO — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:16:39 GMT

@David53 and @c64z86 you both appear to be affected by a routing fault within the DV network especially if it's happening when callers from non-BT networks can't get through. This should not happen, the cause needs to be investigated and fixed.

I am sorry about the inconvenience caused and the difficulties experienced when reporting it to the helpdesk. I wouldn't say it's a widespread digital voice problem, it's something that can also happen on the PSTN network, usually after migrating from another provider.

I will send you both a private message so you can contact the moderation team and we'll be happy to help.

Thanks

Neil

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

c64z86 — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:28:11 GMT

Thank you so much, but it will probably be frustrating for you and your team to deal with as I don't know all the networks that are trying to call me, so I cannot help you identify where the problems may be coming from.

You will be able to call me fine, as when one of your team has done in the past when you called me back as a test... but still it doesn't help that I have problems receiving calls from other networks. One of my family members trying to get through uses an EE mobile... but i can't tell you at all what networks the other people are trying to get through to me on.

Re: Digital Voice - Cannot receive all incoming calls (Very frustrating)

ljm — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 12:21:28 GMT

Very good point to remember!