boomer

Tried to make a call this morning (via a landline "memory" button) - but it didn't ring or even connect. Tried a couple more times, but still no joy, so tried a manual dial - and got no dial-tone.

Weird, i thought, as i had been on the (broadband) Interweb only minutes before, so assumed that my DECT phone had crashed and did a power reset.

Nope, still nothing

Did the usual troubleshooting, and discovered that...

• Incoming calls "ring out" on the callers line, but don't ring in my house.
• I have no dial-tone.
• A non-powered phone with a backlight does not light up (but does on next door's system)
• My Interweb is still working.

I reported the problem at 09:30, and got a call back at 14:30 to say that they think that the problem is at the exchange, but as it is a Bank Holiday weekend, they can't get an engineer out until Wednesday!!

WTF - four days without a phoneline???

Not very good service

mb

Jaybird-UK

Although very annoying, the service level is what you have to expect for the money you pay for it.

Now if any of my E1 circuits die at work BT come flying 24/7

shooter007

E1 circuits ???????

Jaybird-UK

data lines.

This will send you to sleep if you want to know more E1 / T1 Tutorial

Shark Man

Cable (virgin) are no quicker. 4 to 5 days to come out, and if its a TV or BB issue it usually sorts itself out by then anyway.

Thats the service a consumer gets in mondern day Britain.


(although, don't even dream of trying to connect a line with Telefonica, and trying enable ADSL will cause you seek threapy to help regain ones sanity )

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

Bt customer service is a joke. I like the way 90% is staffed by Indians with a basic grasp of English yet cancellations is staffed by English people trained to talk you out of walking away from their dodgy service.

chocolate_o_brian

iTrader: (22)

absolutely bang on k.o.t.

i was soo sick of getting "jonathon/peter/paul/kevin the indian" on the phones, having to repeat yourself several times, having to wait 30 mins to get through so said persons, and then being spoken to off a script...

i gave up. i rang cancellations, told em to **** off basically, and switched to virgin media.

at worst with them ive spoken to a couple scots, thats nothing compared to an indian who cannot speak a fluent word of english. oh, and before the do-gooders with the "racist bigot" comments come out and defend everyone, its not just the indians who cant grasp an english accent, other nations cant either especially on the phone. i got sick of being told "i am truley sorry sar", as if its etched into the guys skin or something.


rant mode off**

Trout

iTrader: (1)

...Broadband still works...

...Skype

boomer

...is there anyone "in the business" who can explain why my landline phone won't work, and yet my broadband is fine - indeed it is better than normal with a download speed of seven and a half meg!

I thought that a phone line was basically a simple electrickery circuit (at 50 volts?) onto which voice was modulated (and in more recent years, broadband).

Could it be that the "circuit board" in the exchange isn't pumping out enough "RENs" to support phones, but just enough for the higher frequency computer stuff to work?

mb

Markus

I'm not sure how the voice and data thing on the line works, but I've had a similar problem in that when I moved apartments, the phone service was dead, but I still had internet access. The new place then got activated and I had phone but not internet, then this got cocked up and I had no dialtone but did have internet access.

My understanding is that they (the phone company) have to enable something, probably at the exchange, to allow you to get adsl, and this working is independant of you having dial tone, thus there is the possibilty you can have no phone service, but internet service is still fine. Think it might be called Dry Loop, as that was mentioned to me as being an option when I was looking at using a different phone company, this apparently allows you to have DSL provided by whomever you want and also the phone service provided by whomever you want.

Nido

I moved last year to a place that had no phone line - I was told that in about 4 weeks time the Telefonica bloke would come out about. They said he would connect the line, and that about 2 weeks after that, my router would be delivered, once that came to phone them up and a week or so later the adsl would go live. That was the plan..........

What actually happened was about 5 days after putting my request in I had a call on my (Telefonica ) mobile. It was the bloke to say he'd be with me in 20 mins

Shot back from work and he fiddled around all morning connecting a line up (had some sort of problem). Then once he got that up and running he went to his van and got my ADSL wireless router. Connected that up and all was fine, he left and I had line, phone, ADSL and wireless router all set up!

First class service from them. Then had a letter the other week saying the line speed was going to be trippled for free! So far it's doubled, can't complain at that though!

boomer

Well i appear to have a dial-tone now, albeit a little crackly - so BT have done something.

However, i haven't received a status call (on landline or mobile) and their web-tracking still saysFingers crossed!

mb

Shark Man

That was what the plan was inttially, although the line was physically there, just not enabled. Three months later of playing pass the phone we finally get the telephone line working....but only after happening to meet someone who works for Telefonica who lived on the same estate did the gears get set in motion.

ADSL modem came through pretty quick, 5 days, delivery bloke called me from the bottom on the estate entrance and met him to pick it up. The problem being there was no enabled ADSL line for it to work, eventually after numerous phone calls and different methods and means with trying to enable it resulted in us giving up. There is an ADSL echange, the line will work with ADSL, but for some reason the theorectical switch that allowed it to work remained in the off position throughout the whole saga.

On the bright side, it keeps me off the computer so I can do something more productive