Landline is down

[Terri65]

After days of crackly calls and incoming calls that cut off after 2 rings, my landline is completely dead, no dial tone. I have a plug in phone to the wall socket that is unresponsive, in addition to all my cordless phones. I don’t have a hub. Need someone to fix this fault. 

[Vikki_M]

Hi @Terri65

I am sorry to hear about the issues you are having with the land line.

I have taken a look and there are no known outages for the phone line in your area. 

I can see you have mentioned you don't have a hub? I have had a look at things from our side and you should have that equipment.

Could you expand on this please? Do you not have a broadband service with us?

If you do have the hub/broadband, Just to let you know we are currently upgrading all our customers phone line to our new DOCSIS network. 

 

• We’ve currently got 2 separate networks, 1 for TV and 1 for Phone. We’re going to start delivering our Home Phone service over the Broadband network.
• What this means for you is we’ll connect your phone to your Broadband Hub instead of a phone socket on your wall.
• No need to worry if you don’t have a Hub we will provide this to you free of charge
• This should resolve your issue and prevent further issues occurring in the future
• We’ll be moving all our customer’s from old outdated copper networks to ultrafast fibre networks and we’re starting the switchover in your area with no additional cost to you.

Please let me know how you would like to proceed.

[Terri65]

Hi Vikki,

I have broadband with you as well as phone and I have a router. I turn this router off at night. I have an old style phone in the wall SO THAT IF MY WI-FI IS OFF OR WE HAVD A POWER CUT, I CAN STILL USE THE LANDLINE. That is the point.
You’re telling me that my landline is now going to be dependent on my Wi-Fi working ?? Why was I not consulted on this?

[Vikki_M]

Thank you for your response Terri65.

We notify customers in advance when we are doing the switchover in their area. 

Your area isn't doing this just yet, however we do offer to do this early for any customers who are having issues with their land line service. 

Calls made over the fibre network need to be made over broadband through the Hub. If the Hub is unable to connect to the internet, then you won’t be able to make calls either, whether this is due to a power cut or network outage. If this happens, we recommend keeping a mobile phone handy.

We’ll offer customers with accessibility needs an Emergency Backup Line at no extra cost to make sure they have access to a phone line to call emergency services.

would you like to be switched over now or would you prefer to stay with the wall socket until the switchover takes place in your area?

Please pop back to me when you can. 

[Terri65]

I would add that my router is on during the day, and despite your assurance that there are no known phone outages in my area at present, I still can’t make or receive calls. 

What do you propose to do about this? 

Thank you

[Vikki_M]

Hi @Terri65

I can either go through some diagnostics for the phone and send an engineer if required to fix the land line fault for you. 

Or we can book you in for the switchover which should also resolve this fault for you as you will then be using the phone via the hub.

How would you like to proceed please?

[Terri65]

I’d like you to go through some diagnostics and if necessary, send an engineer. I’m not confident that my “hub” (which is just my original router and quite old) would support being my switch. I just want this sorted asap so my phone works again as per my contract with you.

thank you

[Vikki_M]

No problem at all,

We will start those now.

Do you have any other pieces of equipment connected to your phone socket? This may include:
 

• Other telephones
• Personal Computers
• Faxes
• Modems
• Satellite TV digiboxes
• Micro-filters
• ADSL modem or router

Please pop back to me when you can. 

[Terri65]

No, I have an old fashioned analogue phone plugged into the landline and a DECT cordless phone plugged into the other landline that has 3 handsets, 2 being plugged into 2 electrical sockets.

[Vikki_M]

Thank you.

Please try the below.

• Check the phone is seated in the base unit correctly & powered ON.
• Remove all other equipment connected to telephone sockets.
• Unplug the phone and check another phone directly into the main socket ensuring this is a VM socket and not one with a BT or Sky logo. If no alternative handset is available then ensure the original phone is plugged into the main socket with no other pieces of equipment being plugged in.

Please pop back to me when you can.