Digital Voice - Problems and questions

[rsmyth492]

Hi all, I’ll try to do this without breaking into a rant about BT’s digital voice service. But I have a few questions regarding the service. 

1. I noticed is that now when dialling another landline, you have to include the full area code. (E.g. if I wanted to call my neighbour, usually I would dial 9076 8***. But now from the landline I have to Dial 028 9076 8***) Is this a permanent fixture? Is this a temporary fixture that may be improved and amended over time?

2. There seems to be about a 1 or 2 second delay when you lift the receiver before you revive a dial tone. Again, is this something that will improve and get quicker over time, or is this permanent. I know in the early days of telephones there used to be a delay before receiving dial tone.

3. Before on copper, I believe you were allocated an exchange and given a number from there. Are exchanges going away? If so, will that make it easier to choose the telephone number that you want in the future?

there, I didn’t break into a rant. I’m trying to thing of the other questions that were lingering on my mind, but I will add them if and when.  Many thanks all

[jac_95]

Hi rsmyth492,

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.

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.

[Andy005]

Hi @rsmyth492 

1. Yes you do need the area codes. Ever since I've had cordless phones I've always entered the full number, as you do with mobiles.

2. On FTTC I get a dial tone almost straight away on my DV handsets, what handsets are you using and how are they connected to your SH2?

3. I believe yes and I assume that 'sometime' in the future it may be possible to take your number to a geographical location outside of what is currently restricted by the exchange. How that might work regarding area codes I have no idea, maybe it would still be restricted by area code. If it isn't and you could take your number to a different area code, then I don't see the point if you would have to tell all of your contacts to change the area code. I would imagine that this is some years away anyway.

[pottyperson]

---

@rsmyth492 wrote:

I noticed is that now when dialling another landline, you have to include the full area code. (E.g. if I wanted to call my neighbour, usually I would dial 9076 8***. But now from the landline I have to Dial 028 9076 8***) Is this a permanent fixture? Is this a temporary fixture that may be improved and amended over time?

---

This isn't a temporary feature of DV. The change has been under way for years and is already the case with many exchanges.

[Bob1001]

I can understand the change to dialing the codes being needed but an early reminder would have been nice I spent ages changing all the numbers that were local stored in my phone so they included the national codes. Then I changed to DV phones. Both the DV and my original phones are BT DECT but I can't see anyway to transfer the memory content to  DV.

[imjolly]

@Bob1001 

method of transferring contacts has been covered by quite few posts

https://community.bt.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation=false&q=t...

[MNroshandel1]

Whenever anyone I know has been told that they are to be moved, BT does make it clear that local dialling is not available on Digital Voice. Also most nearly all VoIP providers do not offer local dialling as its very technical and isn't worth the investment considering how low demand for local dialling is, most people don't even realise they can use local dialling. I do appreciate that in Northern Ireland,London,Southampton and Portsmouth it's probably a lot easier to use local dialling.

Northern Ireland, the codes are a bit of a pain and leaving the 028 was good.

When London changed to 020 which was introduced in 1999 and the old separate 0171 and 0181 codes fully phased out in late 2000, it meant that you could use local dialling for the entire 020 area, the 7 and 8 and also the 3 and 4 in 020 is now part of the phone number.

Also in 1999/2000, It became possible to use local dialling between all Portsmouth and Southampton as the code is 023 92 Portsmouth and 80 for Southampton are part of the phone number and made it easier.

Local dialling has ended completely on all landline providers including traditional copper lines in places like Brighton,Bournemouth and Preston because they are running out of numbers and getting rid of local dialling means they can use numbers like 01273 111 or 01273 150 and 01273 999. With local dialling, you cannot do this as if you was to call 01273999121, the system would think your dialling 999!

It is incredibly expensive and annoying to have National code and number change schemes and getting rid of local dialling helps prevent another National code and number change.

There have been 3 major National code and numberchanges

1. PhONEday in 1995, all Geographic area codes switched to 01 numbers so for example 0254 for Blackburn changed to 01254. London has seen 3 code changes since 1990.

2. The Big Number stage 1 in 2000, 6 areas across the UK switched to new 02 area codes including Northern Irelands 028 code.

3. The Big Number stage 2 in 2001. All mobile and pager numbers that did not start 07 switched to 07 codes. 0345 and 0645 local rate switched to 08457 and 08459. 0990 and 0541 National rate switched to 08705 and 08701. 0321 Vodafone freephone switched to 08080.

Each Numberchange scheme costs many millions of pounds on advertising schemes,planning and resources. It also costs businesses a lot of money updating all their resources with the new numbers.

So yes, Local dialling has to go!

[Bob1001]

@imjollyThanks, I had looked at those however I could not see an easy solution, those that were successful had contact lists on other places to their original phones, I do have other contact lists but do not want those transferred only those stored in my phone, some solutions even included using Python and although it is a language I know I was looking for a simpler solution.

I will now just build a new contact list by saving new calls that I receive or make and gradually build it up again.

[Bob1001]

@MNroshandel1I got 2 days notice, although it did say a reminder, no mention of national codes, although I was aware of the fact that local codes could not be used.

[imjolly]

@Bob1001 

I didn't bother updating contacts as unless you are aware and export elsewhere then if you need to reset hub or DV base then you lose your contact list.  I just use my Alexa phones and voice search which checks contact list in my mobile and then selects the number I require