Osem
18-11-2008, 11:49
Hi guys. My elderly mum in law has been having an intermittent problem with her household phone service for around a year, ever since she changed providers from Powergen (with Tesco BB) to TalkTalk (with their own BB). From what I can gather the problem manifests itself in calls being suddenly cut off, forcing her to redial the number. Sometimes she can immediately redial with no problems, other times she can't get through again for some time. She's reported this several times and been instructed to do the obvious fault finding things like unplugging her phones for a period of time and TalkTalk's response has been that they've tested the line and can find no fault remotely.
At present she has 2 home phones - 1 corded model and 1 cordless. At first I thought the cordless phone may be the root of problem (e.g. failing battery) but it happens on both phones and she seems pretty sure that it only happens when she's making a call. This would seem to rule out the possibility that her equipment is the cause of the issue and that it's more likely to be something else.
Her main concern other than the loss of service is that if she calls an engineer out she WILL be charged. I've told her that what they've probably said to her in the past is that she MAY be charged for a callout and that's normal if a fault is subsequently found to be the result of the subscriber's own equipment. Due to this, she appears to be happier to replace her phones but I still think the cause is something else and that she'll be wasting her money without solving the problem.
Can anyone offer any feedback/advice on this please. Sadly, she needs her landline as the mobile phone coverage in her area is very poor and she often can't get a signal.
Cheers! :tu:
At present she has 2 home phones - 1 corded model and 1 cordless. At first I thought the cordless phone may be the root of problem (e.g. failing battery) but it happens on both phones and she seems pretty sure that it only happens when she's making a call. This would seem to rule out the possibility that her equipment is the cause of the issue and that it's more likely to be something else.
Her main concern other than the loss of service is that if she calls an engineer out she WILL be charged. I've told her that what they've probably said to her in the past is that she MAY be charged for a callout and that's normal if a fault is subsequently found to be the result of the subscriber's own equipment. Due to this, she appears to be happier to replace her phones but I still think the cause is something else and that she'll be wasting her money without solving the problem.
Can anyone offer any feedback/advice on this please. Sadly, she needs her landline as the mobile phone coverage in her area is very poor and she often can't get a signal.
Cheers! :tu: