Can't receive from landlines!

[Kiltpin]

Discovered yesterday (20 Jan 2021) that I am not receiving calls from landlines. From mobiles there is no problem. The landline pretends to call, but after 1 1/2 rings it cuts out (nothing on my phone).

Motorola Moto e4

Is this something I have done? Is it a known problem? Can I change back?

Help, please!

Regards

Kiltpin

 

[Hadron]

What country are you in? I'm guessing UK or Europe from the fact that you said "mobile" rather than "cell", but as there are differences between telecoms systems in different countries it might be good to confirm.

I once had a week or two of no calls because I set up a divert while visiting a family member who lived in a coverage blackspot and forgot to cancel it, so I would suggest checking in your phone app that you don't have any diverts set up. But something that only affects landlines is hard to explain that way. You could check that you don't have an option set in the phone app to block calls from unidentified numbers, but again I assume that at least some landlines are recognised, plus I can't see why that would ring 1.5 times. Maybe try clearing data for the phone app: that would put its settings to default, but shouldn't affect your contact list (which is owned by the "contact storage" system app) and I don't think would even clear your call log. But it would be nicer to identify the cause and deal with that selectively.

I don't suppose you've spoken to your service provider, to see whether they can see what's going on?

 

[Kiltpin]

Hi Hadron, thanks for your reply. Yes I live in the UK - in the middle of Thetford Forest in Norfolk. It is a bit of a signal desert - I lose signal twice between my village and the local town, 6 miles away. But the problem is also happening in the local large town.
I was waiting in the Hospital car park for a call saying that my wife's treatment was finished. No call arrived. I was cold. I went back into the reception to be told that they were trying to call me for an hour. Took wife home. Checked on our land line - same thing - RIIIIIIINNNNNG____Ring click, then nothing. Called three other mobiles and each could call me back.

I have had the phone for 3+ years with no problems. I have no extra apps except for a small game that I play once a week for about five minutes while waiting for fast food.

I don't know when this started (last landline I know about was 1st of December 2020), but could it have anything to do with Flash no longer working?

My service provider is FreedomPop, which is piggybacked off 3. I have just emailed them and am waiting for a reply.

Regards

Kiltpin

 

[Hadron]

I don't think Flash should be anything to do with telephony, even less so for selective blocking of calls.

If it was just one landline you could imagine possible answers, but landlines generally is odd.

 

[The_Chief]

I can't imagine any cell phone OS having the firmware programming required to distinguish between landline, cell, and VOIP calls. That's a lot of programming by developers and... why? This seems like a restriction at the carrier level. I don't know why; or if someone had called FreedomPop with a request to block all landline calls to their phone and your number was entered in error (I know... unthinkable, right?). That's my best SWAG.

 

[Hadron]

I can't imagine any cell phone OS having the firmware programming required to distinguish between landline, cell, and VOIP calls. That's a lot of programming by developers and... why? This seems like a restriction at the carrier level. I don't know why; or if someone had called FreedomPop with a request to block all landline calls to their phone and your number was entered in error (I know... unthinkable, right?). That's my best SWAG.

Actually North America is unusual in using "geographical" numbers for cellphones, while in most countries they have their own number ranges. For example in the UK mobile numbers all start "07", whereas landlines start "01" or "02", and hence distinguishing them would be a trivial piece of coding.

That said, it's not a feature I've ever seen on a phone, and nor can I see the use case (another consequence of distinct number ranges is that mobile users here don't pay to receive calls: the caller knows they are calling a mobile, and so any higher interconnect charges are billed to the caller rather than the callee. Hence there's no motivation for a blanket block on landline calls I can imagine). If it was just one landline you could imagine a block on calling mobiles (though I've only ever seen blocks on premium rate numbers), but I'd expect that to give a message rather than 1.5 rings. It makes me wonder whether this is a technical problem in FreedomPop's systems rather than an actual setting anywhere.

 

[Saq123]

Discovered yesterday (20 Jan 2021) that I am not receiving calls from landlines. From mobiles there is no problem. The landline pretends to call, but after 1 1/2 rings it cuts out (nothing on my phone).

Motorola Moto e4

Is this something I have done? Is it a known problem? Can I change back?

Help, please!

Regards

Kiltpin

I have the same problems with my phone, i can't buy spotify plays more(((

 

[Hadron]

I have the same problems with my phone, i can't buy spotify plays more(((

Just to be sure: your problem is that you cannot receive calls from landlines? I ask because it's not obvious to me what that has to do with Spotify.