Digital Switchover

[Jane2018]

When we are forced off analogue to what seems to me to be a worse service  I am concerned about being able to keep things as now as much as possible.

1. I pay for three telephone numbers/lines with BT - home and office number (worked from home since 1990s) and a third one. The third one is just broadband so that seems the simplest - it will carry on as now and is not used for calls. I also have broadband on my office number account. So that is two separate BT accounts and 2 separate broadband payments etc every month.

2. The second line is my business telephone number - I want to be sure it will continue without effort and I will not lose the number on the switchover as that is extremely valuable to me. Do we keep the same landline numbers? I want to keep the homeline landline number too which is the only number every member of the family has known by heart for 25 years if in distress abroad.

3. In relation to the office number  line I also have broadband on it - my first broadband account and I only have one landline in the house from that and it is all in my office downstairs so that seems fairly simple as long as I keep the same telephone number in that I will probably just have to plug the landline telephone into the back of the router in my office and hope we never have power cuts etc. I am not sure yet if things I find useful on two lines such as call minder and automatic call back and last number dialled will be preserved.

4. Then there is there is the home line telephone number I mention above. I am not sure where the wire comes into my house for that -  possibly my office too. We have about 8 phones plugged in on three floors for this number including one by my bed for emergencies. I do not take a mobile upstairs  to bed and the signal is bad anyway so the whole family use this home number for emergencies which have included baby nearly dead in hospital and lost in jungle regions abroad. What I would like is that nothing will change. Eg I would like all 8 phones on that home number still to work as plugged in all round the house.  If that is not possible then I would like the one by my bed and the one in my office and ideally the one in the kitchen all still to operate. I fear that will not be possible but hope it will. I don't often use the handsfree one in the kitchen as I prefer a different type of phone so moving around the house with those kind is not good for me so hope that is not the only solution to using the landlines in various rooms but fear it is.

The landline home line number has no broadband line on it (of the 3 telephone numbers for which I pay across two separate accounts and with 2 separate broadband lines as useful to have one as back up and one is upstairs 2 flights up in a very big house and one down). So I suspect this home number with no broadband on it can be treated like that of someone with no broadband in the house and presumably BT provide me with something into which I can plug my telephone  at the last to use it in my home office even if I cannot use it elsewhere in the house. I hope they can do that even though I also have 2 other landline numbers and 2 separate broadband accounts on other numbers.

I would much rather we did not do the switch over and fear all this will go wrong and it will involve me in hours and hours of time.  I pay about £164 a month - about £2000 a year to BT for the lines and accounts for the house including cost of landline calls and it would be nice if those of us paying so much could get an utterly time free cost free transfer to ensure we can carry on as now.

[David500]

Just to clarify, you have 3 separate lines coming into the house?

(a) Home Broadband only.

(b) Home Telephone only.

(c) Business Broadband & Telephone.

If this is the case why don't you add broadband to (a) which will keep your home telephone number and then cancel (b) as you need broadband for DV phones. This will also save you £19.99/month in line rental.

[David500]

Sorry I just realized that the (a) & (b) were the wrong way round. It should read:

If this is the case why don't you add broadband to (b) which will keep your home telephone number and then cancel (a) as you need broadband for DV phones. This will also save you £19.99/month in line rental.

[Jane2018]

Thanks for the response

It is  3 separate lines coming into the house

(a) Home Broadband only.

(b) Home Telephone only.

(c) Home Broadband & Telephone.

I have considered merging a and be on the home line but the connection for the broadband comes into the house 2 flights up and serves that side of the house and switching to a different line will probably remove broadband from half the house.

(I had SIX lines until about 3 years ago as also had a dedicated fax line and one for the burglar alarm and one which was just for broadband from the days when you could not have dial up internet and use the telephone at the same time so doing down to just three numbers is quite a big change already!)

On my question about telephones is it correct that I can only hae one telephone plugged into the modem and will have to abandon having 8 phones around teh house in different rooms all off the same telephone line?

