Phone stops after 4 rings - FT says its my phone and not them!

[Judith]

Our new (after house move) landline stops after 4 rings, and when I phoned FT English help line today he said he could do nothing and that it was controlled by the phone itself.  Now we had this problem in the old house, but with the same handset, and we rang to ask for it to continue ringing until we answered or the caller stopped ringing.  We supressed the answering service, as we have (I hope) also done for the new line.  I was not around the first time round and a friend rang on OH's behalf, so I don't know what was said to achieve this.

The assistant did say he would ring back so he could find out what  happened to the phone when it stopped, and then ring me again, and I was to answer the second time.  He rang once as arranged and I did not pick it up, as arranged, and again, it stopped after 4 rings.  But he did not then ring again.  (Well it was 5pm by then, what else could I expect!!!)

Of course, I will try again in the morning, but in the meantime does anyone know how true is the tale that it's all in the phone?  It's a basic one, but exactly the same we used in the old house, and it did ring and ring and ring .... if needed.

What should I ask for .... in French, as if necessary I will try the French help.  MY French is OK, but not up to telecoms stuff.

It is all very annoying as 3131 also is not working, (next challenge once we sort the ringing out)  so we cannot find out who was calling.

We do have an internet phone and livebox which he says can be adjusted (not enough though, I've checked), but we decided on the extra landline just so that we always had access to the outside world, which we have not at the mo.

4 rings is just not enough for me to get to it if I am not standing by it.

Any help, advice gratefully received.

[Quillan]

FT and Orange are one and the same. Look at the top of this section and you will find the English speaking helpline. They really are very good.

[Danny]

Judith, can you borrow a phone from a neighbour to test with a different one? Best if it is a French phone.

If it does the same thing on your line, you will be able to tell FT that it is not a phone problem.

It is very strange that it is happening again in different properties. This suggests to me that the phone may well be the culprit.

You mention that you have an internet phone too. Can you test this phone in the wall socket instead? Have you tried already?

Do you have adsl filters in place if you have the livebox working too.

Try unplugging the livebox and all filters and just use one phone at a time in one socket.

Is there more than one socket? test this in both.

If it is a phone bought in the UK, they do have some different characteristiques to do with ringing but they don't normally stop after four rings or get enabled to work OK.

It would be best to do these tests with different phones before you contact FT/Orange. It will give you much more clout if the same problem is found with all phones.

If you need to speak to them, it may be better and probably easier to ask a French person to help.

good luck

Danny

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Sounds like it's the phone to me.

My handset does the same, but I can change it. Have you the instructions for the phone? If not, try googling for them.

Failing that buy a new handset, they're not expensive and you'll be able to set the number of rings.

[Judith]

Thanks all, I had already tried my French mobile phone and the internet phone - exactly the same thing.  Yes, I do agree, it may well be the phone, which is French, and a very cheap one bought when we first came, 5 years ago, but since this was solved by FT the last time (5 years ago) it would seem to be something they can deal with. 

As far as the English speaking line goes, I have mixed results from them - if it is simple, they can help, if it is not, they seem unwilling, unless of course, they do not have really good English and do not understand. 

I have already visited the FT shop in Narbonne to try to do this, no I cannot do it she said - I suspect the ever present French problem of "if don't like, ignore, and it will go away".

I have yet to find the instructions for  the phone, but it really is very simple.  I can see two buttons, one is a bell symbol - it is st to the larger one, the other thing I cn change is a music note, again set to the note side - the other side is three dots (...) which I presume off. 

Incidentally, before we had all these improvements in telecommunications phones would ring, ..... and ring ...... and ring ...... until you put the phone down - so why does an improvement in technology decrease functionality  by making it more complicated to do what a simple phone used to be able to do ....

[Grecian]

Hello Judith, we too have the same problem with FT, it only rings 4 times. We have tried 2 different phones, one cheap one and one more expensive. We have also turned off the answer machine, but this makes no difference, it still only rings 4 times, most annoying.

I know somebody else who had a similar problem with FT, his only rang twice, he has since switched to SFR and has not had any problems since. We are going to switch to SFR ourselves in the near future, so I will let you know if this improves the situation.

[Judith]

Grecian,

Glad to know its not only me! 

OK, this morning I rang FT again, and I think got a more lateral thinking person in the English section, who thought that when they turned the messagerie off, they might have forgotten to  let it ring etc, and to test passed me through to the French section.  However, in spite of some difficulties with the speed of talking, I think I grasped what she said.  It might be the internet, can I test without the internet attached (I did) it still did it,  (only rang four times)  and then I thought since I have the internet phone forwarded to the land line after 45 seconds, see what happens.  The internet phone rang for its required time, and then switched to the land line, where upon the land line rang just as it should until I hung up on the mobile.

So this proves it is not the phone itself at fault.

FT are supposed to  be ringing me back, and I will offer this piece of information.  Through the internet it works OK, but not any other way (which rather negates the whhole idea of having a "spare" FT line for emergencies!!!!

I have to say that if it turns out to be the internet phone which is interfering with the land line I will happily go back to a FT phone, and jettison the internet phone.  We used to get 2 hours calls a month free anyhow on our old package, and this is usually quite enough for our needs!!

