What are NTL doing to calls to mobiles?

kelraine · 13-01-2007, 22:38

I've noticed for the last few months that when I get a call on my mobile, from my NTL phone, I get no caller ID and the line quality is terrible (really bad echo and lots of hiss). If I call back from the mobile, the quality is fine.
I actually changed mobile phone providers recently and am having exactly the same thing happen.

What's going on? It seems a bit dodgy to me - I'm sure NTL would never dream of using something like a SIM box, so it all seems rather strange.

Has anybody else noticed this?

gazzzman · 14-01-2007, 01:08

hi there!
cant say I have noticed the problem

I use NTL to Orange almost every day and it has been fine!
oh well maybe your problem is transient in nature and will "go away" on its own

cheers
Garry

14-01-2007, 08:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by kelraine

.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Never.

Any call from my line at home to my mobile is always clear and crisp.

jellybaby · 14-01-2007, 09:05

The caller ID to the mobile sometimes doesn't work. About 90% of time it works though.

kelraine · 14-01-2007, 10:33

Yeah, I would say it affects me about 30% of the time - it's very strange though, I used to work on telephone switches and I can't understand how they can be losing caller ID information.. the quality of the line when it happens sounds almost as if the call has passed through the internet at some point - like a very bad voice over IP call.

Like I said, strange!

Nikesh · 14-01-2007, 11:09

I've never had a problem with it.....

browneggsandham · 14-01-2007, 12:15

Do you mean that the number is showing up as Withheld on the mobile??

Shaun · 14-01-2007, 15:49

Perhaps they are routing the calls in a strange way. I know when you use a company like 1899 you can sometimes loose CID due to the routing of the call.

As for simboxes - strange you should mention them - I only read this article yesterday!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/12/mobile_sim_box/

Jon T · 14-01-2007, 17:03

This happens to me, I have two mobiles, a work one on Orange, and a personal one on o2, if I get a call from home on either of them it's pot luck if our phone number is sent or not, sometimes the mobile reports it as witheld sometimes just unknown. Call quality is normally good, but not always.

sollp · 14-01-2007, 17:45

I think you'll find this is because they are routing the call through a cheaper carrier that probably dosen't use Caller ID,(or can't carry it). This dosen't happen on every call so you don't see it all the time. I've noticed it on landline-landline calls as well.

kelraine · 14-01-2007, 19:16

Yeah - the caller ID comes up as 'Private Caller'. I suspect they are using some ..interesting.. routing to save a bit of cash, but I'm still surprised at the call quality when this happens.
It would be interesting to hear if anybody from NTL knows what's happening.

beaker 2 · 17-01-2007, 14:52

I can confirm that Ntl/Telewest do indeed use cheap carriers in its network who do not pass on the CLI . I'm not sure why the quality is suffering unless they are using VOIP too. I've heard only about 10% of calls suffer this lack of CLI but it may vary at times of day and how your calls are routed.

m419 · 11-02-2007, 20:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by kelraine

I've noticed for the last few months that when I get a call on my mobile, from my NTL phone, I get no caller ID and the line quality is terrible (really bad echo and lots of hiss). If I call back from the mobile, the quality is fine.
I actually changed mobile phone providers recently and am having exactly the same thing happen.

What's going on? It seems a bit dodgy to me - I'm sure NTL would never dream of using something like a SIM box, so it all seems rather strange.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Yeah I noticed this on Telewest, this problem usually happens during weekday mornings. But calling mobiles on the 3 mobile network is always terrible, however if you call someone using 3 mobile but have a ported number from another network, then there shouldn't problem as the calls are being routed through the previous network. Therefore, its got something to do with the mobile network.What is a sim box?I have called mobiles from Spectrum interactive payphones (New world) which use the NTL CPS service over a BT line and experienced no problems, but when using an interphone payphone which used a cable line, the problem happened again.