Dealing with end of SMPF

[Tim123]

My parents have a 'Shared Metallic Path Facility' arrangement (telephone with BT, broadband with EE - the latter dating back to Freeserve days). I know that this split arrangement must cease once they are moved to Digital Voice (even though BT and EE are now effectively the same company, using the same Smart Hub 2, apparently BT Digital Voice will not work over an EE hub!).

They were initially told to either move the broadband to BT or the phone service to EE. Their preference is to have both under the BT brand (familiar, trusted old brand that they've been 'on the phone' with for over forty years - since the days of bells and rotary-dials!). So they called BT to arrange this, but were informed by the agent that it would be far less 'hassle' to move the phone to EE as they already have a broadband account under that brand. Apparently, "BT" cannot add a broadband service to a phone-only account without first closing the account and opening a new one (which might also mean my parents losing the phone number they've had for over forty years)! Is this true or complete baloney? The 'computer says no' culture is the biggest curse on modern life, but it sounds very far-fetched to me - especially the part about possibly losing their phone number. People change providers all the time and keeping your old phone number (if you request it) is relatively straightforward, no?

Personally, I think they may have been misinformed and have advised them to call again and hopefully get through to a better agent. Thoughts, anyone?

[licquorice]

EE, BT, what does it matter? Its the same company just different brand names.

[iniltous]

EE can and do offer telephony via their router , it’s basically DV , but not called BTDV , they refer to it as something like digital home phone .

As a SMPF arrangement, the telephone is the primary service and broadband the add on , so normally ( in the past ) migration of EE broadband to BT broadband keeping the telephone service as is would have been the obvious choice, and the easier migration path, but that was before WLR orders were barred in September 2023 and compounded with the  impending PSTN retirement so that type of journey is not  available and TBH it’s odd to never have considered joining BT or EE for both services before now , as it’s been unnecessarily expensive , probably paying £20-£30 per month more than what a single supplier would charge , with nothing gained by retaining this legacy SMPF arrangement of two providers for so long .

If the internal system limitations mean that to have BT as the single provider for both broadband and telephone means ceasing the BT PSTN telephony (which auto ceases the EE broadband) and then reordering BT broadband as SoGEA or FTTP ( depending on what’s available) , with DV added as an option, has a break in service, but adding EE digital home phone to the existing EE broadband, maintains broadband throughout , and it’s only the time to export / import the phone number from BT PSTN to EE IP that gives any interruption to service , then that’s the way it is .

As stated , in the final analysis, does it really matter , the obvious choice is EE if the minimum service interruption is wanted, or BT if a break in service is acceptable to keep the BT brand, the underlying service being identical.

TBH , I doubt the risk of losing the phone number is any less with BT than EE , neither can 100% guarantee anything , but the risk is very low anyway .

[Tim123]

EE, BT, what does it matter? Its the same company just different brand names.

@licquorice QED. Which is why BT/EE making such a damn fuss about it is all the more absurd! They should be keeping things simple and allowing customers some agency over such a significant changeover. "Better together" is a BT/EE strapline, but they are clearly more complicated together and don't communicate with each other at all. EE should disappear under the BT brand, it would save them (and us) money in the long run. How many millions they must be wasting on retaining this pointless dual branding.

@iniltous Your posts are always so longwinded and poorly written (not to mention full of pure speculation), that they are extremely difficult to follow. I had to re-read your third paragraph several times to make sense of it (not least the "has a break in service" part, which I assume should read "and have a break in service").

There are a few reasons why my parents have a preference for BT. Familiarity and nostalgia are factors. They also reckon that EE have a ridiculous (and barely pronounceable) name, with branding just as ugly (they're not wrong, to be honest). More importantly, they want to keep their Home Phone Saver plan, which has only gone up in price once (and very modestly at that) since they took it out some ten years ago. EE don't offer that plan and all other BT/EE calling plans go up in price every year, which will ultimately cancel any potential savings they will get from combining the two services under EE.

I know BT were hoping to migrate all their residential customers to EE and only cater for business customers going forward, but that plan was shelved last year by the CEO as it was realised that this would be unpopular.  Perhaps some BT staff haven't received the memo?