Voip

[Dod MoleParticipant @georgeclarihew]

Having a copper wire coming into our house from a pole across the road which has served us well (mostly) for over 40 years it looks as if we are heading to a connection to a buried new buried fibre which is now connecting two neighbours who have asked for the new-fangled magic light speaking tube system.

My take on all of the above is :- I am  paying for a phone service and will continue to do so and all I ask is for the phone service supplier is to leave me with the same service as I currently have and if that means they will have to send in their trained monkey to do the necessary whatevers they need to do to make my phones and broadband work.

Changing to a fibre service is their choice for their own financial benefit so I would expect that it will all be done by them and them supplying anything necessary to leave me in the same position  as I am currently at no cost to me, the customer and bill payer

[Dod Mole]

On Dod Mole Said:

leave me with the same service as I currently have

This will all revolve around the definition of the service you have. Is it

1) The ability to make voice calls on a phone, or DECT base station plugged into a single master socket.

2) As. above, but for multiple sockets distributed around the property.

3) 1 or 2 in the event of a widespread power failure.

4) The continued operation of a Telecare or burglar alarm system dependent on power from the copper line.

Which service definition do you think you have?

1 is what they believe. 2 needs Chris’ modification. I doubt they see that as part of the. contract. 3 is an issue, battery backup is OK for FTTP, but for FTTC if the outage encompasses the cabinet, local battery backup is not going to help.

4 is down to the alarm provider. BT have been pushing the issue since 2017, did your alarm provider do anything?

 

 

 

 

[Dod MoleParticipant @georgeclarihew]

This will all revolve around the definition of the service you have. Is it

1) The ability to make voice calls on a phone, or DECT base station plugged into a single master socket.

2) As. above, but for multiple sockets distributed around the property.

3) 1 or 2 in the event of a widespread power failure.

4) The continued operation of a Telecare or burglar alarm system dependent on power from the copper line.

 

The current copper service to the majority of premises encompasses all of the above and these are the services apart from option 2 which is a personal option.

I do not see why any customer should have to pay for replacement equipment simply to return them to a working phone service.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

It may not be what you wish to hear … BUT this is ‘reality’ straight from the horse’s mouth:

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/retiring-the-copper-network

MichaelG.

.

P.S. __ careful readers will notice some odd dates in the timeline 🙂

[Dod Mole]

On Dod Mole Said:

I do not see why any customer should have to pay for replacement equipment simply to return them to a working phone service.

 

If the ISP involved does not offer a FTTP VOIP service then they will not be able to return the customer to “as before”. A change of ISP will be required. This could involve a modest up-front cost.

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

I have had BT FTTP for about a year and a half.  The router has a normal BT phone socket on the back so you can connect your existing phoned to it. I don’t know want number or REN’s it supports but it worked with 3 reasonably modern  phone connected to it. (I think modern phones have a REN number of less than one.) It also acts like a dect base station. you can register your dect phones to it but you will loose some of the functions they had on their original dect base. If you buy the digital voice handsets from BT they have some some extra functions. One of these is if you are on one call and someone else phones the other handsets ring so another person can answer that call. I think you can make two outgoing calls at the same time but I have not tried to do this. There are a few negative things. If you pick up a call on a phone connected to the socket on the router there seems to be no way to transfer the call to one of the dect phones or vice versa. As with the old phone system you can pick up another one of the wired phones and take the call on that phone. (Or have two people on the same call.) On the digital voice handsets you can join an existing call with another handset. Both the fiber modem and the router are powerd from 12 volts DC. (Each one has it’s own plug in power supply.) I don’t know if you could supply them both from the same 12 volt battery. (I suspect that youcan as they are only connected togethrt with a network cable an I think that provides isolation between them.)

Les.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Are the BT digital voice handsets DECT or WiFi?

[Les Jones 1Participant @lesjones1]

I think they must be dect as I could register and use existing dect phones (After de registering them with their original dect base.) with the router. The panasonic set of 3 I have worked but most of the extra functions like calls between them did not work. I now have the Panasonic dect base unit connected to the socket on the router together wit  a couple of basic phones, One of the basic phones is in my workshop which is too far away from the house for the dect phones. If i answer a call in the workshop and it is for my wife she has to pick it up on on one of the phones that are hard wired to the router.

Les.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

I was thinking that since the router has a WiFi access point they might use VOIP direct from the handset, but have a DECT access point as well.  In fact looking at some BT digital voice handsets they imply they are using VOIP.

[Dod Mole]

On Dod Mole Said:

…

My take on all of the above is :- I am  paying for a phone service and will continue to do so and all I ask is for the phone service supplier is to leave me with the same service as I currently have and if that means they will have to send in their trained monkey to do the necessary whatevers they need to do to make my phones and broadband work.

…

Whilst I sympathise with Dod Mole, it’s unlikely that the phone service he is paying for includes the equipment and wiring inside his home.

