Line often engaged: BT say it's due to slow upload speed?

[MissMoppett]

We've been switched to Digital Voice for two weeks. Yesterday the phone was "engaged" for some hours. Googling this revealed many have the same problem and nearly everyone said it was adapter software glitch. However rang BT (150) and engineer tested our line and said "no it's because you have an upload speed of only 11 mps, should be 17 contract minimum." Download is around 65 most of the time. Engineer is calling here Friday, so who is likely to be correct?

[licquorice]

He was talking complete and utter nonsense!!!!  Digital Voice only requires Kb/s of bandwidth not several Mb/s

Do you get the same problem if the phone is plugged directly into the hub rather than an adapter?

[MissMoppett]

Oh, well he was a BT responder: is he in the wrong job? Yes engaged in every phone and extension.

[licquorice]

How are your extensions wired back to the hub?

Disconnect everything except a single phone plugged into the hub and check if the problem still exists.

[MissMoppett]

Wired back? The usual way: is there any other? At present it is OK. Has been "engaged" at different times of the day for more than an hour on last two days. 

[iniltous]

As stated absolute nonsense, the upload speed is irrelevant, personally I’ve  never heard of a common issue regarding this supposed problem with DV adapters , and it’s seems unlikely, IP telephony isn’t like PSTN where the line can be artificially made busy by faults or leaving a handset ‘off the hook’  , what’s more if it were , it wouldn’t be constant busy tone presented to callers , incoming calls would go to the included answer service , but if you have asked for the optional DV adapters , don’t use them they are not necessary, simply plug your existing phone directly into the hub and see if this cures the problem.

[licquorice]

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@MissMoppettwrote:

Wired back? The usual way: is there any other? At present it is OK. Has been "engaged" at different times of the day for more than an hour on last two days. 

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No idea what you mean by 'the usual way'. 

Once moved to Digital voice any extension sockets need to be wired back to the green socket at the rear of the hub. I suspect your internal wiring setup is to blame for your problems.

[MissMoppett]

As it happens the two extensions are now "engaged" but not the main house phone which is plugged in to the router. Everything worked fine  - and simple - before DV came along. Is this progress?

[licquorice]

I have no idea what that means, how can individual phones be engaged.

You need to get somebody in to sort out your wiring. If you are plugging phones into existing wiring they won't work with Digital Voice unless that wiring is isolated from the incoming line and wired back to the green socket on the hub.

[MissMoppett]

We tried ringing ourselves and it rang on the extension, but on replacing the phone and lifting up receiver we're now engaged. What a pathetic situation. There must be thousands of homes/offices in the same boat. Didn't BT think of this before adopting this new avenue?