Analogue Telephony Upgrade - No joy with BT

[peterh0001]

Good afternoon, I currently have two landlines one of which supports FTTC + landline and the other is a telephony only line.  We are going to be out of the country from November until March (spanning the shut down of the exchange switching equipment) so trying to be proactive I called BT to ask what I need to do to future proof my telephony only line as I would not be here when they will be trying to move the last users.  BT told me not to worry as analogue telephony will continue after the 31/01/27 shutdown and that it is only broadband users who are affected.  When I asked how he expected call routing to work with switching equipment he said he did not know.  Also he had not heard of PDPL.

@iniltous suggested in a recent message that telephony only lines will be replaced with PDPL and in that sense will continue (transitionally) to work as before for the users.  However in a recent interview Juliette Scott (Openreach senior manager All IP migration) said that PDPL has been discontinued and is no longer available and EVAc will be used for users who wish to retain their analogue line.

I am unsure as to how to progress migration of my phone line to BT/Openreach's transitionary telephony product and whether that  will be PDPL or EVAc.

Whilst part of me thinks they will not cut off a vulnerable pensioner just because they are not available at migration time to choose options I do not want to take that chance.

Anybody have any insight into this problem.

Thanks

Peter

[WSH]

As you already have FTTC, why not just recontract to have Digital Voice (DV) added to that broadband connection?

[iniltous]

Why does it matter if it’s one or the other , both allow connection to the emergency services, and if competitively priced telephony is needed adding a phone service to your FTTC (if the supplier has a proprietary IP telephony service) or a third party VoIP provider is available.
You clearly are prepared to pay a premium for some reason to keep your ‘landline’ a separate service , presumably thinking it more robust that a service dependent on ‘broadband’ and it follows this must primarily be for emergency purposes so what’s the difference (for you) between PDPL and EVAc .
Perhaps, if your telephone only service hasn’t already been moved to PDPL , it’s been noted that you also have a separate broadband service and EVAc in your case is appropriate and not PDPL .

[peterh0001]

@WSH Thanks for your reply.  I have two landline numbers both of which I need to keep and as you know DV only supports a single number.

[WSH]

Is it possible to get the other number redirected to the DV number?

Or have the other phone converted to a VoIP service.  I expect you can have DV and plug a third party ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter) into the hub at the same time.

[peterh0001]

@iniltous It matters only in the sense that I want to engage with the process in the near future to avoid having the migration fail because I am not available in Nov - Jan to provide whatever agreement is required and it seemed that if I knew what the solution will be I could chase to get it moving.   I need the two numbers simply because the telephony only line allows my wife's patients to call her in her home office and not get mixed up with general domestic callers.

Thanks

[licquorice]

I suspect the OP wishes to have 2 discrete numbers for whatever reason. Perfectly reasonable. 

Edit: posts crossed.

[iniltous]

If this telephone only line is ‘business’ line , it potentially explains why you haven’t already been moved to PDPL  , as it is inappropriate , being a residential  service  , businesses need to explore different solutions.

In your case presumably a better solution ( if  primarily it is to maintain incoming calls on this specific number ) is to port the number to a standalone VoIP provider, answering calls to that number using your existing FTTC service , even if it already has a telephone service associated with it , there is no issue having an ATA and a second telephone service .

[peterh0001]

@iniltous Thanks for your response, it is not a business line it is a residential line.  Will  porting to a standalone VOIP number mean adding broadband to the line or could I support digital voice for one number and standalone VOIP for the other on the single broadband connect that I currently have ?

[iniltous]

If you have FTTC broadband with an associated  proprietary IP telephony service ( so telephone via a specific telephone port on the router like BT Digital Voice ) and you ported the standalone telephone line number to a third party VoIP supplier ( not an ISP that provides broadband and or telephone) by them importing the number , it ceases your telephone only line , you then use an ATA , or a phone with a built in ATA ,(analogue telephone adapter) connected to an Ethernet port on the FTTC router to access your ported number, you can then make and receive calls on both numbers on the single FTTC broadband service , this is cost effective as the third party VoIP charge is likely to be significantly less than the charge for the telephone only line , as you effectively only pay for the VoIP calls package, there no ‘line rental’ with this VoIP but clearly the service is dependent on the existing broadband.