Can't use phone extension with digital voice. NO MOBILE SIGNAL

[Lila]

I am posting this again in the hope that, short of moving, there might be a solution:

I HATE digital voice but was forced to migrate last year.

My mobile only works in half of my home so isn't reliable in an emergency. It's utter rubblish that previously I could not use my phone if there was a power cut. Clearly BT does not understand about good old-fashioned phones that plug into the wall, requiring no electricity,  and have served me well as a back-up, partcularly when the power was off for 48 hours. Fat chance of a mobile doing that.

So I am stuck with a useless landline and have already had 2 power cuts since my landline was cut off. 

Today I discovered that one of my dect phones, plugged straight into the electricity supply,  is ringing and has a dial tone but when I speak no-one can hear me the other end. I think also that it hasn't been ringing all the time either as I missed a call a few weeks back. This phone does NOT have a wire to plug into the (now useless) telephone socket.  It is a BT 3510. I have 3 of these in total; the mother one is plugged into the hub. The other 2 now do not ring. 

Has anyone experienced this? I only have the landline as I care for an elderly mother and absolutely need it for emergency calls. I am very close to ditching BT as I don't see any advantage with staying with them atm. 

I rang BT to be told that adaptors would be the answer. They also told me there was no hope in a power cut (their words) as I couldn't use my phone.  I asked about care lines as well but they couldn't tell me any that work with digital voice. The adaptors arrived and of course they need a phone wire to be plugged into them so are useless. All in all, a waste of a call (and a long time on hold as well). 

Can anyone help please? 

Primarily I need 3 phones (not a mobile as no signal) to work in different rooms of my home.  I have 3 but only 1 will work due to digital voice. 

Suggestions so far: get a hybrid phone (not sure how this helps?)

get another mobile for power cuts (again, lack of mobile signal here means this is not helpful)

[jac_95]

Hi Lila,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Community.

This is an automated response as I can see you have a question about BT’s Digital Voice service. Rather than waiting for a response from the Community, you may find an answer to your question by using the search bar on the Community homepage. We also have a thread that contains a wealth of info related to BT’s Digital Voice, click this link to take a look, Digital Voice FAQs.

Got some questions or want to learn more about BT’s Digital Voice rollout? BT are running localised events as part of the regional rollout of Digital Voice - Click here to view the Digital Voice events

To learn more about the nationwide change to this Internet based voice service visit landlinesgo.digital

If you have already looked for the answer to your question and have not found anything that can help, then please ignore this message. One of our Community members will be along shortly to help you further.

[Lila]

Can anyone give any concrete help? BT can't unfortunately.

[imjolly]

from your initial post your mobile does work ay home just restricted to certain parts of your home.  Have you checked to see if another mobile provider would give a better signal in your home and so change your sim card?

the problem appears to be your BT3510 base unit is connected to the SH2 but your BT3510 extension phones are having difficulty in connecting back to the BT3510 base so can you not use a longer lead on phone base to move to another more central position or maybe move hub to a better location

[countrypaul]

The problem you describe with 2 of your 3 Dect handsets sounds more like a setup problem with the phones /base station than a problem with Digital voice.  The port on the SH2 that your Dect base station is plugged into doesn't know anything about how many phones are attached or how many Dect base stations or how many Dect phones on a base station.

If you call one handset directly from another can you hear the remote end properly - and does this work for all 3 handsets each calling the other 2? I know this might not be easy to try if you have to test this by yourself.

Does the hands free /speaker operation with the handsets work?

Have you tried resetting the handsets or deregistering one of the "faulty" handsets from the base station and registering it again? 

[licquorice]

The extension phones don't plug into the mains. The devices you are referring to are simply charging stations for cordless handsets.

To use the digital adapter, you simply need an old fashioned corded phone plugged into it.

[licquorice]

If you have a cordless DECT phone set all that needs to happen is to unplug the base station from the master socket and plug it into the hub. Nothing changes with the phones. You don't need a Digital Adapter.

[Lila]

Sadly all 3 mobile providers offer limited availability with EE having none so it's not as simple as switching sim cards. 

The hub needs to be by the phone socket so cannot be moved. It might well be that the wifi signal is poor as I have found the BT service to be bad. We had to use a wired connection for Zoom calls during the pandemic so had a long ethernet cable trailing through the hallway which wasn't practical on a daily basis.  It really isn't possible to have the phone on a long lead as it's limited where it can sit. 

[Lila]

I have tried deregistering then re-registering but unfortunately that didn't change anything. 

I haven't tried calling each handset so will do but I can hear people when they call, they just can't hear me. 

[Lila]

Yes - the BT operator got it completely wrong and sent me these saying they would fix the problem, even though I described the problem exactly. Hopeless and a waste of time!