Digital Voice Change-Over

[CatfordCat]

Sorry if this is a repeat, but I couldn't find the same question.

My elderly mother currently has BT landline and broadband, but over existing copper wires, and has recently had first letter saying she is going to be upgraded to full fibre and digital voice at some unspecified date in the future (south London area if that helps.)

Her house has one telephone socket in the hallway (1930s house and that's where they put them when it was still the GPO) and an extension telephone socket upstairs that was fitted some years ago.  The latter has a telephone wire to a filter which splits one line to the BT home hub and another to a landline phone in an upstairs room.  The home hub in turn is connected by an ethernet cable to a computer.

Mother is very concerned about all this, as her understanding is that the home hub will have to be plugged in to the downstairs telephone socket, but there's nowhere near that to plug it in to the mains electric, and the computer is upstairs.

I have rung BT, and got someone who was trying to be helpful, but they were not a technical person, and I don't think I could really get them to understand what I was trying to ask.  They seemed to be saying that to go to digital voice, we could leave the home hub where it is, and just plug the telephone in to the back of that, and that it was only changing to full fibre that would mean changing existing sockets.

But the initial letter mother received says her line will be changed to full fibre.  (She has already declined an upgrade to full fibre when it was just optional on the basis of not wanting the hassle of it all.)

Can anyone advise whether the home hub will need to be connected to the downstairs socket after the change, or whether the existing extension telephone socket upstairs will still be useable?

Or is there somewhere within BT where I can actually get some answers?  The person I spoke to said there wasn't and we would have to sort it out with the engineer when they come round, but apart from the ongoing worry this is causing, I would prefer to plan for this sooner, rather than risk having the BT engineer only changing the downstairs phone socket and then say it's our problem from that point on.

I'm aware that as a last resort, we could probably rig up an extension mains lead and / or ethernet cable, but I'm not keen on having extension leads round mother's house - she is 80+, slightly infirm and not with the best eyesight, and if we don't know in advance what's going to be needed until after it's happened, this means at least a short time when she is not connected to the outside world while I shop for extension leads.

I didn't have any problem with change to digital voice at my own home, as I'd already gone on to fibre broadband (which involved an engineer's visit) and it was just a case of changing what a few things were plugged in to and everything worked fine.

Does anyone understand what is going to happen? 

Or know of somewhere within BT that I can talk to someone who actually knows?

Apologies for a long post, but it's causing considerable concern and I just don't know the answer or where to try and get an answer.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[jac_95]

Hi CatfordCat,

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.

[WSH]

Your post is a little unclear.  You indicate that the letter mentioned an upgrade to full fibre but then go on to say you already have this yourself.  If the latter is true, you already know how it all connects, so I’m not clear what you are asking here.

To clarify, there are two types of fibre and Digital Voice works over both.  People tend to confuse them, so:

If it is “Fibre”, (Real name FTTC – fibre to the cabinet), it is delivered to the phone socket via the old copper wires.  (It’s only fibre to the street cabinet).  The hub could stay where it is and the only change would be plugging the phone into the back of the hub rather than the old socket.  The hub itself still connects to the phone socket on the wall, just as it does now.  Note, for Digital Voice it will have to be a Smart Hub 2 so they will send a new hub if you don’t have that one already.

If it is an upgrade to “Full Fibre”, (real name FTTP – fibre to the premises), it will involve new fibre optic cables being installed right to the house.  These do not use the old phone socket.  That socket becomes redundant.  Instead, an Openreach engineer will install a box on the wall called an ONT (Optical Network Terminal).  Theoretically, this could be installed anywhere in the house.  I say theoretically because you would have to negotiate what was practical with the engineer, but it does not have to be anywhere near the old phone socket.  The ONT itself needs power, so it will have to be close to a power point.  Once installed the Smart Hub 2 connects to this ONT via an ethernet cable and the phone plugs into the back of the hub.  It is possible to have up to 100m between the ONT and the hub so they don’t necessarily have to be side by side.  The phone cable could also be longer or shorter, of course.

Hope that helps.

[Jane2018]

It may not happen for a while particularly if you don'?t contact BT and do not initiate anything and don't accept any changes or changes to her package.   I  was supposedly being moved with rest of London to digital voice by end of 2023 but nothing happened.

When it does happen if the set up is as you say and assuming it is like I have - fibre to the cabinet down the road with internet over the over head copper wires (not fibre to premises) then she will be sent a new BT hub2 and can plug a corded or other phone into the back of that. If that is not where it needs to be one solution might be a very very long cable which I used after having a baby once - we got one which went all the way from upstairs to down (and you can with digital voice apparently also get some other sockets working for other phone extensions).  As for lack of power where phone socket is or whatever again just a long extension cable might work too - ie in both cases very old school solutions but pretty simple might be all that is needed.

[Midnight_Voice]

@CatfordCat 

Just to add to the above that we have digital voice, and it needs no telephone wiring. A BT Digital Voice phone sits in my study, connected only via mains to the base unit, and communicates with the Home Hub over wireless, possibly DECT, possibly BT proprietary, but in any case wire-free.

