Call Waiting Annoucement to caller

[Edmund]

Could someone please clarify (as the BT guide isn't clear on this) with Call Waiting, will the caller always hear an announcement (" . . . knows you are waiting") or only if voicemail is switched on?

[licquorice]

Here's an idea, why not try it and see with a call from your mobile.

[Edmund]

Thanks for a rapid reply. I have, of course, done this, and the announcement is absent.

What I'm looking for is the definitive view on this.

[iniltous]

https://www.bt.com/help/landline/all-about-call-waiting-for-digital-voice

[Edmund]

Yes, precisely. It tells you about the caller receiving an announcement when voicemail is on, but nothing about when it is off.

To get to my point, we have voicemail off, and had always assumed callers got the announcement, it being illogical otherwise.

 But, we have just been changed over to Digital Voice, and all the settings changed. This also occured on the same day as the network outages, and we have been testing everything.

We got voicemail off again, and then did the check, and found that a caller just gets ringing tone, and has no idea that the called party knows they are waiting.

So the question is whether this is correct or is something not working correctly (either with Digital Voice or always) ?

[imjolly]

Digital voice allows you to make a call when on another call so you can go to phone setting on DV phone and change multi to single and see if that helps

This previous post may help using search

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/Digital-Voice-and-Call-Waiting/m-p/2401506

[Edmund]

Thanks, that's interesting. But we don't have those; we're using our existing phones.

[Tim123]

I'm on PSTN, so this won't be of help to the original poster but might be of interest to others, particularly as PSTN is phased out and how all the features work on this medium will soon be forgotten.

I have Call Waiting but no Voicemail. When someone rings and I'm on the phone they hear 3 rings followed by the dulcet tones of the BT lady (the one who sounds like Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds) who says: "Please hold the line. The person you are calling knows you are waiting"...followed by another 3 rings...(repeat)... I hear the soft beeps telling me that a caller is trying to get through, and can either hang up to end my existing call and receive ringing for the second call, or toggle between the two calls using the Recall button. If I hang up the second call, while the first call is still connected, a 'ring back' will be generated for the first call.

If I deactivate Call Waiting the caller just gets the usual engaged tone, over which the same elegant voice says: "The number you called is busy. To use Ring Back, please press 5. There is normally a charge for this service."

I believe I am on a System X exchange, the most common type. The above might vary for other exchange types.

I assume that Call Waiting will not fully work on Digital Voice with an analogue handset, because timed-break Recall uses pulse or loop-disconnect dialling and that doesn't work on DV. So toggling between the two calls wouldn't be possible, although it should still be possible to end call number one by hanging up in order to receive ringing for the second call (which you can then choose to answer or not).

Dialling my engaged number from my mobile does not allow me to hear these announcements - the mobile phone operator simply disconnects the call and it says 'Line busy' or some such on my mobile phone screen. Indeed, I have never heard any BT service announcement when making a call on my mobile; I assume they are set up only for landline-to-landline calls.