Phone connected to phone port on Archer VR1600 does not auto hang up when distant party hangs up.

[eladb]

Hi,

my elderly mother has an HFC NBN connection with TPG and an Archer VR1600V gateway.

The base station of her Uniden analog cordless phone is connected to the green phone port on the gateway.

At the end of a phone call, when the distant party hangs up, my mother's cordless phone stays connected, resulting in all incoming call attempts being blocked by a busy signal. Being elderly, she often forgets to manually hang up the phone especially if it was an incoming call.

I think that previously with the old PSTN phone network, once the distant party hung up, after a timeout period of 30 secs I think, the local phone would auto hang up.

Why does this not happen with the NBN and the Archer VR1600V gateway ?

Does this mean her old Uniden cordless phone is not compatible with the NBN or is there a configuration setting somewhere in the gateway or the phone?

This is quite problematic since when my mother forgets to manually hang up, since she doesn't use a mobile phone, then she can no longer be contacted !

Thanks for your advice or suggestions;;;;

[BasilDV]

Hi @eladb,

Welcome to TPG Community and thanks for raising this with us.

This case is not the issue with the NBN or Archer router, but it is a known issue for cordless/old phones.

You may check the discussion on the whirlpool forum about this issue.

Regards,

BasilDV

[eladb]

Hi BasilDV,

thanks for your kind reply and for that Whirlpool Forum link, all of which which I read with interest.

However most of the discussion in that link, of many years ago, missed the fact that the PSTN exchanges do indeed send a call termination signal (CPC Disconnect Signal) when the remote party hangs up.

They do this by simply sending a polarity reversal of the line voltage or a zero volts line voltage after about 60-90 seconds, regardless of who initiated the call. This allows ALL ELECTRONIC PHONES to hang up automatically.

Obviously the old electro-mechanical phones could not hang up automatically as the handset needed to be physically replaced back on the hook switch in order to break the contacts. But certainly all electronic phones could respond to this CPC Disconnect Signal correctly.

So clearly with the NBN, which uses the SIP protocol for all phone calls; there would indeed by a BYE data packet sent to the local gateway/router when the remote phone hangs up.

So now my question is, when the Archer VR1600V receives this BYE data packet, why it is NOT sending the CPC Disconnect Signal to the analog phone connected to it's phone port, in order to force any electronic cordless phone to hang up? This is clearly NOT happening and I suspect it might be an oversight in the router firmware.

Could you please follow this up with TP-Link, who make the Archer VR1600V, and ask them if their hardware is capable of sending this CPC Disconnect Signal and if there current firmware correctly interprets the BYE data packet in order to send the CPC Disconnect Signal?

This is obviously a serious issue for many elderly people.

Thanks...Dale BARBER

[Anonymous]

Hi @eladb,

Thanks for the additional details. We will pass this to our Team for additional reference we'll provide you an update when it become available.

Cheers!

[Anonymous]

Hi @eladb,

We'd like to confirm the Uniden handset model and if it is compatible with NBN service. Also, is there a chance to use any alternative handset if available to rule out the issue?

We tried to use your community details to pull up the account unfortunately it does not show any matching records. For us to proceed with further investigation, PM us your account details (Username/Customer ID together with the address on file).

In case you need a reference:

How do I private message (PM) in the community

Cheers!

[eladb]

Hey Shane,

it's almost 1 month since I PM'd you the details you requested and I haven't heard back from you.

Uniden claim on their website that ALL their cordless phones are NBN compatible.

My mother's cordless phone is the DECT 2035+1 model. I may have got this model number wrong previously but in any case, Uniden say it IS indeed NBN compatible.

Do you have any more information from TP-Link concerning the Archer VR1600V router and whether it correctly responds on receiving the BYE data packet (when the remote party hangs up) and correctly sends the CPC Disconnect Signal to the attached analogue cordless phone?

Cheers...Dale

[eladb]

Guys, it's now 1 month since I PM'd you the details you requested and I'm not hearing back from you!

Can you please respond to my issue?

Thanks...Dale