Things are now up and running again. For anyone else who is being rammed by BT down the "regraded" rabbit hole (read: downgraded) from FTTC G-fast (230Mpbs) to Fibre 2 (70Mbps) between now and the end of Jan 2027:
- BT's Digital Voice product is dependent on you using BT's Smart Hub 2. If you are happy to use a Smart Hub2, read no further. If you want to use your own router though, then...
- You will need to swap your Openreach G-Fast modem - marked MT-992 on the back for a Huawei HG612. Available on ebay cheaply. The MT992, which is sometimes suggested to be backwards compatible with BT's slower Fibre 2 service, seems not to be compatible with whatever BT is now rolling out.
- Swap the modems over. Wait for the DSL LED on the new modem to settle to a constant on state. Then plus the router into the modem, as it was connected to your old modem.
- In your router, the PPPoE login settings have to be
* user: [email protected] (was: the first part of my email address);
* password: BT (was a starred password).
* No need to enable or change VLOG settings.
- Boot up a PC on your home network, press the Windows key + R, type "cmd" and then enter "ipconfig". Look for the numbers next to "default gateway". If they are 192.168.1.254 and you can't connect to the internet, reboot your computer.
- I had to use the Smart Hub 2 temporarily. The SH2 assigns IP addresses to devices in the range 192.168.1.XXX. My old router used 192.168.0.XXX. This meant *for me* that when I switched back to my original router I had to hard reboot a number of devices on my network (PCs, NAS drives, Sonos units in particular) to force them back to using their assigned IP addresses. The preceding step is an example of this.
- To get VoIP phone service you will have to drop the phone part of your contract with BT and sign to a third party VoIP provider (and port your number across). I have signed to Plexatalk.co.uk on their cheapest £4 pm tariff, buying a Grandstream HT802 VoIP adaptor from them to sit between my router and my old landline handsets.
- BT don't, it seems, volunteer to "regrade" your contract price at the same time that they downgrade your service. So that requires a phone call - 0330 1234 150.
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Being moved back to Fibre 2 is basically being moved back to the connection speed we had in 2019.
Openreach won't commit to providing FTTP for us, along with half of one side of our road. Perhaps there is a blockage they won't remove. BT won't provide anything via FTTC faster than 70Mpbs. Virgin claim to be able to provide 500Mps via FTTC to our address, expressly stating this is run over copper from the cabinet to the property. How they can do that when BT can't or won't is a double mystery to me. But I anticipate terminating my BT broadband quite shortly and switching to Virgin.
