Just been reconnected to BT. Was told would be switched on by midday today. If I ring my new number, I get a ringing tone, but if I try to dial out there's no tone. Is this normal or should I be back on to them?

When you say you get a ringing tone, do you mean you can hear a ringing tone on the phone ytou're calling from or you get a ringing tone on a phone plugged in in the house?

When we had the BT line switched on, we phoned at 09:10 and before 11:00 the phone was on and working.

Though since we dropped ADSL and managed to get cable broadband, we saw no use for a phone line and use VoIP instead with an adaptor so we use standard phones as we would when connected to BT.

Yeah I worded that bad. If I dial the BT number from my mobile, it rings, but the landline makes no noise.

And I spelt my reply badly.

Anyway, that's what I call 'electronic ring tone' - it's meaningless.

Good question of Heinz, It looks like the phone is not set up properly and you need to contact BT.


Just to help you understand how it works the exchange sends out two distint items one to the caller and the other to the called person.
The caller is sent a sound (ringing tone)
the called person is sent an electrical current (which you can't hear) which then makes the 'bell' in the telephone ring.

Caller <----------ringing tone----------| Exchange |--------ringing current-----------> Called (Bell)

So if you can hear a ringing tone, but the phone doesn't physically ring, then there is no connection fron the exchange to your phone.

Cheers guys. Shall get onto BT in the morning.

Gave them a call, they said it wasn't completed at the exchange and with today being Sunday will be completed tomorrow, which is fine as I've not yet cancelled my NTL number incase things went wrong (which will likely happen cancelling my NTL anyway!!).

And, most likely, NTL will carry on billing you even if you manage to get them to confirm the cancellation in writing!