Help "Network Busy". Outgoing landlines only

[Jayelem]

I have a Motorola Moto G, 3rd Gen, running Marshmallow. For some months, it's been fine, but for a week now, every time I try to make a landline call, I get "Network busy" every single time. Other phones in the house connect every time, and other networks' SIMs also work perfectly every time with my phone. I can call mobiles OK and both mobiles and landlines can call me. I can also make landline calls away from home, but every landline call with my SIM at home fails. I've re-started the phone, manually re-selected the network, run the phone in safe mode cleared the cache and force-stopped the phone app. I'm reluctant to factory-reset my phone, as I don't believe it will help. My provider (the Post Office, via EE) have been helpful, but they now say the problem is signal strength in my home area, and there's no more they can do. I don't know if this makes sense when I can receive mobile and landline calls fine and every other phone in the house (different providers, but all EE) work perfectly. I'd like to stay with PO as their customer service is so good, but is my only option now a PAC code?

 

[Slug]

It could be down to signal strength, but PO should be asking themselves why the problem has only shown itself recently and also why only calls placed to landlines are affected. I'm no expert, but from your very comprehensive description of the symptoms I'd suggest that the issue may be with how calls to BT's landline network from PO subscribers are handled by the parent provider (EE).

 

[Jayelem]

Update: PO couldn't fix this, so I switched to Virgin and.... same problem!! I went through L1 support several times (new SIM, restart, clear cache etc) but no effect. Finally, after a few internet searches, I rang them and said "this only happens after porting, and can only be fixed by you refreshing my phone's routing or similar. Nothing I can do with the phone will affect it" I was put through to the network team, and about 30seconds later, problem fixed! Surely the phone companies know this, an could have saved me a month of flaky service?

 

[AZgl1500]

what do you mean by "after porting" ??

glad you got it resolved...

 

[Jayelem]

"After Porting" means I'd used a PAC code to swap the new SIM to my old number. It seems that in this process, the routing info can get lost somehow.

 

[AZgl1500]

Thank you, I have not changed carriers in 20+ years, so that never came up.

I did experience "one issue" vaguely like that.

I moved from Arizona to Oklahoma, and got tired of the "wrong numbers" that kept following me...

so, I had my cellphone number changed to a local "landline prefix"...
that caused some interesting things to happen, that weren't resolved w/o a lot of Network Technical help. Verizon had to send me out a new SIM card to fix the problem.