Converted to digital line, emergency backup kit failed

[pogit1]

After a landline fault my home phone line was converted to a digital line (against my wishes) at 1am this morning I was woken to my life line saying phone line disconnected, the installed mobile back up clearly isn’t working as it should! 

anyone else experienced this?

there is no option in the faults reporting process to declare that you have both a broadband connected phone line and an emergency backup unit that has failed.

Prettypointless emergency kit if it fails!  Please escalate this as a matter of urgency!

[Natalie_L]

Hi pogit1, 

Thank you for getting back in touch with us here on the Community. 

I am sorry to hear you are still having issues with the EBUL. 

I will need to check a few things from our side so I am going to pop you over a private message to confirm a few details now. 

Speak soon, 

[pogit1]

still getting letters stating

We’ve tried to get in touch couple of times about your emergency backup line part of your home phone service with us. It looks like we haven’t been able to reach you to arrange an appointment for placement yet. 

So anyone at VM care or are we just resigned to the fact landline customers are not valid customers anymore? 

[Megan_L]

Hi Pogit1,

Thanks for coming back to us about your EBUL issue, I am sorry you're still getting these letters. 

I can see you spoke to Natalie via PM last who booked in an engineer visit, can I ask how thing went please?

Thanks,

Megan_L

[Anonymous]

I resigned to not being a customer anymore. One thing I will say is they are consistent right from the bottom all the way up to the top. They care more for fobbing you off with standard meaningless useless replies rather than actually providing any support or addressing any issues.

[pogit1]

Install came looked and left satin the van outside for half an hour.  Completely pointless as expected.  Oh and I was told V1 are being removed from service so my emergency landline (now an v3 that’s apparently not updated and about to fail) is only accessible from one inaccessible place in an emergency so is completely unfit for purpose. 

[mpmc]

pogit1

Yeah, had that letter telling us they've been trying to get in touch - twice**!

The v3 is a step down from the v1 due to having no pass-through (as you already know) so they are indeed (as you say) unfit for purpose.

**

Spoiler

First v1 was "faulty" so replaced, second was also "faulty" and needed to be replaced again a week later! The final one is the v3 which is pretty much a doorstop!

[Megan_L]

Hi Pogit1, 

Thanks for coming back to me about this, I am sorry the engineer visit didn't yield any resolve for you again. 

Do you need the device moving to a different area in your home to make it more accessible?

As for the device itself, I am assuming it's still not working as it should as it's an old version that needs updating. I am going to send an email to the local Area Field Manager asking for more information on what has happened and what we need to do to resolve it. I can see it's been going on for a long time and there is a lot of information to go through on this post as I am coming into this with no prior knowledge. 

Please bear with me whilst I try to understand the issue and wait for the manager to contact me back. 

Thanks and apologies again for the frustration this ordeal has caused, I will try my best to help. 

kindest regards, 

Megan_L

[pogit1]

Sadly relocating it isn’t an option.  I have a DECT phone system with multiple headset throughout the home sadly my condition is very able is severity and occurrence so cannot be well planned for the V1 passed through the emergency line to existing home phones and was ideal except for the software and custom setup which made it not work as it should. It just needed all the VM customisations removing.   The V3 is a much newer device which is an actual phone (though it’s mobile signal seems to be poor) for many people will be fine but for those of us that need pass through for other phones and or medical devices its no good. 

The is for taking the time to look into this for me.  Sadly if the V1 is no longer available there’s not a lot to be done I was hoping to upgrade my broadband and rejoin o2 which would of required a newer hub which I was hoping would be similar to BTs / EE with built in back up and digital voice technology where additional phones connect to the hum directly but VM doesn’t seem to be there yet. 

[Megan_L]

Hi Pogit1, 

Thanks for sending me that information, it actually helped me a lot to understand your set up and situation so thank you for going into that much detail for me. 

I have sent what you've stated over to the manager and basically asked if there is anyway they can work around your needs. 

Hopefully they will be able to think of something, but if not I will help you move forward with this in any way I can. 

Once again, bear with me whilst I wait for more info.

Thanks, 

Megan_L

[Megan_L]

Hi Pogit1, 

I have received an email from the AFM about this situation, in order to be as transparent as possible I'll simply copy & paste what they stated below - 

"I have spoken to the technician and gained further understanding of this particular account.

The new ebul is a handset device which does not have the capability to support an existing home phone network make a call in the scenario where our broadband was offline.

In this scenario the call could only be made from the single ebul device and not from any phone in the house. 

That scenario would only come into play if our broadband service was offline.

Under normal working circumstances where the broadband is fully functional all the customers phones would work and having the new ebul on this instance would be no different to the previous version. 

We could of course look to relocate the ebul device to the most convenient place but looking at what has been said before this wouldn’t be helpful for this particular customer."

From what they have stated it seems there isn't much scope for a work around in this instance unfortunately 😞 I am really sorry about that as I wish I could help further in order to keep your EBUL working like before. 

Going forward, I'm going to suggest creating a complaint with me as the case owner within a PM which I'll send in a moment. The reason why is because we cannot reasonably resolve this issue through normal routes, so we'll need to work together in order to find a way forward. 

Speak to you privately in a moment Pogit1!

Kindest regards,

Megan_L