This topic

BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:43:14 GMT

I am posting this on behalf of my mum who is at her wits end with BT and her landline.

A couple of months ago my mum’s landline stopped working. She could not make or receive calls. She even tried a new phone. It keeps saying ‘Line in use’. We have tried so many different things and now we are both confused and frustrated with the hub and the landline.

My mum has requested an engineer several times and no one comes out (once the person phoned in sick and no one let her know). Or they say someone will come with a date and time slot then my mum receives an email saying the problem has been ‘resolved’.

Being in her 70s she feels more comfortable with a landline and is becoming very upset that we can’t get it fixed and that BT won’t send someone out to help.

We are looking for :

a - suggestions of how to actually get an engineer out

b - if anyone has an idea of how to fix it (baring in mind neither my mum or me are engineers with technology experience like this).

Thanks.

Re: BT Landline not working

imjolly — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 14:50:08 GMT

has your mother been moved to digital voice? if so she needs to connect her phone to the green phone socket on the back of the BT router SH2 and not to the existing wall socket

Re: BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 15:47:12 GMT

Thanks for the suggestion. The phone is connected to the green port on the back of the hub. We tried both the original connection, the hub connection and rebooted the hub with the phone connected too.

Re: BT Landline not working

licquorice — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 16:12:55 GMT

In the hub manager (put 192.168.1.254 into your browser address bar), does the phone icon box display the phone number or 'not configured'?

Re: BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:24:15 GMT

Thank you for this. The phone is not configured. Not sure how to fix it but at least I can try looking that up. 👍🏻

Re: BT Landline not working

iniltous — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:44:17 GMT

Have you actually been advised you were being migrated to DV and given a date to connect your phone to the hub, if not then obviously the phone should not be plugged into hub , if you have been told to this and the date of migration to Digital Voice has been and gone , then it’s obviously a configuration issue , basically your DV is not set up and BT need to do this to get your phone service working

…I think its not a DV problem, you probably shouldn’t be connected to the hub but the master socket and you need to ‘prove’ as far as possible the fault is outside the home , this is done by taking the consumer panel from the master socket NTE5 exposing the test port , and with a known working phone ( preferably a corded not cordless one ) plug into the test port , if no dialtone , report the telephone service as NDT .

There are videos online showing how to identify the master socket and use the test port to eliminate any internal wiring problems etc and ‘prove’ the fault onto the external network or exchange.

Re: BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:53:30 GMT

Thanks for this suggestion, although don’t appreciate the ‘obviously’ mentions as for me and my mum it is not really obvious.

The phone was originally connected to the master socket when the landline stopped working. This is why we started looking at the DV.

To be honest, all this work just to have a working landline is ridiculous. I think a complaint will be going into BT as the whole thing is confusing!

We are considering visiting one of the DV ‘town hall’ things as there is one near by and even if they don’t have an answer at least it is face to face!

Re: BT Landline not working

iniltous — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 13:09:52 GMT

The ‘obviously’ comment is not intended to be a negative , simply noting than if you are on DV and the router administration says DV is ‘not configured’ then it’s obviously a configuration problem , you should be but aren’t setup for DV , so there is nothing you can do apart from advising BT , but if you are not on DV , ( that’s what I suspect) that administration item on the router menu is irrelevant, all BT customers than are not yet moved onto BT DV will see that message on their BT router.

As far as it’s a hassle to check the master socket etc. , it is , but potentially saves being charged for a visit that turns out to be something like the phone itself is faulty….you can still report a line NDT without doing anything yourself , it’s just if the engineer visits and it’s not a BT or Openreach ‘problem’ then the visit potentially is chargeable.

If you think it’s not going to be anything within the home , just report it , ‘No dialtone’ , if Openreach fail to turn up due to their own problems ( engineers going sick , van won’t start etc ) that doesn’t cancel the visit it’s simply needs to be rescheduled .

Re: BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 16:29:36 GMT

Update: spoke to a very helpful advisor at one of the DV mobile vans. He has confirmed my mum should have DV and, after showing him photos of her set up, agrees it must be an issue with the broadband connection so he has booked us an engineer. Hopefully this one actually comes out.

For anyone interested, this is where to find out the locations and dates for the mobile van:

https://www.bt.com/broadband/digital-voice/events

They can log on and check your account using your account number or email. Just make sure you know either the amount you pay a month and the date, or the last 4 digits of your account used for the payments (part of validating your identity).

Re: BT Landline not working

licquorice — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 16:36:39 GMT

An engineer will be unable to do anything, the problem lies with the 'exchange'. The service hasn't been configured.

Re: BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 16:43:32 GMT

No idea what this means or how to get it ‘configured’. We will see what the engineer says. I was trusting that the BT advisor knew what he was talking about.

Re: BT Landline not working

licquorice — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 17:34:23 GMT

The problem is that BT haven't switched on your Digital Voice service to put it simply.

As previously explained by both myself and @iniltous

Re: BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 17:52:46 GMT

If this is the case then why have BT not done this when my mum spoke to them several times?? Or why couldn’t the advisor help do that today??

I appreciate you are trying to help but the fact that random people on a chat are having to try and explain that BT have not done, in my opinion, their job properly means something is majorly wrong with BT and this new DV system. I have been thrown a lot of jargon and acronyms today, which I am just supposed to know apparently, and think I’ll ask that no one else reply to my query as it’s getting me no where and more frustrated. At this rate I’ll be advising my mum to cancel her contracts with BT and we’ll look elsewhere.

Thanks.

Re: BT Landline not working

licquorice — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 18:00:55 GMT

At the end of the day this is just a customer to customer self help forum. All we can do is give our advice regarding problems, we can't actually fix anything that requires BT intervention.

As you don't appear to be getting anywhere, I'll flag the thread to the mods (the only BT staff on the forum) and see if they can help.

They will post on the thread with an invitation to contact them via PM.

Re: BT Landline not working

NeilO — Wed, 07 Aug 2024 18:14:28 GMT

Hi @jenjen85 I'll send you a private message so you can get in touch with your Mum's details and we'll be happy to help.

Neil

Re: BT Landline not working

jenjen85 — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 20:50:51 GMT

Issue resolved by engineer.