Hi guys. Thanks for tagging me. I can give you an update some months on. Good news is that my 0345 calling issue seems to be fixed. I say "seems to be" because it was on and off for a bit. I called my bank just now for you with some trepidation but it was working today.
Bad news for anyone with this issue is that it may be wider spread than 0345. I had to call an ambulance for someone, and after waiting 20 mins to get through to a dispatcher I had exactly the same experience that when they finally answered, they weren't able to hear me at all.
I mention this because the fixes I used were painful, but probably worth the pain if there's a chance you may be in the same emergency situation.
So - an update on my pertinent symptoms. My new phone was an iPhone16 Pro with a physical SIM. I transferred my profiles/data from my iPhone14 Pro using Apple's standard helper. O2 screwed up my port-in to the network, and it took 10 weeks to get everything fully working, although there are still some database issues about recognising me as a customer sometimes.
Some steps to try and understand your problem: First, call the 0345 number from another iPhone/SIM, also on O2 and check the number works OK. Then confirm that your new phone/SIM is still not working. If so, try switching SIMs between the phones and then call the 0345 number from your new phone/other SIM combination and your new SIM/other phone. What I found - surprisingly - was that my SIM card worked just fine in the other phone, but my new phone/other SIM combination still didn't work.
So this pointed the problem at the phone, not the O2 network, I spent 2 hours on the phone with an Apple specialist who was very engaged and tried a whole bunch of things and flexed many settings that I didn't even know existed. Eventually he said that he suspected something in the transfer process from my old iPhone14 to the iPhone16.
If you haven't already tried it, you can try Settings>General>Transfer or Reset Iphone>Reset>Reset Network settings. This didn't work for me, and be aware that this will delete your various wifi networks.
What DID work for me was Settings>General>Transfer or Reset Iphone>Reset>Reset All settings
Note that this is a painful-ish step, because you may have to reset a lot of passwords or tokens and basic phone settings - it took me a couple of hours after this step to add all my passwords and set my phone up. However, the good news is that I could suddenly make 0345 calls!
If this doesn't work for you, then your next step would be to back your phone up, and then restore it to factory settings. Do a basic set up and then try calling the 0345 number. If it works then you will know that it's something to do with the apps/data/settings you have in your data and then at this point you'll probably have to try rebuilding your phone stack by adding your apps back in one by one.
Hope this helps someone, please do post if you find other ways of fixing.
