What’s a call barring? One-way bar, two-way bar explained!!

You may have heard about call barring or calls barred which means the operator restricts your ability to either receive or make a call or both. If you ever experience it, you may be either one-way or two-way barred. In this post, we explain what it is and the reasons for call barring.

It is a normal occurrence for mobile phone users. If you are on any network be it Nepal Telecom (Ntc), Ncell, or Smart Cell, you might have had to grapple with call barring once or many times.

First, let’s find out what call-barring means:

What is called barring?

From the operator’s side, call barring is a condition in which the company blocks a user from receiving a call or making a call. Depending on the policy and situation, a user can be barred from both services. It takes control away from you of the telecom service for your subscription. When you are barred, your call service is limited in one of the two way.

There are two types of call barring- one-way and two-way.

What is one-way and two-way call barring?

In the case when you find yourself one-way barred, mostly it means that the operator disabled you from making outgoing calls. You can continue receiving calls but won’t be able to place a call. Even if you try to call someone, you get a call announcement giving you the confirmation of the one-way bar imposed on your subscription.

Find more: List of call announcements and error messages in Nepal | call busy, switch off, etc.

Two-way call barring means the operator has stripped you of both receiving and calling abilities. You can neither receive nor make a call when you are two-way barred from calling from any network. Not being able to receive calls due to call barring is also called an incoming call bar and the inability to call is defined as an outgoing call bar.

Reasons for call barring

Call barring occurs due to the lack of balance, with validity being more common. Below are some key reasons for call barring.

1. Lack of balance or recharge

If you have not recharged your SIM card for a while, you may get a one-way call restriction. Operators set a policy on when to restrict call services of users over the lack of balance. If a user can’t meet the criteria, the telco first imposes one-way call barring and then completely blocks call services with a two-way bar.

Solution: As obvious, recharging your phone’s balance removes call barring from your operator and restores your service to normal.

Check out: How to Recharge Ntc, Ncell, Smart Cell Balance Online?

2. Validity

You must be familiar that your SIM card has its validity which means you can continue using the services from the SIM card till a fixed date. During this period, you can dial or receive calls and even if you are out of the balance, you can still receive calls. Extending validity requires a continuous recharge of balance. But once you miss out, you get your calls barred by the telco. So, even if you have enough balance for calls or SMS, you won’t be able to use the services.

Solution: If it’s the case, do recharge your balance and see if it works or re-register with the telco within 1 year. At times, telcos might recycle SIM for a prolonged state of passivity (1 year after the validity date). So you need to be careful of keeping your SIM’s validity date.

Also read: Why NTA’s 2 SIM Cards Regulation Has Not Been Effective?

3. Network issue

Telecommunication works with man-made infrastructure. While it is supposed to work flawlessly and it does most of the time, it is not perfect. Due to equipment malfunction, software, or power issues, telecom services are likely to suffer disruption. During these times, you can find your services barred one-way or two-way even if you are within the valid parameters.

Solution: If the network is to blame, you can leave it up to your operator. When the system comes back to full function, the abruptly occurred call restriction should go away on its own. If it doesn’t, contact with the company may suffice.

4. Technical reasons

During network issues, problems can occur such as in the billing leading to call barring. Recently, when Nepal Telecom (Ntc) saw issues in its billing, users reported missing balances which resulted in one-way and two-way call barring.

Solution: Again, such issues arising from the operator’s side are resolved by them. So, we can only be patient and wait for the service restoration. If problems persist, you may have to contact the operator.

Check out: Causes of Mobile & Internet Network Outage And What Should You do?

Data barring

There are times when an operator might bar the data service, due to validity and technical issue. This can occur if the operator provides a special package that stops the data service once the data volume is used up or the validity time has been reached. In such a condition too, you need to contact the operator and explain your condition.

Further, please be clear that even if you have data volume remaining on your mobile, your data service will be barred if your balance is very less in paisa. For such, you need to recharge to consume the remaining data volume of your subscribed package.

If you want to know more about it, then do leave your query in the comments below.