The ringer has stopped working on my landline phone

[Richard_AHH]

Good evening,

The ringer on my landline phone has recently stopped ringing.  It's been like this for a few weeks now.  I bought a new phone beacuse I thought the old one must be faulty but this doesn't work either.  I am plugged into the traditional type wall socket and not into the back of the router hub.  I've seen previous threads on this forum with similar issues to this with the resultant problem being insufficient voltage on the line to activate the bell ringer.  Would it be possible for a VM Engineer to check my supply voltage?

Many thanks and regards,

Richard 

[John_GS]

Morning @Richard_AHH

Thanks for posting and welcome to the community.

I am sorry for the phoneline issue. 

Are you plugged into the master socket? It will have a larger socket and contain a logo of Virgin Media, NTL, Telewest or Nynex. Any extension sockets will be smaller and have no logo

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 
If any, is it more or less than 3?

Finally, can you try these for me;
• 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. 

Keep me posted.

[Richard_AHH]

Hi John,

Thanks for getting back to me. 

I appear to have two boxes on the wall, they are both totally separate from each other with no inter-connections.  The larger of the two boxes is the supply box for my broadband router hub.  This larger box has Telewest Broadband displayed on the front.  The smaller box, which has my phone line connected to it, has no markings and uses a standard BT type socket for connecting the phone to. This is how it's always been since Telewest installed cable into the house many years ago now.  Before that we were connected to the old BT telegraph pole outside for our landline phone.

There are no other pieces of equipment attached to the smaller box which the phone line is connected to.

The base unit of my BT phone is connected directly to the smaller box wall socket with no extensions or micro filters on the phone line.

The phone unit is fully charged and seated correctly on its base station.  I have tried this with two different phones and niether work in terms of the ringer ringing on incoming calls.  The phone connection works fine in terms of a dial tone and being able to make calls.

Hope this information helps.

Regards,

Richard

[Robert_P]

Thanks for the additional information, it sound like a power issue where there is enough to get the call through but not much else. We will need to get a technician out to check the cabling and make sure it is all okay. I will send you a Private Message to get some more details form you to arrange this for you.

Rob

[Robert_P]

Thanks Richard_AHH, Thanks Richard, I have booked a visit for the next available slot which you can view here via the MyVM app. If there are any issues with the date or time please let me know and we can look to alter this to something more suitable.

Please be aware that any changes would result in a delay to the visit as this was the earliest available, there also needs to be someone over the age of 18 in the property at the time of the visit.

Rob

[Richard_AHH]

Hi Rob,

Thanks for arranging.  Please could you email me the details of the date and time of the arranged visit as I don't have access to the app store through my phone.

Thanks,

Richard

[Robert_P]

You're welcome Richard_AHH, let us know how the visit goes 🙂

Rob

[Richard_AHH]

Hi,

The technician said that the ringer issue on my landline phone was likely because of a fault in the equipment cabinet supplying the telephone line to my house.  He said that this would not be fixed because Virgin Media are now migrating over to VOIP phone lines and away from the old system.  Therefore, he has now installed my landline phone into the back of the router hub and enabled the VOIP.  I'm happy that all now works fine from an operational perspective.  The only negative side to report is that my phone is not in my prefered location, so I'll now need to install a cable from the back of the hub to a socket on the wall where my phone used to be.  Additionally, if there's a power cut, my phone will now be inactive, whereas previously it would have be unaffected on the old system.  Thanks for arranging to get the phone working again though.

Regards,

Richard

[Carley_S]

Hi @Richard_AHH

Thank you for coming back to us to let us know how your appointment went. Glad to hear that the fault was resolved for you by installing the new VoIP system. This is an industry wide change from the old copper lines as this will become obsolete. You can find out more about the home phone switch over on our community forums page here or on Ofcom's website here if needed. 

Sorry that this has affected your in home set up. We recommend the router be central in the home to give the best overall coverage and performance. If you would prefer to, you can request the router be moved to the preferred landline location. This relocation request is £25 for the appointment. 

You can also look into DECT phones if you would like a phone in the previous location as well as next to the router. Please let us know if you are having any further issues or have any questions at all. We'll be here to help on the community forums if needed :).