Call waiting prevents calls out

[jb434447]

Couldn't make calls out as  all I got was what I thought was the engaged tone. Logged a fault and after several chats online and on the phone with BT was informed that the fault was repaired but it wasn't so an engineer would be sent. On arriving he  immediately informed me that the "engaged tone" is in fact  call waiting on digital voice. Once cleared the dial tone was restored.  I've never used BT's answer service as like many others I have an answerphone. He advised to set the number rings on my phone to 6 as DV waits for 8. For that 10 minute visit I've been charged £40 for something which wasn't a fault but a service, I neither needed or wanted, foisted on me. None of the operators I spoke to mentioned it was a message waiting tone even whern I played it to one of them on my mobile. I don't recall seeing any warning of this when setting up the digital service and feel this is  flaw in the system as it would appear emergency calls out can't be made until  the messages have been cleared. Problem solved but at an extortionate cost. 

[iniltous]

Don’t know why you think if you have a message to listen to on the BT 1571 answer service , that’s included with BTDV , and indicated by the modulated dialtone replacing regular dialtone , that it prevents you making an outgoing call , it doesn’t  , you can make outgoing calls regardless of you listening to the message or not , it’s still dialtone, just one that indicates a message waiting .

TBH , although it’s unfortunate, you insisted on a visit  when there was nothing wrong  apart from a message was left  , and although it’s being wise after the event , if you had posted here before asking for a visit , you would have been told to simply call 1571 to listen to the message.

The odd thing is that you say ( but it’s not true ) that it stopped you making a call , it didn’t , it’s easily proved to , leave yourself a message by calling your landline from your mobile , then when you have modulated dialtone replacing regular dialtone , make a call to your mobile, you will find that it’s exactly the same as if regular dialtone was present…obviously you then call 1571 to listen to your message to change dialtone back to normal and don’t answer the outgoing calls to your mobile unless you have inclusive calls ….but the mobile  ringing and displaying the landline number is proof that calls can be made with modulated dialtone .

[Manatarms84]

Its odd that technical support did not pick up on the issue however if you were saying that the tone prevented outgoing calls then in the event of no fault being found it sounds like you have booked and agreed to pay for a home technical expert visit which depends on your package can cost £40.00.

If you feel provided what they did and advised for you the visit cost is somehow unfair then speak back with the technical team )As they will have booked this visit) and make a complaint - this can then be looked at and see if anything was missed there end which would have prevented the visit - if so you are likely to get the £40.00 credited back to your bill. 

[jb434447]

Thanks for your response. The phone had been like that for some time and I'd assumed the tone I was hearing was the engaged tone similar to what us older generation were used to pre the digital age. I therefore never thought to dial out as engaged lines wouldn't allow that. The engineer was ordered by the helpline operator even after I'd played them the tone I was hearing over my moblie. Would have been nice if they'd told me then it was message waiting and to dial 1571 to clear it. After being told the fault which they originally identified in May as being outside the property had been corrected and still being no better off it seemed to me that the only way to resolve the matter was to get someone who knew what they were doing. On reflection I should have researched more before contacting BT as that would have told me the solution and that many of my age group experienced exactly the same thing and had made the same incorrect assumptions. The learning never stops. Anyway, thanks again for your response.