The providers responsibility usually ends inside the Master Socket.   It provides a layered connection.   If BT detect a line fault on their side at the Internal Test Socket, they will fix, no charge.  Anything that doesn’t work when plugged into the outer socket is the consumer’s responsibility.   An example:

By providing a clear boundary the arrangement protects the customer from a supplier in denial, and the supplier from customers with dodgy equipment and wiring.  It means BT won’t accept Dod Mole’s argument,  instead pointing him at the Terms and Conditions.   It’s their definition of the service that matters, not what the customer hopes it might be.

From what I’ve researched of BT’s switchover, there’s a good chance existing phones will just plug into the new SmartHub2 and ‘just work’.  So don’t panic.   If they don’t, either:

• follow Chris Crew’s posts in this thread for a DIY fix, or
• cough up for some new phones!

I’ve reached the stage of life where I would rather be left in peace.   Sadly, the world marches on regardless…

🙁

Dave

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Forgive the intrusion, please … it’s not related to this topic

@Dave could you please check your Personal Messages

Thanks

MichaelG.

 

[VicParticipant @vic]

[Dod MoleParticipant @georgeclarihew]

Whilst I sympathise with Dod Mole, it’s unlikely that the phone service he is paying for includes the equipment and wiring inside his home.

The providers responsibility usually ends inside the Master Socket.   It provides a layered connection.   If BT detect a line fault on their side at the Internal Test Socket, they will fix, no charge.  Anything that doesn’t work when plugged into the outer socket is the consumer’s responsibility.   An example:

The  phone service I pay BT for is 2 BT phones, router for internet plugged in to the BT master socket so if the phones stop working as a result of BT’s changes then I still think it is not unreasonable to expect them to return me to the situation of having 2 working telephones and an internet connection at no cost whatever to me the paying customer.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Somewhere in the small print will be a get out clause. Don’t expect ‘reasonable’ in any dealings with a big company, they can afford better lawyers than you can, and for longer

[VicParticipant @vic]

An old thread I know, but I thought I’d tack this on rather than start a new one if nobody minds.

its a year later and Virginmedia still haven’t offered us VOIP or even their own pseudo VOIP service. Not that this bothers us. They are though going to put prices up again soon and as we don’t use their TV service too much I’ve decided to jump ship. We have a fairly new 900 mbps broadband service in the area for £25 a month so I’ve booked an installation. They don’t offer VOIP though. Speaking to one of their reps a while back he suggested using a VOIP service like Vonage once I’d signed up with them. Looking online there seem to be a few options. Do any of you have experience of any of them? I plan to use our old phones so I’ll need to get an ATA as well.

Top 5 UK Residential VoIP Providers

 

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

When we changed ISP we went over to voip, but I’ve noticed of late that apart from junk calls only our daughter uses landline. When the contract runs out it will not be renewed, mobile is just more convenient. Doesn’t work if you’re in a not spot obviously

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

If you have WiFi just enable WiFi calling on your phone.

[VicParticipant @vic]

We aren’t in a good reception area and one of us is with O2 and they don’t allow WiFi calling on PAYG mobiles.

[VicParticipant @vic]

We’ve now switched Broadband providers and signed up with a company called Phonely.
Virginmedia have accepted the porting request and Phonely sent us an adapter for our existing phones.
I did look at the possibility of getting a new VOIP phone but there aren’t too many brands and the information seemed a bit sparse so I gave up.

Given the old service is allegedly to be discontinued soon I was quite surprised at the huge number of different handsets still available for it.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

The voip interface should be converting and providing the normal POTS interface to the phones so ‘old’ phones still are the in-house connection. The only difference with modern wired phones is the load they put on the system so allow more to be connected all over the house.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Dave, the entire BT network from what was the “exchange” now switches IP traffic only and if the traffic is voice it’s VOIP.  If you have an FTTP connection and analogue phones you just plug them (and any internal wiring) into the router they provide.  We recently switched to EE for our broadband & phone service (not fibre yet) and “digital calling” and actually the existing BT router already had the analogue sockets – just plugged in the phone connector and we were away.  Same number and everything.  Obviously no battery backup (yet) but we mainly actually speak using mobiles and Wi-Fi calling.  BT/EE really want to get rid of copper and analogue phones, too costly to run.  Also switched mobile to EE as there is a 5G base station about 400 metres away so that provides a backup.

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

We ditched Virgin the first chance we got when open reach updated the road to fibre, we are with Vodafone for 500mb b/band and home landline via voip is free, no rental as such you just pay for calls out or take one of their call plans.

We have 4 phones connected to different rooms but only one lead is in the superhub router as l simply used the same lead that went into Virgins router which connects to a little junction box l fitted decades ago

we also have 2 mobiles with them so £4 discount for that as well

[Author]

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