Forum Discussion

Sunmedgirl's avatar
Sunmedgirl
Joining in
1 day ago

LANDLINE NOT RINGING ENGAGED

Does anyone have a Virgin landline that gives an engaged tone to a second caller when you are already talking on the phone?  I am trying to resolve an issue with my 87 year old mum whose landline is extremely important.  The problem I have is since she was moved to VOIP by Virgin 2 years ago the engaged tone is not always heard, instead the second caller gets a ringing tone.  This is causing stress within the family as we think there is a problem and she is unable to answer the phone (when in reality she is talking to someone else).

After 2 years of engaging with VM and several engineer visits I have now been told by VM that it is not possible to have an engaged tone on VOIP technology and that this this was a company policy decision, despite over the last 2 years we have sometimes had the engaged tone.

If anyone has the engaged tone working please can you confirm what handset you are using.  Her requirement is for a cordless option (2 or 3 handsets) with no answering machine or call waiting.

 

14 Replies

  • Sunmedgirl's avatar
    Sunmedgirl
    Joining in
    15 hours ago

    Thank you all so much for your responses.  It has re-assured me that this is definitely not something that is an easy fix.  I can see that I certainly don't want to jump into switching supplier without doing some research (BT looks to be favoured at the moment), and my mum certainly needs to keep her current number.

    Plan of action will be to question everyone I know as to if they have a landline...and do they know if they the engaged tone works for them and what supplier they are with.  And keep trying to get my mum to keep her mobile at the side of her as well as the landline handset.

    Thank you all again.

    • Matthew_ML's avatar
      Matthew_ML
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
      14 hours ago

      Glad to hear the advice has helped.

      If you do require any further assistance please do reach back out. 

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    1 day ago

    What VM is doing is not a result of VoIP limitation but a platform design choice. Other VoIP providers like BT enforce single-call-only behaviour, meaning one call is active and when a second INVITE arrives, the platform immediately returns a SIP 486 Busy Here (or equivalent), and the network reliably generates an engaged tone for the caller. BT does this to closely emulate the PSTN behaviour which its millions of users are accustomed to.

    However VM's VoIP does not enforce single-call-only behaviour as it's designed to handle voicemail and/or call waiting (even when disabled). As a result the system may very well not declare a busy condition, thus causing the second caller to not hear ringing or be routed to voicemail instead of receiving an engaged tone. This system strongly resembles a mobile IMS-style call-control system which, amongst other things, treats  voicemail as the primary fallback.

    You can say that VM’s VoIP is mobile-inspired, prioritising features and call completion, whilst BT/Sky/TalkTalk/Vodafone are PSTN-inspired, prioritising predictable line behaviour. Whichever is "better" depends on what you are looking for.

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta
    1 day ago

    Our VOIP provider is Sipgate ( we have 3 lines ), the number for our building alarm has Call Waiting Disabled & Voice Messaging Disabled, a 2nd caller hears an Engaged tone. 

    The catch of using another provider is your mother's phone number is embedded in a VM service bundle,  thus VM may fail to honour a porting request.

  • Sunmedgirl's avatar
    Sunmedgirl
    Joining in
    1 day ago

    Correct @goslow.  Call waiting has been tried on/off and didn't make a difference.  She cannot cope with call waiting (or an answer service), we simply need to hear an engaged tone when a 2nd caller rings and she is already on a call.  I appreciate your suggestion regarding mobile, unfortunately she already has a mobile but doesn't remember to take it out of her handbag so doesn't hear it. 

    It's so frustrating that a solution doesn't seem available.  And as you say it wouldn't be resolved by switching supplier.  

    Is there anyone from VM that can give an official response?

    • goslow's avatar
      goslow
      Alessandro Volta
      1 day ago

      You could investigate VOIP providers as per Client62's suggestion or start looking around for other telecoms providers and see what their services can do.

      BT's landline from the router is called Digital Voice. If you look at the 'Multi Call' dropdown option below that might do something along the lines of what you need allowing an incoming call to ring another phone.

      https://www.bt.com/help/landline/digital-voice--how-do-i-use-my-calling-features-

      The call waiting description below sounds more like what you are after (although seems to be linked to voicemail)

      https://www.bt.com/help/landline/all-about-call-waiting-for-digital-voice

      This is based on using BT's own Advanced Digital handsets in conjunction with Digital Voice and having the Multi Call option turned on. You would need to find out the specifics from BT as to whether this would be suitable or not and whether the Digital Voice service behaves in a conventional way (engaged tone) when the line is in use. You would have to dig into the detail with BT to find out if it will do what you want.

      Moving providers (and the phone number) would throw up its own issues though. You may wish to make any changes when your VM contract is up for renewal. You could ask around friends and family to see what services they have with their providers and how they work.

      If you stick with VM for the landline, this phone

      https://www.amazon.co.uk/MOTOROLA-FW500-Landline-battery-emerges-white/dp/B0D1QZ8FT4

      works as a standard line line but also takes a SIM card as an alternative to a mobile phone. You could maybe leave the landline working as-is and have this phone set up alongside for SIM only operation for incoming calls when the VM landline is in use.

      VM is supposed to offer this phone to vulnerable customers as an integrated emergency backup solution in case of a power cut (though the function would be directly linked to operation of the VM landline so would not necessarily be a solution for you to dial in over the top of a busy landline if you got the Motorola phone via VM).

