Intermittent Broken Landline Dial Tone

[Anonymous]

My dial tone intemittently becomes broken when I pick up the receiver. I don't know what this means as I don't have or use voicemail. 

Also I often I am unable to dial out. I enter the numbers wait for it to ring, but it just stays on the broken dial tone.

Often the line will go dead when I'm on the phone to people, however I've no idea if this is related on not. 

O2 support have been useless and have no idea why it is happening AND NOT ONE PERSON COULD EVEN TELL ME WHAT A BROKEN DIAL TONE MEANS.

I need this fixed as it makes running my business very difficult.

Any help much appreciated. 

[Anonymous]

Are you phoning from a landline or a mobile phone?

[Beenherebefore]

Presumably you have an O2 Business landline account ?

[Anonymous]

Yes I do, and broadband. Thanks for your quick replies!

[Cleoriff]

Sorry if this sounds a bit obvious...but have you checked the landline handset is functioning properly? My son had a similar problem a few weeks ago...rang BT to complain...and then found it was the handset...not the line?.

[Anonymous]

Could it be a handset problem maybe

[Beenherebefore]

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13567/c/345

Use the test socket as shown in the link, plug the phone into the test socket with nothing else plugged in and check if the dial tone is OK.

[Beenherebefore]

A further link to O2 Business help section if you haven't seen it >>

http://service.o2.co.uk/IQ/srvs/cgi-bin/webcgi.exe?New,KB=Companion,ts=o2smb,question=ref(user):str(...

[Anonymous]

I've checked with the manufacturers and they did a master reset and still them same issue.

I've tried it in the test socket and I hear the same tone. (I also tried this a while back and it intermittently didn't dial out as described above)

[Beenherebefore · Accepted solution]

If the fault is still there when plugged into the test socket then the problem is 99% external to your property.

But did you use the same phone for the test socket connection ? If so then you haven't eliminated that device as a possible cause. Get hold of a cheap corded phone from Argos (less than £10) or borrow a friend's or relation's) to make certain the fault is not your phone.

If the substitute phone still reproduces the fault in the test socket then O2 need to get BT Openreach engineer out to deal with the line/green cab/exchange fault.