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Message 11 of 15

Re: Does Digital Voice limit my choices when switching ISP's?

What doesn’t seem to be appreciated, is that the nature of the relationship between broadband and calls has reversed, originally a ‘line’ was primarily for ‘calls’ , broadband being a service ‘on top’ of that , now broadband is the reason for the line and calls are the optional service ‘on top’ of the primary function of the line, basically falling call volumes etc mean hardly anyone uses the phone line for calls anymore, added to the old fashioned 20th century technology behind PSTN , and the fact it’s increasing problematic reliability/ maintenance etc ( they don’t manufacture it anymore ) a 21st Century solution was needed.


No consumer one needs to use BT , if BT want to make the telephony offer via a proprietary system , DV , than that’s entirely up to BT ,all options are covered, don’t want telephony you don’t need to take it , don’t want DV , don’t take BT telephony, want telephony but not with BT , but want BT broadband, that can be done use a third party VoIP provider, the only option not on the table is to stay on PSTN.


Personally I cannot understand what the fuss is about , some may have concerns about not having ‘telephony’ during a power outage , but the legacy PSTN network having this ‘facility’ was never a design imperative, it was an unintended consequence of the technology at the time , yet some people seem to think the primary function of telephony ( it’s ‘raison d'être’) is to be available when there  is no power at the customer end , but it never was the case , it’s and certainly isn’t now.

There  are options that couldn’t have been dreamed of when telephony was introduced ( over a hundred years ago ) , like mobiles and UPS ( uninterruptible power supply ) that can keep people contactable during power outages, so retiring the PSTN shouldn’t be a ‘worry’ to 99.9% of consumers.

Anyway the original post was about DV potentially reducing choice , it doesn’t , you can port a DV number to another provider , same as existing PSTN numbers, it down to the ‘new’ provider if they want to import , BT don’t block exports of PSTN  or DV  numbers , if a potential new provider refuses to import due to DV , that’s their choice, it’s only really reducing choice in the same way company’s going bust reduce choice, but you cannot blame company’s that don’t go bust for reducing choice, companies pick and chose what they want to do , and stand or fall on those decisions

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Message 12 of 15

Re: Does Digital Voice limit my choices when switching ISP's?

Thanks for this detailed answer.

As a current DV customer what you say makes total sense around the options in switching to other ISPs with their own or independent VoIP telephony offerings .

The limitation I am wondering about is the fact that the BT Smarthub 2 I have, has a dedicated telephone line for Digital Voice - in which I plug the BT DECT handset base which gives me 4x phones around the home.

Conversely, the other new Fibre ISP provided router I am switching to does not (it just has 4 standard Ethernet ports).

So as well as signing up to an independent VoIP e.g. numberpeople.co.uk, would I also need to purchase any new hardware / adaptors, to allow me to connect the DECT handset to the new router I have - e.g. into an Ethernet port instead of the standard BT wall telephone connection?

Also now wondering if the BT DECT handsets I have would be compatible with another VoIP provider but I presume they would be, if I can find a way of connecting the base to the router?

Thanks for your support

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Message 13 of 15

Re: Does Digital Voice limit my choices when switching ISP's?

Something like a Cisco ATA191 VoIP or a Grandstream HT-801 Telephone Adapter would allow you to keep your pstn phones.

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Message 14 of 15

Re: Does Digital Voice limit my choices when switching ISP's?

Thanks but doesn’t the fact that it’s a DECT device mean it’s not analogue. Therefore not needing an ATA? Or is DECT more about the communications between the handset and the base. 

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Message 15 of 15

Re: Does Digital Voice limit my choices when switching ISP's?

DECT is purely between handset and hub and is just the way that BT have decided to implement Digital Voice

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