Vodafone landline cuts off every 29 minutes

Cher65

Newbie here! I'm hoping someone can help my dilemma. I started a 2 year contract with Vodafone last November for my landline and broadband. I don't have issues with the broadband however, when I use my landline the phone is disconnected every 29 minutes and 38 seconds. I have contacted them 6 times about this and was told a couple of weeks ago that the issue has been resolved.....again! Last night exactly the same thing happened. I'm at my wits end with them. Does anyone know if I can get out of this Contract because of the constant fault I'm getting? I don't see why I should stay with them and if I can leave, I would have to pay an early penalty. Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

iniltous

Tricky one , if the broadband had issues , like wasn’t delivering the speed they said you would get , and after several attempts were made to fix it , failed , you have the right to ask to be be released from any minimum term , but the phone service cutting off calls after a period of time probably won’t trigger this escape clause , all you can probably do , is keep on at them to get the issue fixed….is your phone service delivered via the broadband, by having your phone plugged into the Vodafone router , in effect VoIP ?

Neil_Jones

Cher65 said:

Newbie here! I'm hoping someone can help my dilemma. I started a 2 year contract with Vodafone last November for my landline and broadband. I don't have issues with the broadband however, when I use my landline the phone is disconnected every 29 minutes and 38 seconds. I have contacted them 6 times about this and was told a couple of weeks ago that the issue has been resolved.....again! Last night exactly the same thing happened. I'm at my wits end with them. Does anyone know if I can get out of this Contract because of the constant fault I'm getting? I don't see why I should stay with them and if I can leave, I would have to pay an early penalty. Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

If this is caused by a line fault it will continue regardless of which provider you're with (on a BT based line).

However I'm curious that it fails every time at 29:38. Are you sure the issue isn't with your actual telephone itself?  Does it happen on incoming calls and outgoing calls?  29:38 is oddly specific and would suggest to me its more likely to be a battery failing in your phone or something.

Are you FTTP?  There was a post on the BT forum about four years ago that had the exact same problem.

Cher65

@iniltous yes it is plugged in via the router. They sent me a socket to use because without it my phone was dead. When I was with Sky I didn't have this problem but since being with Vodafone, I've had it every single time.

@Neil_Jones No it's not my phone, I done a test with the person I call for a long time, she phoned me and we stayed connected all the time. Yes I believe I could be FTTP, I'll try and find that about BT.

Thank you 

[Deleted User]

This is a well-known issue with SIP which is used for VoIP calls and there are lots of reports of this on forums all over the internet, Vodafone seems to get mentioned quite a lot.

The SIP protocol has a time-out period which is designed to free up a connection if a call isn't ended cleanly. At the start of the call, the SIP timeout period is established from the SIP proxy (part of the comms provider network) which informs the caller's device of the timeout period. RFC standard suggests 30 mins as the minimum default setting but it can be anything from 90 seconds upwards.

One of the parties on the call will initiate a SIP refresh before the defined timeout period is up, in your case 30 minutes. If the device doesn't receive a response to that request it will terminate the call.

Although this is a mobile phone, it is the same call protocol and issue:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vodafone/comments/113zbx2/vodafone_uk_call_disconnect_29_minutes_50_seconds/

The actual RFC protocol for SIP - reading into this is could be more complex, the timeout could be 60 mins but the request for a refresh could be sent once half the session interval is elapsed.

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc4028.html

Anyway, the point is that Vodafone has to solve this for you but armed with the above information and a complaint letter (rather than phoning generic customer support) will probably yield better results.

The only thing I'd suggest you could try is just to make sure your router is fully up to date, maybe a factory reset just to make sure there aren't any altered settings blocking the parts of the protocol - however I think this is unlikely to be the cause.

M25

Make a proper complaint https://www.vodafone.co.uk/help-and-information/complaints/code-of-practice click on Fill in form

Make the complaint very clear and simple and tell them you've spent time on the phone with nothing resolved.

That very good information by tallmansix can be added at the bottom of the complaint as it could be helpful.

Cher65

Thank you all very much for the information, I'm going to do the online complaint and see if this can be resolved. I very much appreciate it

JSmithy45AD

M25 said:

Make a proper complaint https://www.vodafone.co.uk/help-and-information/complaints/code-of-practice click on Fill in form

Make the complaint very clear and simple and tell them you've spent time on the phone with nothing resolved.

That very good information by tallmansix can be added at the bottom of the complaint as it could be helpful.

Cheers for that, I've had to make use of it as they can't switch me for BB from Sky (the 2nd time this happened so will never happen again) and when I asked for the right to be forgotten the agent on webchat let it time out and shut down. What a terrible company.

housemouse69

i am having the same problem with Vodafone landline cutting off at around 29 to 40 mins into a call. I have phoned and reported this a few times but got no joy from them. They will not send out an engineer as it doesnt fit their criteria. Your posts have been interesting as now I know that I am not the only one this is happening to