    • Michael_M's avatar
      Michael_M
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
      1 day ago

      Hello Sunmedgirl,

      It sounds like you’ve been through a very frustrating couple of years, and sadly you're not alone, several of our customers have reported exactly the same issue after being moved to VOIP. From our own community responses, customers have been told that the traditional busy/engaged tone is not consistently available on Virgin’s VOIP platform, and in some cases not available at all.

       

      One VM forum member was told directly that “the busy tone won’t be available on the new Internet phone connections” after switching to VOIP. (No busy tone for callers on VOIP connection. Call waiting not switched on | Virgin Media Community - 5444082)


      Another thread confirms that after switching to VOIP, callers often just hear ringing or silence rather than an engaged tone, even when call waiting is disabled. (No Engaged tone on home phone | Virgin Media Community - 5443709)

       

      This aligns with your experience. You occasionally get an engaged tone, but it’s not reliable. Why this happens is due to being on VOIP, the handling of a second incoming call isn’t done by the handset, it’s controlled by the provider’s VOIP platform. Our system simply doesn’t always send a traditional busy tone to the second caller. This is a design/technical limitation on our end, not something any particular cordless phone model can fix. Unfortunately, no handset will restore a reliable engaged tone, because the tone doesn’t come from the handset, it comes from the network. So switching to a different cordless model won’t resolve the problem.

       

      Here are the only realistic workarounds (links to other forums relating to this matter will be included):

      • Turn OFF Call Waiting (if it’s somehow active in the background)
        Some customers found that call waiting interacts strangely with VOIP. If call waiting is off, the second caller should get a dead tone or failed call. It's not perfect, but at least clearer than endless ringing. However, some users report that even with call waiting switched off, the VOIP system still doesn’t give a proper engaged tone. (No Engaged tone on home phone | Virgin Media Community - 5443709)
      • Enable Virgin Media Voicemail
        This isn’t ideal, but some customers use voicemail so the second caller at least gets a response rather than misleading ringing. This was suggested as an alternative on the VM forum for the same issue. (No busy tone for callers on VOIP connection. Call waiting not switched on | Virgin Media Community - 5444082)
      • Consider an alternative provider (especially for vulnerable users)
        If the landline is essential for wellbeing checks (as it is for your mum), this limitation may be unacceptable. BT, Sky, and others also use VOIP now, but some providers do still support a reliable engaged tone, depending on their implementation.

      We hope this reply answers your question.

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta
    1 day ago

    I think the OP was saying that call waiting has been tested when turned on/off but it did not make a difference to the engaged tone response (rather than saying call waiting was preferred, and chosen to be in use, over voicemail).

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta
    1 day ago

    The Engaged tone is nothing at all to do with the telephone handset & is all to do with the configuration or lack of for the VOIP phone line. 

    Consider what you are saying ... 

    Your mother can not cope with Voice Messaging, but she can cope with Call Waiting ! 

    So mid call she can stop the conversation, dial a sequence to accept a call from a random second caller, it could well be a scam caller and then end that call and revert to the original call.    

    Seriously, does that feel likely ? 

  • Sunmedgirl's avatar
    Sunmedgirl
    Joining in
    1 day ago

    Thank you very much for the response, this does confirm what I suspected.  Call waiting has been tried both activated and deactivated by VM and doesn't seem to make a difference (and you are right in that my mum doesn't hear the tone).  VM voicemail is deactivated as she would not cope with managing it.  I wonder if VM have simply given up on fixing this issue?

    I hoped within the forum community I might find a solution with handset that may be over-riding line set up.  Next step I suspect will be to move her  from VM (after being a customer for 30 years). 

    Happy to receive advice on who to move to and what handset will definitely give her an engaged tone :).

    Many thanks

    • goslow's avatar
      goslow
      Alessandro Volta
      1 day ago
      Sunmedgirl wrote:

      Happy to receive advice on who to move to and what handset will definitely give her an engaged tone :).

      Even if you switch provider, you would not necessarily have any guarantees that a replacement service would behave in the same way as a traditional telephone line (as all providers are moving to a landline-via-router setup and this would be how any new service would be provided).

      You could maybe consider a big button mobile phone to use in parallel alongside the landline which would allow you to bypass the landline if it was in use and place an inbound call to your mother.

  • Client62's avatar
    Client62
    Alessandro Volta
    1 day ago

    A second caller hearing an Engaged tone is normal when
    Voice Messaging and Call Waiting are both Disabled on the line.

    My preference is for Call Waiting to be Disabled,
    and for Voice Messaging to be Enabled on the VOIP line.

    This way calls are not interrupted and a second caller can leave a Voice Message,
    also during a fault or a power cut, callers can still leave a Voice Message.

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta
    1 day ago

    This has been mentioned before in past topics (which don't seem to have come to any firm conclusions about the issue).

    Have you determined whether call waiting is active on the line? This should play a quiet beeping tone to the recipient of the call(s) but often elderly people cannot hear the tone to let them know another person is calling when they are on the phone.

    Also, is VM voicemail active on the line? I don't think both can be in place at the same time as call waiting.

    There seem to be many calling features, when lines are migrated, which do/do not work as they did before. Often VM seems not to know how to make changes or the settings are global and cannot be changed.

    The issue sounds more to do with the features in place on the line so changing the phone may not help with the problem.