Our legacy phones, a DECT setup of four to six Panasonic handsets, have a base station that now plugs into a Digital Voice Adapter, supplied free by BT with the full fibre broadband, which also communicates  with the Home Hub wirelessly (though it does need a mains connection).

But it all means that your mother’s problem devolves into two simpler problems; firstly, getting the ONT for the Home Hub suitably sited within range of a short Ethernet cable from ONT to Home Hub, and secondly, deciding where to site the Digital Voice phone, or adapter for the existing phone, within range of a mains socket.

But not having to worry, at all, about wiring the phone to the Home Hub, as this won’t be necessary.

[CatfordCat]

Thanks for the reply.

"Your post is a little unclear. You indicate that the letter mentioned an upgrade to full fibre but then go on to say you already have this yourself. If the latter is true, you already know how it all connects, so I’m not clear what you are asking here."

Yes, I already have fibre, but I do not live with my mother.  At my home, the BT socket is in the living room where the main phone and computer already were, and all I had to do when digital voice happened was just change what a few things were plugged in to (it was a few years ago, and it was simple and trouble free enough for me not to remember exactly what I did.)   I had already changed over to fibre, but from your description of it, I think it's FTTC not FTTP, as it involved having the main socket replaced, but I don't have an ONT or anything (other than the home hub) plugged in to the mains.

"To clarify, there are two types of fibre and Digital Voice works over both. People tend to confuse them..."

Again, some of the confusion is down to BT - the letter mother received says she is going to be upgraded to full fibre, the person I spoke to said that's not the case.

If the existing telephone socket stays as it is, then I agree - all that will be necessary is plugging the phone in to the back of the hub (yes it is a smart hub 2) instead of the telephone socket.

But my arrangements at home are that I have an ethernet cable from my smart hub to the main telephone socket, not a telephone cable, so I'm not sure this will be the case.

The big (potential) issue at mother's house is that the main telephone socket in the hall is not convenient for mains power, and is even less convenient for the computer.

[CatfordCat]

@Jane2018 

Thanks

When it does happen if the set up is as you say and assuming it is like I have - fibre to the cabinet down the road with internet over the over head copper wires (not fibre to premises) then she will be sent a new BT hub2 and can plug a corded or other phone into the back of that. If that is not where it needs to be one solution might be a very very long cable which I used after having a baby once - we got one which went all the way from upstairs to down (and you can with digital voice apparently also get some other sockets working for other phone extensions). As for lack of power where phone socket is or whatever again just a long extension cable might work too - ie in both cases very old school solutions but pretty simple might be all that is needed.

Yes.  I can see short term work rounds involving an extension cable - either mains or ethernet or possibly even both - although this will at best be untidy and at worst be a safety hazard.  It's not knowing what is going to happen, or what cable/s we might need, that is causing the uncertainty.  I don't really want to have to buy a selection of cables in advance to cover for all eventualities, hence wanting to be able to talk to someone at BT about what's actually going to happen.

[WSH]

There are people on this forum that know a lot more about the Openreach side of things than I do, but my understanding is that current Openreach policy is to do both the upgrade to Digital Voice and Full Fibre at the same time where Full Fibre is already available.

It is quite possible, however, to be upgraded to Digital Voice while still on the old FTTC system if Full Fibre is not yet available.  That’s what happened to me back in September.

If it is FTTC then, as I said, the hub can stay where it is.  You are just plugging the phone into the back of the hub instead of the old phone socket.

Midnight-Voice makes a good point.  I'm a wires man myself so I tend to overlook radio but BT do digital phones that will connect to the Smart hub via DECT.  (Dect is radio but not be confused with WiFi...they are different systems).  They also do a plug-in adapter that an ordinary phone can plug into and the adapter then communicates with the hub via DECT.  The adapter is a bit like a portable phone socket.  Lastly, also as Midnight-Voice said, you can plug a cordless phone base station into the phone socket on the back of the hub.

[Midnight_Voice]

@WSH @CatfordCat 

I can’t claim the credit for that suggestion in the last line - I think another of us said it - but yes, indeed so.

On another note, I am reminded that on DV, there is no longer such a thing as a local call, at least as far as dialling goes, and you always need the area code, even to call a neighbour.

This can cause a little culture shock, but adding this code to your speed-dial numbers is a one-time process.

[iniltous]

As far as I know, there are no forced migrations to FTTP in areas where it’s available, there is encouragement to make the switch , like as a result of changing provider the opportunity to move to FTTP should be taken but no one staying with the same provider will be forced , for one thing some landlords would  refuse leaving their tenants in a difficult position, perhaps the notification is badly worded or has been misunderstood.

The change to DV for BT customers is different, for the overwhelming majority it’s simply a case of plugging the phone into the router instead of the phone socket on the wall , the differences are minuscule, like having to dial the national number including the STD code , but that’s been the case with mobiles forever, and in many places in the UK ( like where I am ) for decades now , there has been the need to dial the full number even on ‘local’ calls .

As far as your mother , she can continue to use the upstairs socket for the router , but the phone will need to be plugged into the router once moved to DV , on the face of it, that’s pretty much the only change required.