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loss of telephone line

yesterday, Monday, our telephone "pinged" & then was completely dead. We are with TalkTalk, previously with Tiscali. We have unplugged the phone which is corded & plugged it directly into the wall socket but there was still no dialling tone. We also plugged in a brand new telephone but still to no avail. Presumably, the fault is not internal? Anyone that rings us gets a message "the number you are calling is unable to accept incoming calls at the moment". We have tried many times today to ring TalkTalk but get the message "we are experiencing high demand with calls & your call will be answered shortly". So far it has cost us over £7 for this priviledge as we have to call using a mobile phone!! We're at a loss as to what to do next. Their email section states it would "endeavour" to reply within two working days although this is not guaranteed. Because of health issues, we need the phone line & really don't know how this problem can be resolved quickly. Any advice welcomed. thanks
 
might be worth calling BT from a phone box via 150 should cost hell of allot less and report a fault as no dial tone seems to indicate that the problem is in BTs realm..

either there is a major fault somewhere or some engineer has been at the exchange connecting someone else and disconnected you.. wouldnt be the first time l have heard something like that happen.. not two weeks ago the shop l help out at had their phone lines and internet disconnected while a shop a few doors down was connected.. if he had not of said anything while they were there then there was no telling how long he wouldnt have had a phone line.
 
might be worth calling BT from a phone box via 150 should cost hell of allot less and report a fault as no dial tone seems to indicate that the problem is in BTs realm..

either there is a major fault somewhere or some engineer has been at the exchange connecting someone else and disconnected you.. wouldnt be the first time l have heard something like that happen.. not two weeks ago the shop l help out at had their phone lines and internet disconnected while a shop a few doors down was connected.. if he had not of said anything while they were there then there was no telling how long he wouldnt have had a phone line.

Unfortunately 150 from a pay phone wouldn't help as talk talk provide the line not BT retail, however finding a 0800 number for them on a site like saynoto0870 and using that from a phone box would be the best bet.
 
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but if the problem is at the exchange or somewhere between the house and the exchange wouldnt it be BTs domain.. equally no dial tone would require BT to come out or is there some stupid rule that things need to be brought up through the ISP because from whats been said lm assuming the connection is unbundled and he is on TalkTalk hardware..

if so thats stupid as hell considering BT will only be sent out to do the work, only issue l see is a week or twos wait til anything is done because all the big ISPs seem to take their sweet time doing just about anything.
 
but if the problem is at the exchange or somewhere between the house and the exchange wouldnt it be BTs domain.. equally no dial tone would require BT to come out or is there some stupid rule that things need to be brought up through the ISP because from whats been said lm assuming the connection is unbundled and he is on TalkTalk hardware..

if so thats stupid as hell considering BT will only be sent out to do the work, only issue l see is a week or twos wait til anything is done because all the big ISPs seem to take their sweet time doing just about anything.

It is a division of BT (Openreach) who would need to deal with the fault but only talktalk can get them involved, as it is a voice line problem and yes talktalk are a ISP but they are the voice provider in this case.

2-3 years ago there was a ruling brought in by Ofcom which forced BT to split its companies apart BT wholesale, BT retail and BT openreach are the main ones which meant that they now have to operate seperately.

BT Openreach look after the physical copper cabling which then connects to the other companies hardware in the exchange so if anything is wrong up to the point where the copper line stops and connects to the PSTN equipment or MSAN/DSLAM it is them who deal with it after there its who ever the bill is paid to.


These changes was brought about due to companies like Talktalk/Opal etc wanting the same access to the same engineers and systems that BT Retail and wholesale used so instead of getting the systems etc the other divisions of BT just had them took away.
 
Much as Lee has said above, the ultimate responsibility for a major line fault is with BT Openreach, although you really have to go through TalkTalk to get Openreach to move and it's shocking that you are unable to contact the ISP. I would add that TalkTalk do have a members forum and a twitter support account: http://twitter.com/TalkTalkTips , using these might help.

I would also raise this issue with Ofcom , even though they cannot help with individual complaints but they should be made aware.

Serious phone line problems are rare for most consumers but ultimately TalkTalk are the first point of contact. Sadly BTO do not deal directly with members of the public.
 
thank you everyone for your replies to my original posting. I did register on the members forum yesterday morning & posted on there. I was somewhat disappointed that nobody had replied but today have had a hopefully positive reply to say the acting moderator had taken my complaint on board & had informed TT of my telephone problem & the reply I have received goes on to say engineers will be needed to investigate; presumably BTO. He/she promises to keep me informed so do hope this is the case! I will indeed speak to Ofcom once the phone line is up & running again as this situation is mad. I will be thinking of leaving TT for my package & not only because of this latest problem. Are there any suggestions of a reliable service provider? I have in the past been with Virgin. Although we currently have our phone line, calls & broadband with TT I suppose it wouldn't be too much bother to switch to another supplier & go back to BT for my line rental? Here's hoping this gets resolved sooner rather than later & we have a working telephone! Still find it odd that I can connect to the web when there's no live line. thanks again
 
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just to let you all know we have our phone line working again tonight. I appreciate your help & just wanted to thank you again.
 
just to let you all know we have our phone line working again tonight. I appreciate your help & just wanted to thank you again.

Any time, just hope what I said was useful to you.

LeeH
 
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