"Invalid number" displayed when others try to phone me

[DanielS]

Thanks for getting back to us @vince31.

It'll be good to find out what the engineer finds tomorrow.

DanielS

[vince31]

@DanielS the engineer has been this morning, done a full home check and found absolutely nothing wrong at my end. He used his own mobile to call my landline and he got "Invalid number" with no connection and my phone doesn't ring, then I used my BT mobile to phone my own landline in front of him and it all worked just fine, the landline rang straight away.  So, nothing wrong at my end, he thinks it might be an account setting issue somewhere, but just guessing. I mentioned some people have fixed this by having their number changed and his eyes lit up and he said that would probably work, but we both agreed that wasn't fixing the bigger problem that it doesn't work, it will just fix my own landline that's all (assuming it will fix it).

[-Richie-]

Vince you have a porting/routing issue which will need BT to resolve.
You'll find anyone on BT/EE or Plusnet can contact you, other external networks might but not all.

A new number would fix it instantly or you can wait and see if the number porting/routing issue can be resolved.

[vince31]

Hi and thanks for the info @-Richie-
Surely this is a much bigger problem than just my own personal instance. There must be hundreds or even thousands of old numbers in use that will need this issue resolved.

[licquorice]

No, it will just an issue with your particular port that didn't complete properly rather than a systemic problem.

[-Richie-]

---

@vince31wrote:
Surely this is a much bigger problem than just my own personal instance. There must be hundreds or even thousands of old numbers in use that will need this issue resolved.

---

No it's not a common issue, when customers are migrated from the PSTN to DV network, part of that order includes porting/migrating it, updating records with a database so that other networks know where to route the call, if that fails it results in issues with inbound calls, outbound calls or both not connecting, sometimes you'll see some networks get through where others don't.

It's not something you can fix, BT have processes in place to resolve.

[vince31]

Just an update on this issue (some Digital Voice incoming calls don't get through):

BT support team gone through all initial phone line and broadband checks.

BT engineer visited my home and found no issues at all at my end, confirmed everything connected ok but the issue was still there because he couldn't phone our landline number using his own mobile, yet I could get through just seconds later (in front of him) from my own BT mobile.

BT support team (FTTP team) rechecked all connectivity and then initiated a reconnection or rebuild activity (cant remember the process name they used) where everything was removed as if the number was being disconnected and the phone line reconnection rebuilt from scratch. This process hung at some point, but they sorted it and completed it, but it still doesn't work.

BT support sent me a new BT Smart Hub 2 (latest hardware) which I connected up and re-registered the DV handsets with the hub OK.  The broadband is working fine as before , but the DV fault is still there just exactly the same as confirmed by my daughter failing to get through on her non BT mobile.

BT Support phoned me today, they say they can now see my router and right down to the individual DV handsets and confirm it all looks good (couldn't do this before with the original router) and then ran through several porting checks at their end and have now passed it up to a more "Tech" team who will phone me back for further fault finding later in the week.

[vince31 · Accepted solution]

OK, its fixed.

A week or so after replacing my router with the latest hardware model its suddenly started to work all by itself, but no-one seems to know why.  After my router was replaced my DV phone still didn't work for incoming calls from non BT mobiles etc, my daughter on GiffGaff tried it every day for me but she was unable to get through, "Invalid Number".  BT support had raised a complaint ticket for me and after all their initial diagnosis they had passed the issue up to a more tech DV team who said they would get back to me within 72 hrs to go through everything again.  BT support phoned me up a couple of days ago to apologise for the fact that the Tech team had not being in touch within the 72 hours as promised, she said that they had a backlog of issues to get through and they hadn't been able to even look at my problem yet. So when I told them my daughter had just phoned me an hour ago on the DV landline and got through OK and it had suddenly now started to work they were completely stumped and had no answer or explanation as to why it was now working all by itself, they hadn't done anything. I got other family members who'd previously had problems with our landline to try again now and they too can now get through fine. 

So I still have my old original number and it all seems to be working now and the complaint is shut down with BT Support.  Sorry I cant help others that have reported the same issue, that's because no-one knows why its suddenly fixed.