Quick short tones after dialling

Born To Be Mild

Hi all

Just wondering if anyone can tell me what the quick short tones are after dialling a number? It's like the engaged but a lot shorter. (Engaged is doooo doooo doooo ... but this is do do do do do ...)

I heard before that it means there is currently no available route to the destination number but I'm getting it a lot.

Mr. G

Series of Beeps After Dialing a Long Distance Number

The beeps indicate that your service has Personal Call Summary. To complete your long distance call after the beeps sound, you must enter an access code.

Born To Be Mild

Thanks, but these are local / national numbers.

Mr. G

Born To Be Mild wrote: »

Thanks, but these are local / national numbers.

They could mean that the number was ported, usually that's only mobiles though.

Delete all the messages on your phone and reboot it (if its upc)

Snaga

I am assuming that these calls do not connect, i.e. you hear the tones and you hang up and try again?

If so - then its known as a Fast Busy tone and usually indicates congestion (which could be due to a fault) in one of the networks that the call flows through. If it is regular but intermittent then its likely just congestion somewhere.

Standard procedure here is to log it to your own phone provider and they will chase it through their upstream carriers till it gets fixed (or reroute calls for that destination to another carrier if the responsible carrier cant/wont fix it quickly).

Solair

That rapid busy tone is known as a 'reorder tone'. In Ireland it's just a generic error message from the exchange telling you that it couldn't connect your call but it does not have a voice announcement to explain why not.

Network congestion is incredibly unusual these days unless there's some kind of physical damage to fibre connections or something.

It will crop up if :

The phone you're calling has been left off the hook for a long time, or there's a line fault e.g. the line's been cut / is down.

The local switch can't figure out how to route the call based on the number you've entered e.g. someone's ported to another service like UPC, but the port hasn't worked correctly, someone's setup call forwarding to an invalid number etc etc.

You've dialed a totally invalid number, and the exchange doesn't have a voice announcement to play to you.

Calls are not being routed from your line : e.g. something isn't setup with your carrier, you haven't paid your bill, call barring is active etc.

Some exchanges just play out that rapid busy tone for all errors, others play out voice announcements explaining what's gone wrong. It depends on who your calls are being carried by and what hardware and software are running at your local exchange and on the switches owned by your carrier.

If you keep getting the rapid busy tone, try the call on your mobile and see if it displays any error message.

The telephone network in Ireland's totally digital, regardless of which provider you're using. When an error crops up the signalling system sends a message. The local exchange (if it's a bit primitive / old) may not have the ability to make a voice announcement, or it may not have an appropriate recorded message to play out to explain what's going on. So, if you try it on a mobile or a VoIP phone with a display, you might get a message displayed that gives more info than just the generic fast engaged tone.

If you still can't get through and you know the number's valid, report a fault to whoever provides your phone service.

If you're getting it a lot with every call, you might have some problem with carrier pre-select (if you're not using eircom) or an exchange fault of some sort.

Try dialing these codes. The exchange will tell you which carrier it's routing calls through for each category below:


19 800 - International Calls
19 822 - Local Calls
19 801 - National and mobile calls.

If you get anything unexpected announced back, you know you've got some problem with your routing!

(Just beware of rebrands e.g. if it says Perlico, it might mean Vodafone @ Home and UTV comes up as something weird as they use wholesale providers like Cable and Wireless)