In reply to a post by ian72:

Not easy if they are doing the dialling from the cabinet or anywhere else outside the home.

Quite so, I didn't see hide nor hair of him so presume he was ringing from the cabinet. He actually rang me as well to tell me that the noisy line was sorted out.

In reply to a post by jelv:

Does it work on Sky and TalkTalk lines?

It does on our TalkTalk line.

Well when I used 17070 from my talktalk line, as soon as I'd diallled the number it connects and my std code and phone number is announced twice and as soon as its completed that message it reverts to the dial tone, so I hardly call that a quiet line test.
I thought that the quiet line line was exactly that - no message or dial tone, just silence so as to detect any noise on the line, or have I got it wrong ?

In reply to a post by stepdey:

I thought that the quiet line line was exactly that - no message or dial tone, just silence so as to detect any noise on the line, or have I got it wrong ?

That�s right, but I thought this thread was about an alternative to 123, which also isn�t a quiet line?

Indeed, if the test is just to see the line is able to make a call then doing that to the free 17070 number is a viable alternative. I think I vaguely remember that the LLU operators implement their own 17070 so whilst the BT one has (had?) the quiet line test the others may not.

Yep, as stepdey said, on a TT LLU line you don't get the options you do on a BTW one, it just says "This circuit is defined as (number), this circuit is defined as (number)" then hangs up on you.

The OR 17070 responds with the Line Number, then offers 4 Options, pressing 2 being the Quiet Line Test.

Option 1 is "Ring Back"

Options 3 & 4 need a PIN Number issued to staff only; but 1 & 2 are freely available.

With Option 2, QLT, there is an initial announcement of "Quiet Line Test", repeated about every 15 seconds.

I recommend listening for about 5 total, lasting about 1 minute.

I check about once per month - so short and no direct cost.

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It is a long time since I used the SKY variant, so not absolutely sure of the selections; but Option 4 was its QLT.

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I also remember checking on both the BT and SKY BB Faults pages; and both recommend the QLT either as the First or Second User Tests.

In reply to a post by stepdey:

Well when I used 17070 from my talktalk line, as soon as I'd diallled the number it connects and my std code and phone number is announced twice and as soon as its completed that message it reverts to the dial tone, so I hardly call that a quiet line test.

That's what was wriggling around at the back of my mine. Thanks .

It's the Quiet Line bit that is missing, not the number.

Post deleted by RobertoS - duplicate due to lag.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 19-Oct-17 12:03:39)

BT, TalkTalk, Sky et al. could very easily solve this problem by making 123 a free number. They cannot be making any serious money from this particular scam nowadays, by which I mean charging for a call to a machine. Who on earth needs to call 123 to find out the time nowadays? Even if you don't have an actual clock it's available on umpteen home devices!!

Incidentally, My line is with Origin. I never make chargeable outgoing calls and do not have Caller Display enabled on it. Nonetheless Origin have just charged me 28p for 'deleting CLI' or somesuch. Another scam? Or another engineer dialling a simple number as a test?