My own saga may prove informative for you. I had callerId service working quite happily until about the time that my local exchange went fibre broadband live. Then suddenly my three cordless BT phones stopped displaying numbers. I had the usual words with the BT callcentre who gave me the usual run around the block on each occasion.
After a couple of years I had rather given up, and so convinced myself that it was probably three faulty phones. I decided to get the new BT8500. the first one arrived, and I was annoyed that a brand new out of the box phone should be faulty, and told Amazon so, in no uncertain terms. They didn't quibble, and sent me a replacement. Imagine my chagrin when the second phone wouldn't play either!
By now I had become reader of this forum. I went back to the support line for the Phone, and in conversation with a supervisor, he said it sounded like a line fault, and not equipment. So he suggested that I get a friend who had a line with callerId working on it, and a cordless phone, and I should take my phone to that friend and plug my phone into that line & see if it worked. I did this, and Lo! and Behold! the BT 8500 worked like a dream!
Armed with this knowledge ,I went back at BT armed with some knowledge. It was about this time that I started to see on the forums mention being made of a nationwide problem being faced by the organisation, who could not guess how or when they might have it fixed.
Imagine my surprise when, this morning at breakfast, I noticed my Broadband light flashing on my router. I know that this usually means that BT are line testing, as they usually do a line test after each complaint I have made.
I was therefore taken aback to receive a few minutes later, a call from a BT engineer, who asked me if I now had a number displayed on my handset. I looked, and there it was!!! I begged him to tell me what he had finally managed to do that BT had steadfastly maintained was not happening. He said that he had replaced a lot of equipment at the exchange, renewing where my line terminated in the exchange, renewing the gizmo that makes the dial tone, and such like embellishments.
I now have a phone that performs as the adverts say it should. And the 2 sky+HD boxes and the Brother all-in-one printer/scanner/fax along with the Broadband router and its associated microfilter , all of which are shoehorned into the single master BT box make no difference to the smooth functioning of the BT 8500.
So, if you are having issues with callerID not functioning properly. it is an almost dead cert that the cause is ancient, archaic BT infrastructure which is not fit for purpose in servicing modern, highly sensitive cordless equipment, and your problems will magically disappear once they replace the kit they sourced from North Korea. Don't hold your breath, and don't blame the BT8500 either.
