Answerphone not kicking in?

If you’ve switched to a digital phone line, your answerphone may not be taking messages as usual.

The reason is BT’s 1571 voicemail service may be grabbing the call first. On analogue lines, 1571 is optional and you have to pay for it, but on digital lines it’s included for free, and will kick in after 4 rings. If your answerphone is set to 6 rings, for example, then it will never take a message.

You can fix this by going into 1571 > Settings > Option 4, and set the number of rings to 7 or 11.

Or, you can set your answerphone for fewer rings.

It’s good to talk 😁