Just got phone line installed (sky) and broadband too. Phone doesn't ring. Help?

badmoon

Hi there,

As the title of the post says, I've had my phone line installed today and also have working broadband. Hurrah.

Anyway, there's a dialling tone but whenever I try to ring it from my phone, the phone doesn't ring. I've tried picking it up when I know I'm calling and it's all fine.

I've got 5 phone sockets round the house and just two filters at the moment. Will be buying some more tomorrow. Could this be the issue or any other ideas? It's a cheapo phone mum and dad have lent me so will be using a nicer one tomorrow. Thing is it works fine at mum and dad's house.

Not the end of the world as I have a mobile but not ideal.

Thanks for any advice/help.

macman

Firstly, you need ADSL filters on all active extensions, including Sky boxes.
Secondly, you may have exceeded the REN for your circuit, which is normally 4 on a BT line. How many phones have you currently got plugged in? Each handset is usually rated with a REN of 1, so 5 would be too many. Have you tried it from another socket to eliminate a fault on the original socket? Can you dial out OK?
Clearly the handset isn't faulty if it rings OK in another line.

Mark_In_Hampshire

As with anything else phone related that's potentially a fault, you need to try the handset at the nearest point to the exchange which is normally - if you have one - the "master socket" in the house - where the line comes in. Just plug the handset directly into the socket and disconnect all the extensions. Does it ring there? Does the ringer on that handset definitely work?

There used to be a problem connecting too many handsets to one line as it doesn't have enough power to make them all ring if you have too many connected at once.

badmoon

macman wrote: »

Firstly, you need ADSL filters on all active extensions, including Sky boxes.
Secondly, you may have exceeded the REN for your circuit, which is normally 4 on a BT line. How many phones have you currently got plugged in? Each handset is usually rated with a REN of 1, so 5 would be too many. Have you tried it from another socket to eliminate a fault on the original socket? Can you dial out OK?
Clearly the handset isn't faulty if it rings OK in another line.

Thanks for the quick reply.

I've only got the one phone at the moment. That's in the socket in the hall on it's own and I've also tried it in the living room with the filter which had the sky box line in there plus the wireless.

In the living room now on that filter I've just got the wireless router and the sky line.

The only thing I don't have is the 3 extra micro filters for the phone sockets upstairs so will that be the problem?

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

As with anything else phone related that's potentially a fault, you need to try the handset at the nearest point to the exchange which is normally - if you have one - the "master socket" in the house - where the line comes in. Just plug the handset directly into the socket and disconnect all the extensions. Does it ring there? Does the ringer on that handset definitely work?

There used to be a problem connecting too many handsets to one line as it doesn't have enough power to make them all ring if you have too many connected at once.

Thanks for your reply too. It doesn't make the ringing noise, but when I try phoning it again and pick it up in the hall (without it ringing) I can hear myself on the other line.

Confused!

Thanks to you both.

Mark_In_Hampshire

The basic procedure is to make sure that it isn't you that's at fault. You do that by connecting the phone to the master and testing, and trying a second handset perhaps or putting that handset in a neighbour's socket and confirming that the ringer works.

Then you can report the fault to the line supplier (no ring pulse/tone on inbound calls). The reason for the above is that if you do this, and they visit, and find it's your wiring that's to blame then it will be fixed, but at your expense, since the supplier is only responsible for the line where it enters the property and you are responsible for everything after that.

If you're plugging the handset in to the socket directly then the microfilters are not relevant. It should still ring.