BT rep says I can’t get Digital Voice on Gfast

[Melkboss]

I am currently on BT’s Fibre 250 plan which runs on Gfast. The openreach website states that Gfast supports digital phone lines.

However, when speaking to a BT sales rep to ask whether I was eligible for Digital Voice, they told me that if I wanted to switch, I would need to downgrade my broadband to one of the slower plans.

It’s not immediately clear to me why I would need to downgrade my broadband in order to switch to a digital phone line and nothing on the openreach website suggests there should be such a trade-off.

Is there something I’m missing or was the rep mistaken?

[jac_95]

Hi Melkboss,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Community.

This is an automated response as I can see you have a question about BT’s Digital Voice service. Rather than waiting for a response from the Community, you may find an answer to your question by using the search bar on the Community homepage. We also have a thread that contains a wealth of info related to BT’s Digital Voice, click this link to take a look, Digital Voice FAQs.

Got some questions or want to learn more about BT’s Digital Voice rollout? BT are running localised events as part of the regional rollout of Digital Voice - Click here to view the Digital Voice events

To learn more about the nationwide change to this Internet based voice service visit landlinesgo.digital

If you have already looked for the answer to your question and have not found anything that can help, then please ignore this message. One of our Community members will be along shortly to help you further.

[licquorice]

Digital Voice is simply voice over IP (VoIP). The IP layer is totally agnostic to the physical layer so it matters not how your broadband is delivered.

[Melkboss]

That's what I had assumed and yet the rep told me that I could not switch to Digital Voice while remaining on Fibre 250. I can see that this issue was raised a few years ago in another thread but it resulted in the OP being contacted by mods and no public answer was ever given.

[licquorice]

There is no technical reason that DV can't be delivered by G.Fast but BT may have some odd reason why they don't wish to do so.

[Melkboss]

It would be great to get some clarity on this as it seems the reason couldn't be anything other than odd. DV is clearly available in my area and as you say there is no technical reason for the broadband speed to interfere with that.

[conrad]

It is possible that since EE and BT apparently no longer actively offer Gfast as an upgrade or option for new customers then their computer systems may not recognise addons etc relating to Gfast.

It wouldn't surprise me that when you recontract Gfast may not be offered to you but if it was then that could trigger Digital Voice.