Toll Free Numbers Not Working? Start Here

An 1800 number that suddenly stops working is almost never a mystery. The format has been in Australian use for decades and the failure modes are few and well understood: something in the dialling, the caller's network, the routing configuration, a port in progress, or the account state behind the number. This page walks through each cause in the order that finds the fault fastest — starting with the checks that cost nothing.

First, separate the two sides of the call

Every toll-free call has a caller side and a business side, and the fault hides on one of them:

• Caller-side symptoms — one person cannot get through, but others can. That pattern points to their phone, their carrier or their dialling, not your number. Ask them to redial all 10 digits with no area code, from a standard Australian phone.
• Business-side symptoms — nobody gets through, or callers report the same behaviour every time. That points to routing, the port or the account, and the checklist below applies.

If callers hear ringing but no one picks up, an engaged tone at odd hours, or an after-hours message in the middle of the day, the number is working — the routing behind it is misconfigured. That is good news: it is fixed in the console, not in a carrier ticket queue.

The checks that find the fault fastest

The ordered list above covers the full sequence. Two of the steps deserve extra detail, because they are the ones businesses most often miss.

Routing drift. Time-based and overflow routing are set up once and then forgotten. When the business changes — a new office, a staff member leaving, different opening hours on Saturdays — the old rules keep running. A number that "stopped working" last Tuesday may simply be sending every call to an answer point that no longer exists, or cutting calls off at an after-hours threshold that no longer matches your hours. Open the console, read every rule top to bottom, and compare each one against how the business runs today. The full range of routing behaviour is described in how 1800 numbers work.

Porting windows. A port is the one change that takes days rather than seconds, and during the cutover the number can misroute or fail outright. If a port was recently requested — or a previous provider was supposed to release the number — confirm completion before anything else. Once the number is live on the new service, the porting process itself is explained in 1300 number porting; the mechanics are the same for 1800 formats.

What a working number should do

When every link in the chain is correct, the behaviour is unglamorous: the caller dials ten digits, hears a ring or a menu, and reaches a person or a voicemail-to-email inbox. Overflow quietly moves callers to the next answer point when the first is busy, and time-based routing switches destinations at the hours you set. If any part of that description does not match what your callers experience, the mismatch tells you which step above to revisit.

For the caller's view of the format — costs, dialling and what happens after the call connects — the parallel guide is how to call an 1800 number. If the cost model is part of the problem, the economics of the format are set out in toll-free number cost, with the month-by-month view in toll-free number cost per month. And if the number has become more trouble than it is worth, replacing it is straightforward: search for a replacement in the available numbers tool and connect it with fresh routing.