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Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:18:10 GMT

1. Will BT digital voice work if we don't have a BT fibre connection for fast broadband - only a BT Home Hub 4 for broadband?

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

jac_95 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:20:25 GMT

Hi lucinda1,

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Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

licquorice — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:26:01 GMT

@lucinda1 wrote:

1. Will BT digital voice work if we don't have a BT fibre connection for fast broadband - only a BT Home Hub 4 for broadband?

Digital voice will work with any version of broadband, it won't work with a Hub4 however. If you are moved to Digital Voice, you will be sent a Smart Hub2.

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:35:49 GMT

Thanks for that.

A couple more questions please:

1.The valley we live at the bottom of in north Essex has a very poor broadband signal -about 1 MPH! Will BT Digital Voice be able to work satisfactorily under these circumstances using the Smart Hub 2?

2. We are just about to move just our broadband service to County Broadband fibre to get faster speeds but we want to remain with BT for the telephone service and will swtich to Digital Voice when it arrives in a few years. Would the quality of BT Digital Voice work better if we already had the County Broadband fibre installed in the house?

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

licquorice — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:44:25 GMT

@lucinda1 wrote:

Thanks for that.

A couple more questions please:

1.The valley we live at the bottom of in north Essex has a very poor broadband signal -about 1 MPH! Will BT Digital Voice be able to work satisfactorily under these circumstances using the Smart Hub 2?

Yes, DV only requires about 64Kbps

2. We are just about to move just our broadband service to County Broadband fibre to get faster speeds but we want to remain with BT for the telephone service and will swtich to Digital Voice when it arrives in a few years. Would the quality of BT Digital Voice work better if we already had the County Broadband fibre installed in the house?

BT Digital Voice won't work with a third party broadband provider, you would need to use a third party VOIP provider for voice service.

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

imjolly — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:45:33 GMT

you need to use BT SH2 for digital voice and as hub locked to BT that will not work with your new ISP

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:48:33 GMT

Your answer has solved my question in minutes whereas I searched on the internet for hours with no conclusion about whether we needed a fibre connection. I am mightily relieved. Thank you!

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

iniltous — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 08:54:46 GMT

If you are joining another provider for broadband , do you intend to keep your BT line with broadband on it or revert to it being just a phone line ?, if it’s just a phone line ( after all, why pay for 2 broadband services) then it will be quite a while before telephony only lines are moved to DV ( probably the last group of customers , and the PSTN switch off is end of 2025 ) , if you keep BT broadband on your BT phone line then should you be moved onto DV , then a replacement router ( SH2 ) will be provided, as that is needed for DV.

If you have broadband from another provider, its irrelevant to DV , that broadband supplier may or may not offer a phone service with their broadband but it won’t be anything to do with BT DV

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:02:11 GMT

Thank you for adding that point into the equation.

I understand County Broadband will defer payment for their services for up to one year if you already have another locked into another contract for broadband but from what you say it may be some years that we would be paying two broadband contracts unnecessarily , the BT contract just in order to get the BT Digital Voice phone.

This could have some bearing on the situation!

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:30:13 GMT

I would suggest that the way to do it is firstly sign up to the new provider without cancelling BT. That will ensure that you maintain service in case of any unforeseen circumstances & also retain your phone number. Worth paying or two services for a month.

Once the new service is up & running you can then port your phone number to a VOIP provider. That process will automatically cease your BT broadband & phone.

If you have an alarm or anything else that uses the phone line you will need to make provision to ensure that works on VOIP before committing to the transfer.

Just out of curiosity, are you next to THE bridge?

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:38:31 GMT

Thank you so much for your idea about signing up to the new provider whilst keeping BT initially.

This question has been raised due to deciding where the fibre connection from the new provider should go from the telegraph pole: the main house is not the nearest building and if it went first to an outside building we would then use a series of x 3 mesh systems to bounce it to the house. To get the fibre cable to the house at a further distance may incur extra costs and disruption however it may be worth it in the end!

Yes, we are right beside THE bridge!

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:43:58 GMT

If the cost isn't too horrendous it would probably be best to get the fibre to the house rather than rely on mesh to do it.

I'm up by The Cross. 😉

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 12:04:05 GMT

You need a broadband connection for Digital Voice to work, as you will probably receive a router.

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 13:26:18 GMT

Thanks!

We have a County Broadband engineer scheduled to come on a visit to the property to advise on the range of cover of their fibre so will know more then. I agree if cost not horrendous better to get it to the house first and outbuildings after.

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 13:27:48 GMT

That is a coincidence you live so close!

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

licquorice — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 13:35:07 GMT

@lucinda1 wrote:

Thanks!

We have a County Broadband engineer scheduled to come on a visit to the property to advise on the range of cover of their fibre so will know more then. I agree if cost not horrendous better to get it to the house first and outbuildings after.

This going off topic and not really appropriate for this forum, but if the fibre cable to the house passes the outbuilding I would take the opportunity whilst the trench was open to install another duct with an Ethernet cable between the house and outbuilding as long as it isn't more than 100Metres. Wifi wouldn't work over that distance in any case.

Re: Will digital voice work if I dont have a BT fibre connection to the internet ?

lucinda1 — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 13:38:11 GMT

Thank you once again. This makes sound sense to do if and when a trench is built to get fibre to the house. I will ask for this.