[Grecian]

Sorry to put a dampener on the latest theory Judith, but we do not have an internet phone, only the FT landline. Although thinking it through, the person I know who switched to SFR only has an internet phone, not a FT landline, so I guess your problem could still point to the FT landline.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Grecian"]Sorry to put a dampener on the latest theory Judith, but we do not have an internet phone, only the FT landline. Although thinking it through, the person I know who switched to SFR only has an internet phone, not a FT landline, so I guess your problem could still point to the FT landline.[/quote]

Not being sarcy but how does this friends Internet phone work, is it via a mobile phone?

I ask this because if it is via a landline and even though you may not pay FT for the line its still theirs as far as I know. The ISP effectively rents the physical cable from the exchange to your house (one good reason to stay with Orange as they fix lines quicker for themselves as opposed to other ISP's). You also have to be a bit careful when describing the system you have as Orange, and I believe and probably some other ISP's, do offer a system where you plug a phone in to your actual computer to make calls. The more normal system is to have a 'box' (commonly called a router) to which your computer and a telephone is plugged. This in turn is then plugged in to the household phone socket via a filter.

With the Orange setup using a router you can go on the Internet, log in to your account and change not just the answerphone on and off but the number of rings as well. For some reason known only to Orange just because the answerphone (called a messagerie) is turned off or that you have not used call forwarding it does not appear to stop the limit of rings.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Quillan"]

[quote user="Grecian"][/quote]

With the Orange setup using a router you can go on the Internet, log in to your account and change not just the answerphone on and off but the number of rings as well. For some reason known only to Orange just because the answerphone (called a messagerie) is turned off or that you have not used call forwarding it does not appear to stop the limit of rings.

[/quote]

That sounds like it Q, anywhere else I would say that is a preposterous suggestion and if it were that the telephone company would have already have suggested it.

It seems with many French websites one should always be prepared for the unexpected.

[Grecian]

Sorry Quillan if I have reported the situation incorrectly, I do not profess to understand how telephone set-ups work. The guy I know who switched to SFR plugs his router into the existing landline socket, and his phone rings as many times as he wants it to, unlike when he was with FT, (I understand that it is still a FT line).

Our own set-up at the moment is FT landline, Orange internet connection via a livebox, with no internet phone in the set-up. And it only rings 4 bleep, bleep times!

[Judith]

Reporting back .... still waiting for the FT /Orange call back ....

Like Grecian, I must confess to not understanding it all, but today I find out that the adsl "thing" plugs into the tel socket (and the livebox goes off that, with the internet phone from the livebox), and then the FT line goes into the adsl "thing" and so works via the adsl filter.  When I took the asdl filter off and put the phone directly into the tel socket, it still did its 4 rings only.  So to me thatt means the adsl filter is not affecting anything.    We went for Orange / FT instead of SFR so that it would all work, seems that was an erroneous conclusion.  We shall see, they did say it might be Monday before they rang back....

PS do you regard the livebox as the "router"?????

[sid]

It's not something simple like the number of rings having been set 4 previously?

You could check this... http://assistance.orange.fr/recherche.php?kw=regler+nombre+de+sonneries&origine=FIXR&x=23&y=10

Sid

[Danny]

also this maybe worth a go

http://assistance.orange.fr/desactiver-et-reactiver-la-messagerie-vocale-3994.php

Danny

[Judith]

Thanks, they are both possible solutions though the messagerie is already suppposed to be turned off.

I will have a go (when I have a little more time) and see how I get on.

However, if it something as simple as that, I'm amazed that FT haven't managed to suggest that one already!!!!

[Grecian]

Yes Judith it is that simple. I keyed in the sequence of numbers and symbols for 8 rings, the nice pre-recorded French lady advised me the change had been accepted. I then used my mobile to phone myself, and yes it range EIGHT times, yippee!

[Judith]

Grecian,

You give me courage to try in the morning - not now, other things to do ......  Now, I wonder, if you can make it do more than 8 rings, by increasing the second number in that set of instructions?  Anyone tried???

[Judith]

OK, feedback.  Nothing further from FT - so far - surprised - not!

But have managed to extend it to 8 rings, but no further by my own actions.  So tomorrow, I will try FT again- and say I want them to extend it further - I'm pretty sure now that this is something within the technicians scope,  so wish me luck!!

[Judith]

OK, more feedback, to finish this one off, I think.

Rang and got a lovely Irish man on the English speaking help line, so at least he understood what I was trying to do, but even he couldn't find a way of letting it ring when there was no answerphone attached, though he agreed (and this was the technical not the customer service size) that in theory it should be possible.  So, regretfully, on both our parts, we agreed that it would be best to to put on the messagerie again,  which I had to do by ringing the other bit of the English speaking helpline, the customer services, as he couldn't do it, and there I was back in the land of Franglais!!  However, the upshot of all this is that the messagerie is back on, and I have managed to personalise the welcome message, in the hope that if we don't get to the phone, at least we might know who has called.  And it might put off junk calls, though I have also subscribed to liste orange, and if we get junk mail, it'll be liste rouge.

Point is, since then, we've not had any calls at all.......... we'll see.