Digital Voice performance from Smart Hub

[Noisy_Line]

Hello,

My first post here so please be kind 😉 I migrated to Digital Voice this morning and all went really smoothly. Before switching I decided to get a dedicated DV DECT phone and the call quality is far better than the DECT phone that used to be my main phone. I was also hoping to use a couple of existing corded phones using the output of the Smart Hub. However when I plug a corded phone in isolation into the output of the hub the quality is awful.

I’m not entirely green as in a previous life I spent a lot of time up poles and down holes working for BT and the output of the hub sounds very much like an earth contact fault! If I remove the same phone from the hub and plug it back in the redundant socket on the NTE, although now just a stopped line I can dial a quiet line test and it is perfect. When I dial a quiet line test on the same phone via the analogue output of the smart hub there is just an annoying hum. I’ve not tried to make a call but doubt I could tolerate it for too long.

I tried to call BT this evening and spoke to a gentleman from Dundee who firstly said it can take 48 hours to complete and then said you won’t get good quality from the green socket and you need to be use the proprietary DV handsets. 

I can’t help but feel this is a cop out. I’ve used VOIP services with dedicated ATAs and the quality was comparable to landline. I have an adapter on its way apparently so I’ll see if the output of that is any better than the hub directly. 

I thought I would enquire and see if anyone has had any similar experiences, any help would be appreciated.

Andrew.

[jac_95]

Hi Noisy_Line,

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.

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

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[imjolly]

If you connect your existing DECT base station to the phone socket on back of hub is the call quality just same as it was connected to master socket?

[VeteranISPUser]

Hi @Noisy_Line   Just as a comparison, I am trialling a Gigaset Go 100 with E390HX handsets, with a view to moving to a VOIP service. The Gigaset base station is plugged into the SH2. The quality is outstanding and certainly on a par with my BT HD with Alexa phones. I have four, bought cheap off flea bay.

[StuartHK]

Just for reference…

I’ve had a Panasonic cordless base station plugged into the green socket for a week now and the phone quality is the same as it’s always been.  No better, no worse.

[SRB]

Interesting - I had a very similar issue many years ago with the old BT Home Hub 2 - when I removed the connection from pin 3 (old extension ringer connection) on the socket the hub's phone outlet was plugged into it, it vanished.  It was a very loud hum across all extensions.

[StuartHK]

Ah... I removed pins 3 & 4 from the bt plug years ago.

[Jane2018]

This is a bit worrying for me for the changeover later this year as I just want t plug my corded phones into back of the new hub BT will send me and hoped the quality would be as crystal clear as my current corded landline/speaker phone (which is much better sound quality than a mobile even in this house). I don't know what a dect is and don't want one - I just want to be able to use my corded landline with the same quality as I have now one I plug it into the back of the new BT hub which will be coming.

I just looked up what a BT proprietary DV handset looks like and that kind of ting would not work for me. I need the traditional corded landline that will fit under my chin when typing with the phone up against my ear etc.

[licquorice]

The sound quality on a corded phone plugged into the hub is just fine.

Please stop worrying unnecessarily over this.

I'm sure you coped with the switchover to digital television and you will cope with Digital Voice.

[SRB]

Honestly, I wouldn't be worrying, chances are it will all be fine, there are loads of people on here who are happy to help with any issues you do encounter.