Any telecommunications experts on here?

[CharlieOneSix]

Mrs C16 has been very deaf in one ear for years and now has suddenly become profoundly deaf in her other ear. After medical and hearing tests she has been fitted with two Phonak Venture 'receiver in the ear' hearing aids - and whilst you almost need a second mortgage to pay for them they are absolutely fantastic having only come on the market in March. However she finds making telephone calls still a little difficult so I bought the compatible Phonak Dect 2 landline telephone which transmits the sound directly from the phone to both hearing aids. Again it's fantastic and has changed her life.

One problem though - I sent the phone back last week as it wasn't showing the name of any callers who were stored in the phone database and only intermittently showed their number. Mostly it showed 'number 'unknown'. CLI is activated on my UK BT residential line and worked perfectly on my other phones.

After many email exchanges with Phonak they asked if CLIP - Caller Line Identification Presentation - was active on my line as the phone needed that to show the caller's number. I told them I didn't know but all my other phones showed the caller's number and if in the phone database, their name.

The replacement phone arrived today and I have just found out it has the same problem.

Question: Do any BT residential lines have CLIP - as far as I can make out by googling it seems to be available on order on ISDN business lines. We live in remote countryside and do not have any green pavement cabinets - the line is 'direct to the exchange' some 5km away.

This Phonak Dect 2 phone, like the compatible Venture hearing aids, is also newly available and I suspect it has not been properly tested for the UK residential market.

[Happy SLF]

Hello C16, I have copied and pasted your post and sent it to 3 ex B.T. managers. Now as they used to work with tools
they aren't as bad as you may think

I left B.T. in 1991 so am unable to answer, I will let you know what they say if they respond.

[CharlieOneSix]

Wow, that was quick! Many thanks NSLF - much appreciated!

[unifoxos]

If your other phones are showing the number you must have it - therefore there is a problem with the Phonak. My naturally suspicious nature suggests to me that they (well the chips inside) are designed primarily for the USA, and the conversion to British spec is not up to scratch.

[CharlieOneSix]

The problem seems to be that the Phonak phone requires CLIP and BT residential lines only support CLI - and the only CLIP reference on the BT website mentions business lines. It will be interesting what Phonak have to say today when I phone them - I think you are right in that the British spec has been cocked up.

[handsfree]

CLIP is the ISDN equivalent of Caller Line Indentification (CLI) which is what is being presented to your handset from the network.
As the CLI function works on your other phones I would say that the problem lies with the Phonak equipment.

[henry crun]

Errr - did a bit of reading about this, what a muddle they all make of the various systems!

The two questions to ask first are:

1. Is the phone set to UK? See page 25 of user manual.

2. Does the wireless base unit have the latest UK-compatible software update? If any.

Apparently there is an incompatibility between the BT version of CLIP and the modems commonly used. It is likely that the problem lies in this area, and there is no remedy apart from a hardware update or sending the dam' thing back and buying the uk guaranteed-to-work equivalent.

For the sake of your blood pressure, it may be easier to use a plugged-into-bt-line caller display unit. Defies the logic of having cordless, but at least will be guaranteed to work.

[CharlieOneSix]

Thanks for the replies - henry, yes it is set to 'Great Britain'. I have no idea about the base unit software state but the phone only came onto the UK market in March.

I spent an hour on the BT chat line this morning and tried to get their technical people 'overseas' to answer the simple question "Do BT residential lines support CLIP and if so how can I get it". CLI has been activated on my line for the 20 years I've lived here but they insisted it wasn't but eventually capitulated and admitted it was activated.

This was agent Parul's reply after an hour:

Parul: Charlie I have looked it up for you. I cannot find any specific information for CLI or CLIP as we just have one standard caller display.

Because my wife is profoundly deaf and this phone is superb the way it sends the sound directly to both her hearing aids as long as it's with 10 inches of one ear I'm having to keep the phone. I have put a splitter at the wall socket and connected both the Phonak phone and my previous standard Panasonic phone so at least we can see the name/number of the caller on the latter and answer the call with the Phonak.

So I'm back in direct discussion with Phonak Technical Support yet again. Have told them they should either withdraw the phone from the UK market or make it clear, rather that saying in small print 'CLIP compatible' that the phone is not compatible with the UK CLI standard. Suggested that when they have redesigned the phone for the UK market they replace ours so we can make full use of its functions.