The change to digital voice for BT customers requires nothing more than changing the point at which the telephone instrument plugs in , no longer at the wall socket , but into the broadband router , so the obvious question, are you a BT broadband customer ? , if you are , when invited to do so , you take your telephones cord , remove it from the Openreach wall socket , and plug it into the SH2 ( broadband router ) phone socket , that’s it , job done , if you have an earlier version of the BT Hub , you are sent a new router that does have a phone socket built in.
It seems your freeholder is doing work that they can charge you for , and obfuscating by linking this with the change to an IP telephone system ( in BT case , this is called Digital Voice ) , if you are with BT , and there is no reason all residents will be BT customers , no doubt some of your fellow ‘residents’ will use other companies like Sky , Talk Talk , etc. and will still be liable for the same charge, that in itself shows the charge is nothing to do with ‘BT’ .
…obviously if they are upgrading security, door locks , care systems ( whatever they entail ) it has nothing to do with BT , presumably you could, if you choose , not have a ‘landline’ at all and only use a mobile phone , ask them , if you would still be charged for these upgrades if that were the case, the answer ( no doubt ) will be yes , you still have to pay .
