Two phone lines, full fibre and contradictory information

[Jane2018]

My experience might help as some similarities. We had two separate landlines into the house  ultimately both moved to digital voice (and indeed two separate BT broadband accounts). We did not have plusnet or any other provider but like you were paying for two services on the basis if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I think you can have FTTP put in by a provider (BT don't offer it where I am as yet) and keep your BT services running too. My siblings has both virgin and BT to her house for two different broadbands and land lines. 

When I had Community Fibre install FTTP a few months ago I said not a single word to BT. I left landlines alone at that point.  We got Community Fibre and still had the BT broadband FTTC and still had the landlines with BT. I ran those alongside (cost was not my main issue) for a month or two and I moved us down to one BT landline with broadband.

The final phase was that I applied to port / move the BT landline number we have had since the 1990s. I did not say anything to BT. I moved the landline to a separate provider (which uses the Community Fibre broadband) and I chose £6 a month Voipfone.

Telling Voipfone to port the number from BT meant I didn't say anything to BT and Voipfone tell them.  BT then will automatically terminate both your broadband service and landline on that line (which is ridiculous in my view as BT lose a customer who might want to keep them for broadband) but suited my purposes very well. BT then called me twice for the first time since I became their customer in the 1980s (as they thought correctly that they were losing me). I just was very clear - BT do not offer FTTP where I am and CF do and I am changing).

On the number porting day the BT landline ceased to work and the broadband stopped with BT. I plugged the landline into the Voipfone device which is in the CF router and the number ported over seamlessly so now we are down to one broadband line and provider. I have also done various things to get ethernet cable around part of the house.

[Deneb]

“the point about BT contacting you about the unrelated line when PN raised their order wasn’t to discuss this , they clearly were notified that the Plusnet order was having an impact on the BT service”

I don’t think they were contacting me because I’d raised the Plusnet order, I think they were just contacting me the broadband line is still analogue PSTN and they wanted to tell me that I had to do something. It was only when I told them what I was doing with Plusnet and mentioned that the other line had recently gone digital that they said it would be a problem. 

[Deneb]

“My experience might help as some similarities”

Thanks very much - that gives me more grounds for optimism!

[iniltous]

OK , so the BT call wasn’t about the PDPL line and a consequence of you contacting Plusnet about the BT/Plusnet SMPF , but just a coincidence, and was regarding the BT side of the SMPF line , it just so happened to be  at the same time you were arranging with PN to convert the broadband side of the SMPF to FTTP on a broadband only basis …this changes things greatly,

I’d say you can relax , no consequential loss of the PDPL will occur , if you hadn’t have mentioned the PDPL I’m sure BT wouldn’t have , the rest is just a misunderstanding , and this entire thing makes much more sense .

A final thing to look out for , PN clearly can remove the broadband from the shared line , and arrange the installation of FTTP , but it never used to be the case that removing broadband from an SMPF would automatically shut down the host telephone line ( it’s the opposite when a SMPF telephone line is ceased  that does remove the broadband) so I’d check with BT that the shared line phone number is to be ceased , if not you will continue to pay for that telephone service (as well as your existing PDPL ) and it may  be converted to a PDPL at some point ( so you would have two PDPL’s ) , so you may need to ask BT to cease the SMPF telephone service yourself.

FWIW , after  the PN broadband is removed it becomes a standard telephone line , the same as your other line before it was made into a PDPL , hence the possibility that this will be picked up as a line requiring conversion to PDPL in the future unless its ceased first.

I suspect the misunderstanding was (and where BT are correct )  is you can’t have broadband on a PDPL .

[Deneb]

Thanks very much - I’ll bear that in mind. 

[Deneb]

Just to add very slightly to the pool of human knowledge and in case anyone else is in a similar situation, I thought I’d post an update after the FTTP installation.

Essentially, Plusnet and the advice on this thread were right and BT wrong. The correct analogue PSTN line with the FTTC Broadband was ceased and the other PDPL line on a different account was unaffected.

Thanks all!