Digital Voice not working since installation 3 weeks ago - cant make or receive calls

[Zaxafreon]

This seems to be a similar and widespread issue although most others seem to be either able to make calls themselves or the issue is intermittent.

My elderly mother had no internet and a normal copper landline (with BT). She had received advertising encouraging her to switch to DVoIP and as was out of contract, was encouraged by BT and my me to take out a DV only package (700 free minutes). Open reach installation was over 3 weeks ago (installing FFTP, Hub 2 and a battery backup).

Broadband has been working OK since day 1 but have been unable to make or receive any calls (we have tred from various landlines, and mobiles - including different providers). We have tried not only her cordless phone but also a normal slimline analogue phone - both times plugged directly into the green port on the back of hub 2).

I have made over a dozen calls to BT (which invariably means that as Im calling 150 from my (EE) mobile have to first of all get them to recognise the issue is not with my phone system but my mothers).

The agents have run numerous "orders"/"checks2 on the system (one time passed back to OpenReach) , reset of the hub, factory reset of hub  and one assumes multiple other checks.  The admin page for broadband shows that the phone is not set-up. Still no joy over 3 weeks later (and one of the more annoying parts of this process is the lack of proactive contact with me about the issue). The agent spoke to today was apologetic but said the best he could do was arrange an engineer visit and the earliest that was for would be Monday. Bearing in mind my mother is 88, doesnt have/cant or wont use a mobile phone and struggles with things like Facetime  (fails to answer calls 70% of the time) so has very limited options for communication in (me and my brother ) and no options out (cannot work out/remember how to use Facetime to make calls.

What is next step as the copper land line was removed during the FFTP installation.

Any ideas?

[jac_95]

Hi Zaxafreon,

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

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[imjolly]

If the hub manager page shows that DV is not  activated then openreach visit will not fix it. This is something which BT have to activate on your mother's account especially as you have tried reset without success

[WSH]

What you’ve written implies the agents have ‘reset’ the hub.  I might have picked you up wrong there, but if they have reset it from their end then I suggest you restart the hub at your end.

Edit: Typing at same time as imjolly.

[Zaxafreon]

Yes I am aware of this (from looking at forums) and i mentioned this point but agent (as well as the fact that OpenReach had already been asked to relook at it and responded that everything from their end was ok and that was a BT issue) said this was the only option open to them. I may have misunderstood the reference to Engineer visit but had assumed it was a BT rather than OR engineer. I am now thinking that perhaps no such thing now as BT engineer visits?

[Zaxafreon]

The Hub has been reset (turned off at power for minimum of 2 minutes) several times, particularly after BT have reported that certain actions such as software changes had been made and has also had factory reset (paper clip into the hole on back) once.

[iniltous]

It’s interesting that a traditional / legacy PSTN phone only customer ( having no broadband ) has been migrated to a standalone BTDV service , either at BT’s request or the customer request either on ADSL/ FTTC or FTTP   ( although most phone only customers seem resistant to BTDV  ) ….up-to this point I’d not  heard of anyone  without an existing BT broadband service being moved from PSTN  telephony to IP (BTDV) telephony by BT , those moved so far were already on broadband, but your post also raises a question , you say the BT broadband service is working ,  presumably that is a broadband service your mother never previously had , so are you saying she decided to have broadband and is paying for it  along with BTDV , or that it was supplied by BT for no extra cost and the telephone is the only service being charged for and the broadband is ‘free’ ?

In essence BT broadband is effectively a prerequisite for BTDV , even though , in the case of telephone only customers ,  they can truthfully state  they don’t  really want broadband, but why haven’t BT restricted internet access from this free service , it technically simple to allow only BTDV to function and not  allow any other IP traffic basically making it only work for telephony … if that’s what BT have done , given a fully functioning broadband service for free just to provide telephony seems an odd thing to do ,  presumably that opens the floodgates to anyone who could say I don’t want broadband , only a BTDV phone service , then effectively get a broadband service for free , perhaps you can confirm which it is .

As far as DV not working, have you checked the router administration pages ,  it will show if DV is configured or not , if it’s not , it’s unfortunate that the FTTP installer found it necessary to remove the copper pair service as the old service may well still be working just it’s now disconnected somewhere outside the property ….I dare say your mother if given BTDV via a free broadband service (if that’s what has happened) will be an early adopter and there may still be bugs in the administration system as presumably a broadband account is still needed , presumably the billing for broadband needs to be cancelled out by a credit or somehow a manual bill raised just for telephony , it may be some sort of administrative /system problem because those complications  that’s causing the issue, basically the order can’t close because an associated bill can’t be automatically created , obviously if your mother is paying for broadband and telephone then that’s not going to be the issue and presumably easier to resolve 

[Zaxafreon]

That’s a long response 😬.

regarding the status on admin page, correct it shows phone icon as Not configured (it also shows something called Hybrid Connect as not configured- but assume this is something else and not connected). This has been the position since day 1 and has been communicated to BT.

yes it’s a shame that the copper line was removed at installation before proof of Digital Voice.

Regarding the service and how and what has been requested.

My mother had /has zero interest in broadband, resistance to any change and was happy with normal phone line. However noted that her bill despite the std plan being quite low cost she was attracting some high call charges “out of plan” which meant that was paying around £20 month. From a personal position we had tried to get her to have broadband for some time so that we had potential for things like FaceTime and also perhaps use some monitoring system to keep her safe. She had however seen and was aware of the “change from copper to digital roll out” and when I contacted BT to ask about any options for changing her phone line to something that would give her some additional minutes and avoid the out of plan costs I was informed that the best option was for DVoIP. I explained she was only interested in phone not broadband - so she went with the free 400 or 700 minutes at a cost that was about the same as she was on -but would have flexibility to use the phone for much longer.

i have been paying Smarty for a monthly 4G sim in a router so that we could make some limited FaceTime call in emergency.  

Regarding the use of Broadband for data, I asked about this since we had noted that we could connect to the wifi and access internet and we had not taken out a specific Data allowance. I was told that the usage is monitored so that any excessive data use would be flagged and prompt either a charge or require a data plan. What that level is I don’t know but suspect it would not allow streaming Netflix but appears to be ok for a short (2 min) FaceTime call 3 x per week.

[iniltous]

Thanks for the info , it may help other people when they post questions etc on here, my question wouldn’t  help speed up the eventual provision of DV  but some of the details you have given , like the bandwidth consumption is monitored and if excessive use made of it , you are ‘moved’ onto a paid for plan seems reasonable , my previous assumption was that as a 0.5Mb ‘broadband’ profile is available, this would allow telephony, email etc , but be of little use for video  and bandwidth hungry applications, FaceTime , Zoom etc , and similarly you answered wether it was a standard SH2 router provided or some cut down version that only handles telephone with no router functionality.

I still think this problem will be some administrative error , whatever this product is called,  BTDV without a paid for broadband connection , is likely to be newly introduced and may well need manual intervention to get the order to close on BT/OR/BTw systems , before the Not Configured icon changes to show the phone number , then you know it’s ‘provided’ and hence the Openreach visit (as I’m sure you know ) will be of no benefit, this isn’t an Openreach issue , it’s a BT one .