Landline phone can’t accept incoming calls

Question

Have recently joined Virgin with landline phone via voip. Can make calls out but no incoming calls. According to earlier posts, this problem has been going on for several years. How can it be resolved?
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goslow · Answer

Phone manufacturers have done very well out VM telling customers to go and buy a new phone (when they probably don't need one).You don't have a VOIP connection so you don't need a VOIP phone. The phone socket on the back of the VM hub is designed to work with a normal domestic telephone.If you can borrow an ordinary phone from a friend, family member or neighbour you could test the line with another ordinary phone but I doubt that will be your problem.The 'REN greater than 1' response is just the nonsense answer the CS agents get to at the end of their decision tree script when they have run out of answers.First question would be, when you joined VM, did you port over a telephone number from another provider?When you say you cannot receive incoming calls, what are the symptoms of that problem?What does the caller hear when they dial in to your number?What happens at your end when someone calls in? Do you see anything on the caller display or get any other sign of the call coming in?When you dial out from your line to (say) a mobile, does the caller ID showing on the mobile match what you are expecting from your landline?

Matthew_ML · Answer

Hey gurli, thank you for reaching out and a warm welcome to the community I am sorry to hear this.
I can see you've spoke to the team about this, did they manage to explain the reason why? Cheers&nbsp;

gurli · Answer

They said my phone doesn’t have a sufficiently high REN number, but BT assure me that the BT6500 has a REN of 1.0, which I am told by Virgin is sufficient. Virgin also suggest I borrow a phone from a voip connected friend and try it in my system. So far I haven’t found such a person. The technical man says I should buy a new phone but there is obviously no guarantee that it would work. If I do this and it doesn’t work, what do I do with the new phone and I am still left with the problem. Posts from many years ago show this is an ongoing problem, but I can’t find out what action those previous people took. Did they just leave Virgin?

Matthew_ML · Answer

Sorry just to confirm so this is just an issues with the handset?
Not every handset right now will guarantee to work with VOIP you would need to check with the manufacture to see which one works.&nbsp;
Most phone going forward should support this if the tech has advised a new phone this may be the reason sorry.&nbsp;

gurli · Answer

Thanks for the reply, Yes, it appears to be a hand set problem. It works fine calling out but won’t accept incoming. As you can imagine, it was quite a while before we realised this. Whereas the &nbsp;tech has recommended a new phone, BT say it isn’t necessary. I understand they have replaced the 6500 with the 4600, which costs around £50 for a single handset, but I don’t know what REN it has.&nbsp;This problem is old and recurring. Is it too much to ask for a major tec company to sort it. I have spent more than 4 hours on the phone and on one occasion the handset battery warning came on.

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Landline phone can’t accept incoming calls

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