BT Digital Phone

[ColinJones99]

I've been told by Openreach that there will be a delay getting Full Fibre to my address and currently my broadband download speed varies between 9 and 12 Mbps. Meanwhile Virgin Media have cabled my street. If I switch to Virgin Media will I still be able use my BT Digital phone?

[WSH]

BT's Digital Voice is a proprietary version of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), so the implication is, no.

[imjolly]

If you switch to virgin then you will not be able to use BT for your phone service. You will need to use virgin

[Edinburgh-wg]

Virgin use a different infrastructure. If you use Virgin, you'll have to stick with them. If you choose to wait for Openreach's infrastructure to be put in, you can then have a choice of ISPs. Either way, you can have the number ported (transferred over); it's just that your provider isn't going to be called BT but Virgin if you choose to switch to them.

BT Digital Voice is just what BT calls the tel. service. Mine is with Andrews and Arnold, for example, but essentially, it's the same thing. (There's nothing proprietary about BT's digital voice, except the name. It's just another VOIP service that is hardwired into BT's routers.)

However, if you choose Virgin now, you can still choose to have Openreach's infrastructure installed later on, at the end of Virgin's contract. You'll just end up with two sets of entry points, two modems etc.

[WSH]

Proprietary in so far as it doesn't work another ISP's equipment.  (Perhaps proprietary was the wrong word).

[iniltous]

I’d say proprietary is the appropriate word for BTDV the phone service , it’s tied down to BT , although other providers use similar technology (and confusingly call their proprietary service DV in some cases ) you could get (for example) a Vodafone router to work with BT broadband but  you can’t get it to work with BTDV .
The BTDV handset isn’t really a proprietary handset in the basic sense, although it’s supplied on the basis it’s to be used with BTDV , essentially it’s a DECT handset with some service specific buttons for ‘short cut’ functionality (single button to access Voicemail etc ) it may work with any DECT basestation, but not as seamlessly as with BTDV , but if it doesn’t work at all with other supplier’s equipment you can’t really complain about that , what’s more if BT ask for it back (if it were supplied for free ) again that’s nothing to moan about , so jump ship to Virgin , the assumption should be your BTDV handset will  not work , if it does it’s a bonus.