Call Diversion issue on Optus Home Phone via NBN.

[rdrrrdrrr]

Hi,

Just transfered my Optus Cable service to NBN.  Got a strange issue when I divert my home phone number, using *7802xxxxxxx.   When someone calls my home phone,  the call is diverted,  but only gives two rings (about 9~10 seconds) brfoe it hangs up.  This is not usually enough time for me to get to the phone.   If I do get to it,  the call work fine however.

I've diverted my home phone to a Voafone mobile,  a Telstra mobile and another landline number and the behaviour is the same,  2 ring --> plonk.  I've has a  three or four "Case Managers" try to fix the issue but it seem to be in the "too hard" basket.

It used to work fine before the service was switched to NBN.

Anyone else got this problem? 

[rdrrrdrrr]

Using call divert feature code *78 operates differently on "ordinary" landlines vs NBN home phones.

A Google Search for "OPTUS Home phone features" point you to a page on the Optus website and  "Get to grips with your new land-line phone".   On call diversion it says:-

Lift the receiver and listen for the dial tone:
• Press the Divert On hotkey on your Optus handset and dial *78 and
wait for a dial tone.
• Punch in the number you want to divert calls to.
• Wait for the confirmation tone (2 short beeps) then hang up

This DOES NOT WORK on Optus NBN home phone via NBN.   If you dial *78,  the system just hangs up on you immediately after 2 beeps.  No dial tone to allow you to enter the number you want to divert to.

The Yes Crowd search for "Call divert" help turns up the following instructions:-

• Listen for a dial tone
• Dial *78
• Enter the phone number you want to divert to (including the area code for Fixed Line numbers)
• Listen for two short beeps (this confirms the diversion is active)

If you are accustomed to the old system and follow these instructions step by step, the system also hangs up on you after step 1 (Dial *78) and you don't get an opportunity to enter the divert number.

On Optus NBN home Phones you have to enter *78<Number to divert to> as one string of numbers with no gaps.

Maybe OPTUS could make this clearer on their website. 

[Ray_YC]

Thanks heaps for this very valuable feedback, rdrrrdrrr!

We have forwarded it on to our help and support team to review.

[Dan_C]

Hmm, the standard diversion ring time is set to 2 seconds by default. From memory, you can extend the ring time to 6 rings (15 seconds) or 8 rings  (25 seconds). 

Without the diversion, how many times does the phone ring before it diverts to Voicemail or hangs up? Did we pass along any fault reference numbers for this one? 

[rdrrrdrrr]

Hi @Dan_C ,

Are you saying that you only get two seconds to pick up the call at the diverted phone.  That sounds ridiculously short. (1 ring?).  ?????

That means if someone calls my home phone, while it is diverted to my mobile,  it will hang up on them after only two second of ring??  Are you sure you understand the problem?

Regards

[rdrrrdrrr]

Hi @DanC
Yes I have a case number (21767141) . Its been a week so far and I poor CSO does seem to be able to get anywhere with the problem. The service number is now "Not is service" if called and I cannot make calls "beep beep beep". Optus router says the phone is "resistered" though.

[rdrrrdrrr]

Hi @Dan_C,
Before the CSO nixed the service trying to fix the issue, the undiverted phone would ring a reasonable amount of time before Voicemail would pick it up, and certainly more than 10 seconds.
Anyway, doesn't a *78 diversion override the diversion to Voicemail?

[ZeeD]

Hi rdrrr,

Yes, this feature has all been screwed up since changing over to the NBN, I was just wondering if you have encountered any other problems with your diversion?

Like you say, there are no dial tones to prompt you to enter *78, however, as you suggest, if you just enter the number you want the diversion to, it still works.......I can work around that.....

The problem I've encountered and many others in the past, from the threads I've read, is that the diverted call only rings 3-4 times (6-8secs) and drops out before reaching the mobile's voicemail or if you don't answer the call within the 3-4 rings.

I was wondering if you have also encountered this problem of the call cutting out in such a short time?
I have spent hours with Optus customer complaints support and they cannot resolve this.........surely someone can adjust the settings and increase the ring time for these diverted calls??

Having dial tones and beep prompts when activating and de-activating this feature would also be very helpful......

[ZeeD]

Hi rdrr,

I came across another of your posts regarding the *78 diversion feature and I was wondering if you were having any other issues with the diversion, now I find out you obviously do and I completely understand your problem as I have this exact same issue, unfortunately I still do not have a solution, even after may hours on the phone with an Optus complaints department member, she has tried hard to work with her colleagues but they don't seem to understand this issue or how to resolve it 😞

The issue is that when you divert the landline phone using the code *78 to your mobile (or any type of phone), the call only rings 3-4 times (6-8 secs), this does not give you much time to pick up the call and not enough time to pick up the voicemail on the mobile if the call is not answered......the call simply drops out after 6-8 secs.

The solution would be to extend the ringing time of the call with this diversion in place, ie. using the *78 to manually divert calls.
However, only the Optus phone IT Engineers would be able to modify this setting on their end and perhaps change the default ring time to say 20-30 secs, but no one has yet been able to do this for me 😞

Just to highlight, this *78 diversion set up is different to the permanent diversion set up which can only be done on the Optus IT end, ie. you need to call Optus to set up a permanent diversion to a mobile or chose to have it diverted to the landline voicemail.

This permanent diversion works fine, when a call comes through to the landline phone, the phone rings 6-8 times and if not answered it will divert to the voicemail or to your mobile, depending on what you've asked to have it diverted to.
If you've asked to have it diverted to your mobile, it rings long enough, greater than 15 secs, to be able to pick up the call or be picked up by the mobile's voicemail....

The *78 feature should override this permanent diversion, and an incoming call to the landline phone should be immediately bypassed without ringing (or perhaps ring once, like it used to do before NBN) and diverted to the mobile and ring long enough (more than the default 6-8 secs) to be picked up by the recipient or picked up by the mobile's voicemail....

I hope someone from Optus recognises and understands this issue and can get the phone IT Engineers to modify this simple setting.........

Your help would be much appreciated and relieve much distress.....

[rdrrrdrrr]

Hi @ZeeD, @Dan_C
My woes started when I switched the phone service from Cable to NBN HFC. After quite a few hours of unhelpful CSO's confusing the issue with delay time to divert to Voice mail, unnecessary modem resets, NBN bridge resets, removing and repluging phone handsets etc etc, I finally got someone to understand the issue is with the ring time following diversion. It is currently set to 10 seconds I think and is WAY TOO SHORT.
In their assorted attempts to "fix" it, they nixed my service entirely on Thursday (24/10/19) afternoon at 15:00. I was told that this issue was affecting "quite a few" customers.
I got home tonight (26/10/19) at 21:00 and the phone service was back (as in make and receive calls), but *78 diversion was not working at oll. When you dial *7804xxxxxxxx you get "beep beep" hangup, but the diversion does not work. My phone still rings when it is called. 😞
It's going to be and interesting conversation with the billing folks when I get my first NBN bill, $21 more a month, for less than I had before. NBN willthe great, NOT. (althought none of this are NBN's problems, just Optus)