Digital voice permanent engaged tone

[Toptaurus]

Just switched to digital voice. Have 2 cordless phones downstairs and 1 corded phone upstairs. The corded phone is permanently ‘engaged’ and when I do 1571 downstairs it says that I phoned myself. How do I resolve this problem. I’ve tried pressing the buttons on the white box and on the hub which clears the corded phone until another call comes in.

[imjolly]

if you have cordless phone is the base for these phones connected to green socket on back of hub?  if where is corded phone connected?  Or is that a base corded phone

[Midnight_Voice]

@Toptaurus 

Better to post this under ‘Home phone and Mobile/Home phone including Digital Voice’, where the real experts on DV hang out.

But as a one-time fellow sufferer, I’ll have a go.

Is the corded phone a DECT base station for the two cordless phones, and the white box a BT Digital Voice adapter?

I have this setup, which saves me having to plug the base station directly into the router.

But I had, not your problem exactly, but one where from time to time the three DECT phones would politely decline to give me the dial tone. BT couldn’t fix it, so gave me, or lent me (opinions differ) one of their DV phones, the posh one with Alexa, to be sure I could make phone calls when I needed to.

Since setting that up, the DECT phones have been as good as gold. Somehow, having the DV phone seems to keep them in line.

I’ve got a Home Hub 2. BT DV phones only work with their BT hubs, maybe not with any lesser hubs than mine; you’d have to ask.

Maybe ask BT to give, or lend, you one? Or they will sell you one for £33, I think it was, and then you know it’s yours.

[Toptaurus]

Thank you Please bear with me as I’m not technically minded - I had to look up what DECT stood for!  The corded phone is at least 10 years old phone and not connected to the cordless phones in any way and worked perfectly well until digital voice installed. I think I will have to get a replacement phone - perhaps the best way would be to contact BT/EE to get a digital voice phone.

[licquorice]

The corded phone will no longer work if plugged into a normal phone socket as you have been moved to Digital Voice.

Ask BT for a free Digital Voice adapter which is effectively a portable phone socket to allow corded phones to work with DV.

[Midnight_Voice]

@Toptaurus 

OK, let’s wind back a notch. How did you get put on DV, and did anybody explain it to you?

The most usual way is that you went to full fibre, which now means that you can’t have POTS (the Plain Old Telephone System) any more, as this relies on a copper connection to the exchange, and you don’t get one of these with full fibre any more.

So now you plug your phone wiring into the back of the new router instead of into the old Master Socket you used to use.

Or BT provide a Digital Phone Adaptor that you can plug your phone into, that sends the signal to the router over WiFi (but WiFi like DECT, different from router WiFi).

So how are you wired now? You should be able to still use your corded phone, and the cordless phones (one of which must be a base station I think, with a telephone wire coming out of it).

But I think your best bet is to phone BT, ask for Digital Voice support, and have someone walk you through how your phones are connected now, and how they should be connected. Call on a mobile; if BT want you to change how the ‘landline’ phones are connected, you don’t want to be sawing off the branch you are sitting on 😛

And if they are connected correctly, or you reconnect them how BT tell you is correctly, and you still have the problem, talk to them about getting a DV phone.

As I said above, I have three DECT phones still working (well, I said two, but I missed one; kitchen, lounge bedroom) plus the DV phone (study). The DECT phones are funky designer phones that I wanted to keep using; the DV phone is nicer, but I didn’t want to shell out for three more of them.

[Toptaurus]

Already got this fitted to the corded phone. Worked well at the beginning but now permanently engaged. Have tried pressing the button on the adapter and the hub which clears it but then as soon as another call comes through to the house I get the permanently engaged tone on the corded phone - so frustrating!

[Toptaurus]

Thank you I’ll give a whirl. It was all set up by BT/EE engineer which makes it even more frustrating!

[Midnight_Voice]

@Toptaurus 

Indeed. Better to rely on the advice from a bunch of amateurs who haven’t even seen your wiring 😛

[TimCurtis]

@Toptaurus 

I had the same problem with a corded phone using the free adapter alongside some BT DV supplied phones.

Think it might be the case that you use the adapter and a corded phone OR cordless DV phones but not both.