Do you have to pay to get Fibre (I think to the box)?

[gg30340]

You will get the Home Essentials package for the same cost as you pay now if you are moved on to a Fibre connection.

[Hevski77]

It comes in through the very thick wall, next to the window but not through the window frame, it comes through a hole at the top of the wall next to it. He might have to take some trim off. I could take a photo. (I still need to do decorating in that room). There’s an unused extension phone cable to the bedroom above, but I’ve never used it.

[Hevski77]

It says £16.50 (which is I know still an good price), if I get the fibre broadband, I’m currently on the £15 rate. I can’t really afford the £25 package, but it’s a shame it doesn’t come with a calling plan. If I did want it. 

[WSH]

I'm not sure why you referred to the extension to the bedroom but, just to be clear, the extension I was referring to was an electricity extension lead, so the ONT can reach the power socket.

As far as the phone extension goes, it should still work for a phone but to use it with Digital Voice it would need disconnecting from the master phone socket and connecting instead to the phone socket on the back of the Smart Hub 2 router.

In terms of using that extension for the fibre connection, fibre doesn’t use copper wire.  (In fact, the fibre signal is light pulses, not electricity.  That’s what the ONT is for.  It converts the light pulses into electrical signals that the router can understand).

[imjolly]

If you are currently on the £15 home essentials that is not available if you move/upgrade to fibre package so you need to move to the £16.50 home essentials package

[andydenyer]

@Hevski77
Calling plans come as an add-on these days that it will offer you as you go through the upgrade order process. They start at £3 a month for a pay as you go plan (where you then just pay extra for any calls you make at a given rate per minute) up to an Unlimited Minutes calling plan which I was offered at £12 per month (whereas I had been paying £15.49 per month!). Really depends on how you use your landline as to which offers the best value as most people just use their mobile these day. I have the unlimited plan as our landline still gets used a lot as the mobile phone signal is pretty **bleep** where we live.

[licquorice]

@andydenyer Do you not have WiFi calling on your mobile?

[andydenyer]

@licquorice
I do, but my elderly parents (who are in their 80s and I am caring for) just have PAYG dumbphones without that capability. Also, they find that the landline is much louder and clearer than their mobiles anyway. So the landline is really for their benefit rather than mine.

[chrisjp]

"Yes, you’re probably right but I post on several forums and on the Sky forum in particular, they refer to Wi-Fi when they really mean the broadband connection."

Most journalists are also guilty of this misleading conflation of WiFi and broadband speeds. They talk about geographical areas having "good or bad WiFi" when they actually mean broadband speed.

[WSH]

@chrisjp   At the risk of going off topic, I long since gave up on the press.

My local paper can't even get locations right.  Just the other day there was a picture of my town centre labelled as the next town down the road.  And similar has happen a number of times over the last couple of years.  How do you expect the press to cope with anything technical if they can't even get an address right?