answering incoming calls on landline

[richard79]

Hi Folks

I wonder if someone could help me please.  

My landline has not been a problem for the last 8 years I have lived in my home - all with BT.  In the last 7-10 days, when the landline receives an incoming call (from either another landline or mobile)  it rings once and then seems to answer (or disconnect??) itself.  So if im calling it from my mobile in the house, I hear it ring once then on my mobile it connects for 1-3 seconds and then disconnects completely.....all whilst the handset for the landline hasnt been touched within the house.  

The bizarre thing is that if i use the landline handset, I get a dial tone and can use it just fine to make outgoing calls....it sounds quite static heavy but you can still have a conversation so the problem is purely with incoming calls.

We bought a new handset and plugged it in to see if it was a problem with the phone rather than the line and the same thing still happened.  Also, all my filters and cabling are less than 9 months old as I replaced them all when we recently decorated

We do get sometimes 2-3 times a day calls from spam - automated calls from either BT or Amazon or someone like that claiming to have identified a problem.  We have stopped getting these since this problem started and am not sure if the 2 are linked?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated

Thanks for reading/your time

[iniltous]

Sounds like a ‘ring trip’ fault, this can be a line problem , but equally can be ‘internal’ and not an Openreach or your provider ( BT) problem....to be absolutely sure the problem is external to your home, try the phone in the master socket test port, if the issue remains, then the issue isn’t anything you can fix or are responsible for, so report it to your provider as ‘ring trip’....if the phone rings correctly in the test port, the issue must be on your internal set up ( extension sockets, extension wiring, or something plugged in )

The newness doesn’t eliminate these things from being the culprit , and using the test port  ( assuming the fault remains ) gives you the confidence of reporting a problem without charges being raised.

[richard79]

Thanks very much for that advice, I'll give that a go. 

[richard79]

OK so when I connect straight to the test port it rings just fine so that means it is something internal.... Any ideas what this could be? As said all cables and adsl filter were brand new last May

Thanks again

[iniltous]

First thing to do is unplug everything and plug each item in , one at a time , making an incoming call each time something is added ( include the filters )  , this could identify a faulty item , but if it’s an extension socket or the wiring to the extensions , that may need you to start at the last extension in the chain and disconnect it’s wiring , working back towards the master socket until the fault is isolated.....if any wiring was run under carpet across a door threshold, people effectively walking over the cable can damage it, similarly if run between a carpet and skirting , check carpet gripper rods as these can easily damage extension wiring.
TBH , unless using the master socket is an unsuitable location for the router, this is the optimum socket for ‘broadband’ and if the phones are ‘wireless’ only the base unit needs connection to a phone socket, so do you need extension sockets at all ?