Telephone issues

bfsog

I have just moved into a new flat last Friday -25/06/10

I arranged for BT to reconnect the line as the previous tenant presumably disconnected it - they said this would be ready on Wednesday just past - 30/06/2010.

However, I called them on Wednesday and they reported they found a fault on the line, but it should be fixed by Thursday - 01/07/2010.

Still no luck. The flat has 2 phone sockets - they are both old (none of them have a horizontal section on the socket, so unable to plug into test connection.

The odd thing is I have a tone using one of the sockets, but when I try to dial a number after I enter a few numbers I get the "This number is not recognised" message.

When I plug it into the other socket there is no tone.

BT are useless - they are telling me it is "marked as complete" and are offering no more advice.

Any ideas?

Thank you

Mr_Oink

If you dial 17070 does it read back the correct number?

spike7451

Still no luck. The flat has 2 phone sockets - they are both old (none of them have a horizontal section on the socket, so unable to plug into test connection.

The odd thing is I have a tone using one of the sockets, but when I try to dial a number after I enter a few numbers I get the "This number is not recognised" message.

The phone's on a restricted service meaning you cant dial out.BT do this when they cut you off.

When I plug it into the other socket there is no tone.

Disconnected extension or more likely a second line.

spike7451

Still no luck. The flat has 2 phone sockets - they are both old (none of them have a horizontal section on the socket, so unable to plug into test connection.

The odd thing is I have a tone using one of the sockets, but when I try to dial a number after I enter a few numbers I get the "This number is not recognised" message.

The phone's on a restricted service meaning you cant dial out.BT do this when they cut you off.

When I plug it into the other socket there is no tone.

Disconnected extension or more likely a second line.

Mr_Oink

If you don't have an NTE5 it could be an old extension socket. *BUT* some old installations have a 2/1 2/2 or a 2/3 master socket. These predate the NTE5. This has some images of what was current up to a couple of years ago. The NTE5 now has krone (rather than screw) terminals.

Sockets / wiring notes
http://www.elblowfly.org.uk/tele/nte5.php

bfsog

When I dial 17070 all I am greeted with is 'Press 1 for quiet line test, 2 for fast line test'.

BT must have cut the previous tenant off - I have only just moved in.

Mr_Oink

bfsog wrote: »

When I dial 17070 all I am greeted with is 'Press 1 for quiet line test, 2 for fast line test'.

BT must have cut the previous tenant off - I have only just moved in.

Does it give 'This circuit is defined as <your_telephone_number>', or is this missing/contains the wrong number?

S0litaire

spike7451 wrote: »

Still no luck. The flat has 2 phone sockets - they are both old (none of them have a horizontal section on the socket, so unable to plug into test connection.

The odd thing is I have a tone using one of the sockets, but when I try to dial a number after I enter a few numbers I get the "This number is not recognised" message.

The phone's on a restricted service meaning you cant dial out.BT do this when they cut you off.

When I plug it into the other socket there is no tone.

Disconnected extension or more likely a second line.

The "This number is not recognised" Message means the physical line is connected to the BT exchange but no number has been assigned to it yet. So it won't let you dial out.

Have you tried to dial your asinged phone number from your mobile? what message do you get (if any).

If it's anything like the problem I had getting a new line then you'll be without a line for at least another week! (They had connected my line to the wrong wire at the roadside box! so the exchange said the line was fine but the BT socket was dead! Took them ages to work out what went wrong!) lol!

bfsog

Thanks for the response guys.

We had an engineer around today and he said the problem was the previous line was not disconnected correctly. All fixed now, well, the phone line can receive incoming calls.

However, issue #2 - right now we only have line rental with BT as we plan to have a Talk plan and Broadband plan with Sky. We can only local numbers - numbers within our area code, is this because we only have line rental? I cannot see this being the reason, maybe the line is not fully live yet?

My parents have BT as their phone line supplier but their broadband is with someone else, and they can call any number from their phone.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Andrew

Mr_Oink

Check (1) you don't have any call barring set up - although you would know if you did this (2) dial a number prefixing it with 1280 to force it over the BT network - if that works it suggests your calls are being routed to another provider who, for whatever reason, is not allowing national calls.

If 1280 does not work and you have not set up call barring or other restrictions I'd call BT and ask them '!!!!!!' in the nicest possible way.

bfsog

Hello.

All is well now - maybe the phone line was still being configured when we could only call numbers of the same area code.

Thanks for all your help.