I've been setting up my sooper-dooper ASUS router and testing pass through on the SH2 as per all the good advice in this thread, ready for the fateful day when Openreach tell me I'm getting DV whether I want it or not. It's do-able, but a massive hassle and I'm not convinced I wouldn't be grizzling at some point.
But this week, everything changed when my old, copper voice line bit the dust and I had to call BT to report the fault. I knew what was coming next, or so I thought. I was half expecting to find that DV had been activated, copper had been disconnected and I was back into the SH2 dark ages.
A really, really helpful BT call handler was able to tell me not only that I had a DIS fault and he would get an engineer out, but also the following, which I hope folks might find interesting:
"I CAN SEE ON YOUR ACCOUNT THAT THERE HAS BEEN NO ORDER FOR DIGITAL VOICE. I CAN SEE THAT YOU HAVEN'T ORDERED THE FREE DECT HANDSET WE OFFERED. BEFORE DV GOES AHEAD THERE IS A CHECK ON THE LINE TO SEE IF THE SYSTEM CAN SEE A SMART HUB.
IF IT CAN'T SEE SH2 AND IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT THE HANDSET, THEN DIGITAL VOICE CANNOT PROCEED."
I can also offer big thanks to the Openreach engineer (not a contractor this time) who diagnosed dead copper, got me a dial tone back temporarily and then opted to replace the entire copper length to sort it once and for all. This time he put it in the new duct that had been placed for fibre and did all new JB & terminations in the UG box in the road outside. He explained it all, involved me in the diagnostic, treated me like a customer not an inconvenience and even turned down repeated offers of a cuppa.
I now have a crystal clear land line, on the wall beside the ONT exactly where I want it and I'm a very happy bunny. The SH2 is in a box in the loft. Just in case.
