New Digital Voice home phone service on BT

[Fumbledore]

I was thinking that if your install of DV required any existing phone extensions in your property to remain active, then the voltage would have to be removed in order not to feed it back into the VOIP convection and there is a BT socket faceplate that does just that. It would require an Engineer visit though.

[David500]

See here: https://www.bt.com/broadband/digital-voice-learnpage/

And then scroll down to FAQs and go to "Can I use the home phones I have already?" 

"It is possible to use your existing home phones, but we recommend taking advantage of the free Digital Home Phone to get all the benefits of Digital Voice.

If you choose to keep your existing home phones we’ll need to send you some extra equipment, to ensure they work with your Digital Voice service."

[Hozz]

You can plug a normal phone into the phone socket on the back of the Smart Hub and it will work fine.

I have a Gigaset base station plugged in there and it works just as well as if it was plugged into the old analogue phone socket.

[RIC9380]

Indeed. I have the BT Advanced Digital Phone (better features) in my living room where I work and the BT Standard Digital Phone (less features) in my bedroom. I also have a Gigaset DX800 phone connected to the Smart Hub and everything works great. The HD sound quality of the BT supplied handsets is pretty outstanding.

[Fumbledore]

Is the Digital Voice product available to order yet?

[lowei]

Hello does anyone know if call divert is chargeable using this service

[Andy005]

Hi @lowei 

Call Divert is included, Call Barring is the only chargeable add on.

[01addiv]

Hi All,

Apologies if I have missed an important detail somewhere but I'd appreciate if someone can confirm I have understood correctly.

I have FTTH, and am about to reach the end of my current deal, as such I wish to renew the contract and move to a new deal.  The 'upgrade/renew' pages tell me that I will now be a Digital Voice customer and I have no choice in the matter - fair enough technology moves on and as I am FTTH it makes sense - it then tells me I have to use a SH2 that BT will supply - for a cost as usual - in order to use Digital Voice and in effect have a 'landline' phone.

All sort of simple enough, I can plug my existing DECT system into the SH2 and use it as normal no changes needed - or I can take BTs option of 'free' new handsets and use them no plugin required.

Where it all goes wrong is I do not want to use the SH2. Had three of them on the current deal, all of them have caused some degree of misery and don't offer certain features - guest SSIDs - that I require. So I gave up with them and brought an independant router (Netgear R7000).  Now I can't find a clear answer anywhere but it appears that if I 'get' Digital Voice this is now usless - I can't use it if I want to use Digital Voice. Is this correct? 

If I cannot use Digital Voice without the SH2 can I lock the SH2 down to be only a 'modem' and supply the Digital Voice service and the Netgear handles the rest?

Does the fact I have an Open Reach 4 port modem matter in any of this?

Yes I'm aware that mobiles exist and I can just use that but sometimes a landline is occasionally still useful.

[interbear]

Interesting on use of existing phones. We currently have the original Smart Hub on FTTH. Our phone is a BT DECT phone with the “Call Guardian” feature which screens all unknown callers (those not in the contacts list) and then announces who’s calling before we choose to answer or not. This deters all nuisance callers, they just hang up. It’s fantastic and I’d be loath to lose this functionality. 

I’ve read the info on Call Protect which comes with the new Digital Voice phones and it doesn’t sound as robust a way of dealing with nuisance calls. And it’s limited, I gather, to 100 numbers. 

So, I assume that I could connect my existing BT DECT phones to the Smart Hub 2 with whatever this “additional” kit is. But does anyone know exactly what this kit is? One of the reasons I am considering Digital Voice is so that I can locate all DECT phones anywhere in the house as they connect wirelessly to the DECT base station that’s integral to the Smart Hub 2. At the moment our main DECT phone has to be connected to the extension socket which is behind the TV. I’d rather it was located elsewhere. So if the “additional kit” means I need to plug my DECT phone into the Smart Hub 2 (also behind the TV) I wouldn’t get that benefit. 

[Hozz]

I am currently trialling, on behalf of BT, a small device that plugs into the mains and allows you to plug your DECT phone into it. This allows you to place your DECT phone anywhere rather than having to plug it into the back of the router. No doubt it will be available on sale soon.