Digital Voice phones outside range of Smart Hub 2

[naomib]

I hope someone here may be able to help. We have recently switched broadband providers to BT and as a result our landline phone has also moved over to Digital Voice.

We live in an L-shaped property, and the BT smart hub has been installed in what I’ll refer to as the main house. An elderly person lives in the other part (let’s call it the annexe). This person is the only member of the household who uses the landline phone.

The shape of the house and thick stone walls mean that any WiFi network only covers the part of the L-shape which holds the router (in this case, the main house) but we have always got around this by setting up an old router as a network repeater and connecting this to the primary router via a long LAN cable and placing this secondary router in the annexe.

When I explained the situation, BT kindly provided us with a Digital Voice phone. I (and the customer service operator) mistakenly believed that all that was needed for the phone to work was a working WiFi connection - even if this came via the secondary router. We have now found that the phone barely works since it is trying to connect to the Smart Hub in the main house rather than to the hub in the annexe. 

having spoken to BT again, they have now sent out a Digital Voice adapter to try and get a better signal in the annexe. I’m less than hopeful about this solution, since in order to be of use, this would need to be placed in the annexe, but wherever we place it, it will barely get a signal from the Smart Hub. My feeling is that if the special DV phones cannot get adequate reception, then the same will surely apply to the Adapter.

any solution that relies on wireless connection between the two halves of the house will be problematic in any event. Powerline adapters are also useless (I assume) since the two parts of the house are on separate circuits. 

ideally I would like to stick with a wired solution. I don’t know whether I would be able to get a second BT Smart Hub and use that as our secondary router? If so would the DV phone still be able to register to that hub, after I have switched off the DHCP server and changed the IP address on the second Smart Hub?

or is our only solution BT complete (which - for all its expense - I have little faith in since again I feel it would rely on being able to transmit a wireless signal through our very thick walls)

I’m hoping that someone who has a better understanding of the technicalities may be able to offer a solution…

[jac_95]

Hi naomib,

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.

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[imjolly]

Do you have FTTP or FTTC?

how do you get the phone to work in the annex currently?  Corded or wireless with base station?

[licquorice]

Digital voice doesn't use wifi, it is DECT (cordless phone technology), the hub is a base station.

You can wire DV so that the existing phone socket can be used but the method will be different for FTTC or full fibre (FTTP)

[naomib]

FTTP I think… a dedicated fibre line was installed and the old phone lines (which had 2 sockets - one in main house and one in annex) made redundant. I hope that is what you are asking?

[naomib]

There is no working phone in the annex currently as the old phone sockets are no longer able to be used since our move over to DV; and the DV phones cannot get signal from the Smart Hub.

[naomib]

• I see what you mean and interesting about the Smart Hub acting as the base station for the DV phone. Our old quad phones equally did not  work across the two halves of the property so that would make sense.

Is the adapter BT have sent me DECT extender rather than a WiFi extender in that case? I don’t fully understand what it does.

since switching to BT we now have fibre direct to our property as (from what we were told) FTTC was not an option available to us. Is  wiring up the phones as you say something an engineer could do for us? Or can we do it ourselves with the right equipment?

thank you so much!

[Keith_Beddoe · Accepted solution]

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@naomib wrote:

There is no working phone in the annex currently as the old phone sockets are no longer able to be used since our move over to DV; and the DV phones cannot get signal from the Smart Hub.

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Just use the existing wiring to the old phone sockets, and connect it to the phone socket on the back of the smart hub 2, and they will work just as they did before.

If its not possible to connect them directly to the smart hub 2, then plug the wiring into a digital voice adapter.

https://www.bt.com/help/user-guides/phones/digital-voice/digital-voice-adapter

[naomib]

Having read other threads on this forum I think I am clear on what I need to do. 

open up my master phone socket (there is a master filter plugged in there currently, I assume I can simply discard this?)

disconnect the incoming openreach wires from terminals a & b, which I’m likely to find on the inside of the backplate once I take this off the wall (?) 

(is this strictly necessary as BT told us these sockets would be disconnected anyway?)

put backplate back on master socket, then use a patch cable to connect the master socket with a DV adapter plugged in next to it? (The smart hub itself is at the other end of the room so this would be easier and more discreet but will we lose connectivity by going through an adapter? I guess the DECT signal between smart hub and adapter will be good as they are in a single room about 5 metres apart)

[imjolly]

That sounds good and should work