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Troubleshooting phone problems

VirginMedia
Virgin Media Staff
Virgin Media Staff

To solve these problems with your Virgin Media home phone, check your equipment:

  • No dial tone
  • Crackling sound on the line
  • Your phone doesn’t ring or receive incoming calls
  • You receive incoming calls, but can’t call out

There’s no dial tone, or there’s a crackling on the line

  • Check that your handset is plugged in the correct socket. Your handset should be plugged into the socket marked Virgin Media (or NTL or Telewest in some cases).
  • Check that your handset isn’t faulty. Unplug the phone from the socket and try a different phone in the same socket. Remember to check any extension sockets that you have in the same way.

Your phone doesn’t ring or receive incoming calls

Run through these checks:

  • Check the phone isn’t faulty by trying another in the same socket
  • Make sure the ringer switch on the side of your phone is in the On position – it might have been switched off accidentally
  • Check the combined REN (Ringer Equivalence Number) of phones plugged into your main socket (including extensions) isn’t more than four
  • If you subscribe to Call Divert check that you haven’t activated it without realising
  • If you subscribe to Call Barring check that you haven’t activated it without realising

You receive incoming calls, but can’t call out

Check that your phone isn’t faulty as above. Also, check that you haven’t activated outgoing Call Barring. If payments are overdue on your account we may have put a temporary restriction on the outgoing calls you can make. If this happens you can of course still call emergency numbers.

Read on if you’re experiencing these problems:

  • Free Voicemail isn’t working
  • The phone rings three times only before going to Voicemail
  • You can’t access Voicemail messages
  • You forgot your Call Barring PIN number
  • What is this Recall (R) button for?

Free Voicemail isn’t working

Have you contacted us to add this service to your account? You don’t get this service automatically, so make sure you tell us to set it up for you.

Check that you have activated the Voicemail service from your home phone by dialling 1571 and following the instructions.

The phone rings three times only before going to Voicemail

If you have a digital cordless phone you might notice that it sometimes rings just three times before going to voicemail, and there may be a delay in the caller display. This happens because you don’t get to hear the first two rings: the phone is busy with the information it needs to identify the caller. This is also the reason for a delay in the caller display appearing.

So, how can you fix this? If you want more time to get to the phone, just call us to set it up. The default is usually five rings but this can be extended to up to ten rings. Call 150 from your Virgin Media phone or mobile, or 0345 454 1111* from any other phone.

You can’t access voicemail messages

Your phone might not be set up correctly, or not switched to a tone setting. The switch is usually at the side or underneath the phone.

You forgot your Call Barring PIN number

Just give us a call and we’ll reset it for you. Call 150 from your Virgin Media phone or mobile, or 0345 454 1111* from any other phone

What is this Recall (R) button for?

Don’t confuse Recall (R) with Redial – they’re completely different things! The Recall (R) button needs to be pressed to use some features such as three-way calling. Press R and you’ll hear a different dial tone. If this doesn’t work, make sure the Selector switch is set to Timed, Timed Break Recall or T. The other setting is generally used for switchboards and doesn’t work on residential lines.

How else can I help myself?

Check out our Service Status area where you can see known outages on the telephone network. You’ll also find straightforward tests that’ll check for faults on your own phone line. If there are you can book an engineer online too.

Alternatively, you can test your home phone services by calling our automated phone service on 150 from your Virgin Media phone or mobile, or 0345 454 1111* from any other phone

Or why not pop over to virginmedia.com/community, select 'Help forum' and join in the conversation on the Virgin Phone board. There are many clever members and someone usually knows the answer!

* For details about how much it costs to call our team from a Virgin Media home phone, visit www.virginmedia.com/callcosts. Call costs from other networks and mobiles vary.

 

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