Poss strange BT land-line fault

Hi guys,

apologies in advance if this has been asked before but I appear to have a really strange fault with my BT line.

I run my own business from home and as a result I have quite a lot of incoming calls.

I also have caller ID.

My land-line has been diverted for years and years, almost permanently, 24-7 365 days a year to my mobile and because I received all of my calls on my mobile I wasn't really aware of the fault as I get a calls from all sorts of people and business on mobiles and from switchboards with-holding call identificaction and such like so I don't know how long I've had the fault but about two months ago I stopped diverting my calls to my mobile all of the time and now only divert the calls as and when I have to.

Now what I've noticed is that sometimes the landline phone goes (happens a lot during the night but also sometimes during the day) and when I pick up the phone I hear the dialing tone as if the caller has hung up, initially I just dismissed this as an auto-dialer, but the caller's number is usually displayed on the phone (but not always sometimes it's shown as 'withheld' or 'unknown') but when I call the number back it's engaged for hours and hours but on at least three occasions I've mangaged to speak with someone on the phone and they've all insisted that they've never called my number but that there is a fault on their phone line.

This can be incredibly annoying during the night with disturbed sleep etc but it's happening during the day too but I've only recently become aware of it but obviously during the day when your busy you don't take much notice and just put it down to either someone deciding that they don't want to call you or an auto-dialer from a marketing company and hanging up quickly.

I've got a BT engineer coming out tomorrow to check my line in the house but I was wondering if this fault is something that's common or if perhaps someone can give some help or advice for me to point the engineer in the right direction.

What I really don't understand is how a faulty phone line from a particular exchange can phone my number, hang up the phone then be engaged for hours after?

The numbers 'calling' me come from exchanges all over the city (Glasgow) BTW not just one local to me.

Thanks for reading, sorry this is a bit long winded.

Cheers

Tony

Just a guess, but one thing that springs to my mind is a possible 'in contact' fault between your line and another on the network. When the other line is called, the 'short circuit' between your line and the other is carrying the ringing current and caller ID information to your phone as well as the line that is been called.

TicklyT said:

Just a guess, but one thing that springs to my mind is a possible 'in contact' fault between your line and another on the network. When the other line is called, the 'short circuit' between your line and the other is carrying the ringing current and caller ID information to your phone as well as the line that is been called.

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Thanks mate that sounds plausible the only thing is the three people I've managed to talk to after being called by thier 'equipment' have all said that they currently have/had a fault on thier line and that no one from thier house called me.

I had one madman who threatened me with severe violence after I rang him back at 6am, his 'equipment' had previously rung me the night before (at about 11.30PM)and I rung him back them but he said ,at that time, I must have been mistaken and that no one had called me from his house so I let it go that time but then I received a call from that same number the next morning.

I did try to point out to him that he or his number had actually rung me first but by this time he was apopleptic

Funny thing is a 'number' called me at about four am last Friday then 'rung' me again about 11am the next morning when I rang the number back it was constantly engaged.

The BT line comes into my house from a pole in the garden and enters the house at below floor level and then there is a small plastic junction box under the floor (house is a 1930s bungalow) where the incoming black cable is connected to a white cable going to the box in the hall and that's it, there are no extensions.

The phone and broadband router is plugged into that box which isn't one of those nte5 boxes BTW just a box with a T written on it and a socket on the front for the phone.

Waiting on the BT guy this afternoon so will post back with an update.

Thanks again.

Tony

you should ask them what area they are in and street if they dont mind this may help narrow down the fault to perhaps a street box or cable!!!

big-all said:

you should ask them what area they are in and street if they dont mind this may help narrow down the fault to perhaps a street box or cable!!!

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Thanks mate but the three numbers I've saved are all in different areas of the city in fact they are miles away from each other.

The BT engineer seems to think it's something to do with the divert system in the exchanges. He's said that my line is perfect.

Here's an update for those who are interested.

The OpenReach engineer has just left after having checked my line which he said was fine however he managed to convince himself that my phone was faulty (it isn't) and that I was setting my diverts wrong (I'm not) so he got the engineer at the exchange to remove my divert then when I explained things to him again he realised that he had jumped the gun so he tried to get the exchange engineer to put the divert back to what it was but now however there is a taped message telling callers that "calls to this number are being diverted" which wasn't there before the engineer called the exchange the first time

This engineer couldn't get the divert back to what it was so I've now had to call back BT to report 'another fault' in order to get my divert back to what it was which was the call diverted to whichever number I set the divert upto without customers/callers hearing the taped message above.

BT have told me things should go back to normal tomorrow because there is still a 'live fault' report on my line and by tomorrow the 'fault' will no longer be live so the case will be closed however I'm a bit concerned about this message which I don't want and have never had but I do recall there was an option to have the divert set up this way when I took out caller divert years ago.

Do any of you BT or otherwise engineers know what I have to tell BT in order to have the divert just automatically divert my calls to my chosen number without the taped message?

Thanks again.

Tony

I'm not a fan of BT, bunch of money-grabbing b******s IME. I use www.sipgate.co.uk.

You do need a good internet connection though to make and receive normal (ie non-diverted) calls (I have 10mb cable and it's fine).

Wasn't difficult to set-up, not quite plug and play though.

Only problem is, i'd like to know which calls are being diverted and which have dialled my mobile no, but there's no facility for that (it just forwards the number of whoever is dialling straight to my mobile).

I'm a bit concerned about this message which I don't want and have never had but I do recall there was an option to have the divert set up this way when I took out caller divert years ago.

Click to expand...

Hi, sadly to say this but this divert message is something that can't be changed to my knowledge.
Though maybe you can set your call divert to divert on busy only and keep the line off hook. Now I don't know or remember if that works but you could try that to see if it will divert without a message.

Other solutions might be hardware that has a divert calls feature. I don't know if such a device exists but maybe hardware can divert calls not just an exchange calling feature.

If it's just a single line not anything like a feature line then I believe.


#21# - to remove diverted calls.

Call Divert - on busy - to activate *67*(Number to divert to)#
Call Divert - on busy - to check *#67#
Call Divert - on busy - to cancel #67#

I think that's it.