[Keith_Beddoe]

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@Jane2018 wrote:

On my question about telephones is it correct that I can only have one telephone plugged into the modem and will have to abandon having 8 phones around the house in different rooms all off the same telephone line?

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You can connect all of the phones, but you would have to connect your extension wiring to the phone socket on the back of the smart hub 2, or the socket on the Digital Voice adapter, whichever is easiest.

More info https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/Digital-Voice-FAQs/td-p/2207485

[gspearson]

@Jane2018 

I feel your pain - I have been going through similar but simpler thinking.  If your transition to DV includes fibre to the house some of your arrangements could be modernised and, probably simplified.  It might be worth your while getting a telecoms engineer (not BT or OpenReach) to review with you what you really need.  There will be no separate lines for broadband and phones and transmitting broadband round the house can be done in several effective ways.

[FTT]

It's also -especially for business people or homeworkers- to expect problems so familiarise yourself with call diversion/forwarding for everything you must receive. I would call forward before any changes are due.

The more complex your setup the higher the chance of disappointment with the service until things get ironed out.

I've had DV and FTTP for 21 months and love it but it's not an easy thing to move to if you rely on the service. I bought a UPS for the ONT and router and I've also had to forward my landline calls 4 or 5 times too.

Last week my usual high speed FTTP was 2MBPS. I was horrified. Was just for an hour but the old 'turn it off and back on' with ADSL did nothing. Yesterday I bought a Huawei B818 4G router and a cheap 100GB data SIM for backup.

It's not perfect but I need my service.

Preparation. Preparation. Preparation.

BT can't baby people unfortunately and essentially that's what we've had for decades with analogue.

[Jane2018]

I would rather keep analogue for another 30 years but I suppose there is no chance of that and I don't want to spend a second of time on the changeover but there is no chance of that either.

I was hoping for my most important work landline into my home office that I just unplug it and then plug it into the back of the modem somehow as that is the simplest - landline line there already has our first broadband on it with BT and then it just works and the number ports over but that might be completely wrong.

If I were an average family with one landline and that number on the one family broadband line is that what they would have to do - keep the same landline number and just plug the home phone into the back of the modem?

The other issue is in 20 years my landline has never failed, never cut out, no problems whereas every single day our internet lines (both of them) cut out so TV online is disturbed, my son's online games are cut off. BT have tried for 4 years with neighrbous and with us to cure it but always fail. It seems I will be forced to move from an utterly reliable good service I like to something that is unreliable.

[Devon_Dave]

I am surprised only the line used for calls goes down and not the ones for broadband 

[Jane2018]

The landline telephones on both lines never go down and I want to keep them as they are now. They are perfect.

The wifi connection cuts out every day on both broadband lines and with neighbours who as well as I have had BT out here several times over the last few years to no avail. last time a BT man replaced a wire from the wooden poll to my house and I thought it was better but that did not last long.  When BT were here last one router did see to be changing colour when the problem happened. I have not looked more recently as the connectoin goes back on within about 1 minute.

It was potentially very important earlier this month as I have two sons doing professional exams which are proctored and online with web cam and if the line cuts out it is complicated to get back on and not have your year's worth of studies count as nothing. However they must have been lucky in the 8 exams over 2 weeks as they were okay but it was very worrying before hand.

I can cope with films stopping and Sky go cutting out. It is more of a nuisance for sons on online games as then you are out of the game and cannot get back on - obviously that is not a life saving issue but still a nuisance basically it proves the wifi/broadband service is much less reliable (for us) than the landline telephone and it is really nice currently they are totally separate things.

I will look at the one router for the broadband line into my office the next time the wifi cuts out so see if the colour changes.

I did cut more branches off a tree through which the wires go outside and I suppose a few remain but they only lightly touch the wires so I am not sure that will be it. When the BT man was here he said a woodpecker had pecked into the wooden pole so much it was dangerous to go up and he would put us on a list for a new one but nothing has happened and I am sure the state of the poll is not affecting the wires anyway.
I just feel the UK's wifi infrastructure is yet good enough for the nation to move away from all landlines.