Strange phone / phone line problem

[Rollerball]

This is a problem with my mother's phone / phone line.

She lives about 100 miles from me and tells me that whenever she calls me she can hear me just fine. However, whenever she calls somebody in her local area she has difficulty hearing them as their voices are very faint.

My initial reaction was that she has a problem with her hearing (ear wax!), but that of course doesn't explain why she can hear me just fine.

Can any phone experts here think of a technical reason why only local calls would be affected this way, when national calls are unaffected?

I've phoned her telephone provider to discuss the issue but they didn't have any ideas.

I'll be visiting her in a few days so can check out her phone line myself, is there anything specific that I can test for? Maybe there's a BT telephone number that I can call specifically for test purposes?

 

[Crystalclear]

https://www.bt.com/consumerFaultTracking/public/faults/reporting.do?pageId=21

Is their phone line connected via an extension?

 

[Rollerball]

Yes, it is on an extension.

Thanks for the link too.

 

[bernardgreen]

While it is possible that the local network has different gain factors ( amplification ) between local calls and long distance it is very un-likely.

If the difference is between calls she makes ( weak sound ) and calls she receives ( strong sound ) then there may be a fault on the line card at the exchange.

As crystal clear asks, Is there more than one phone and could it be that one is louder than the other and by pure chance she almost always talks to you on one of them and makes local calls on the other.

 

[Rollerball]

These are all calls that she makes, and she makes them all from the same phone.

There is another phone on another extension but she only rarely uses it (and hasn't used it recently).

 

[Crystalclear]

Just a thought, maybe Mum should try and swap the phones around?

 

[Rollerball]

She couldn't easily do that I'm afraid, I'll have to try it when I visit her next week.

I'm still puzzled why she says that she can hear me just fine but not anyone who she calls locally (and she only ever calls locally other than calls made to me) - doesn't make sense.

 

[Crystalclear]

The answers that are coming up on my search, are numerous, from removing 'boosters' to changing to a different type of internal line. One even mentioned a 'bug' in their area, "...that should be fixed soon" suggesting it was a phase?

Is their a local BT employee you or a friend might know of? Get some 'inside' info?

 

[Rollerball]

Thanks, she doesn't use any boosters. How would she change to a different type of internal line?

A bug in the area seems likely, but I don't know of anyone that I could ask.

Also, something that I forgot to mention - some months ago her phone line was suffering from very random and intermittent line noise - various tests were carried out by her phone provider but no fault was ever found. This also affected the Broadband connection, making it drop to a snail like speed. The latter was remedied every so often by her phone provider adjusting the SNR related settings (I think).

The noise hasn't been apparent for some time so I'm wondering if it could be related.

Also, in a week her electrician is carrying out some electrical work but I've also asked him to check out all of the phone line connections in sockets, etc in case they were related to the line noise. Perhaps whatever he does might also somehow fix these quiet calls?

 

[OwainDIYer]

Perhaps she can hear you because she's more used to your voice, or you speak more clearly than the locals, or you unconsciously speak up, or you have a more efficient telephone? Is there anyone else she phones long-distance?

 

[Rollerball]

I'd thought of that, but apparently the problem has only occurred over the past few days and she can apparently hear me as clearly as usual. Unless of course her hearing has suddenly become a lot more selective over the past few days.

Unfortunately there is nobody else who she calls long distance.

 

[simonpolly]

I take it she has filters got on everything, if not that would explain the random noise .

 

[Rollerball]

Yup, ADSL filters are present and correct.