Tested out the 2 SIMs in the new mobile by calling our landline – and got the sound of silence… Further investigation (i.e. 1471) showed that the landline had received the calls, but hadn’t rung… So, duff handset (it is extremely old) or faulty line (broadband is still working, but has been a bit slow recently)? Took the opportunity to finally buy a replacement handset (Panasonic, £19.99, from Argos), connected it, and got a ring for incoming call – sort of: it was a rather truncated, strangled series of notes, and only rang about 50% of the time. Plus it’s possible to make outgoing calls, but you get an echo of the other party’s speech…
So, looks like a line problem, and had to steel myself for reporting it to my ISP. Gave up after being on hold for 20 minutes; rang an hour later from the new SIM – and got through to a human almost immediately… Now, I don’t want to be paranoid, but the suspicion arose that maybe they have had enough of the hassle I’ve given them over the years, and “deprioritised” the number they know about! *dons tinfoil hat*
Anyway, the support person ran a line test, and confirmed that there is a fault, it affects both phone and VDSL, and she’s passed it on to Openreach. 48 hours response time, she said. So, hopefully, some progress will be made in the next month…
Addendum
Not exactly “within 48 hours”, but sorted by Openreach within two working days. All seems to be fine now.
