It seems whenever I need to make a phone call on the landline, it’s broken. Yesterday I picked up the landline handset and it was dead. No dial tone. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

I tried the usual steps at first (unplug it, plug it back in) but no joy. Onto the broadband I went. Works fine. Weird. I’ve had this before and leaving stuff unplugged overnight seemed to fix it, but on this occasion it didn’t help. So today, Di picked up a cheap landline handset from the Asda and she tried it while I was at work, but still no joy. Which only means one thing… calling the provider :(

Before I called, I removed the bottom half of the master socket fascia (which also removed the extension to the router from the line) and plugged the phone directly into the test socket. Still nothing. Right, let’s get them called!

Spoke to a guy called Andrew. Very helpful, quite witty too (an unusual finding with call centre staff - they’re typically quite stiff). An intrusive test was ran on my line and it’s found a fault, so it’s been escalated and I should get a response in the next 5 working days.

Fortunately the internet still works! But on checking the router status, it’s only synced at just under 8Mb (it usually syncs at around 17Mb) so clearly something is borked. Fingers crossed!

Update: 20/12/2015 The line was back working the next day after I left the devices all unplugged overnight. Nice!

However… No response was received in 5 days (as promised). I could see no mention of the fault ticket on my account when I logged in via the website OR via the service app… despite the provider advising I should be able to view this information in the app. Not impressed.

So, as I’m out of contract, I’ve placed an order with another provider. That’ll sort it out!