Does porting my landline number to VOIP leave my landline with no number?

[ramasaig]

Our current landline contract is coming up for renewal very soon. The landline is for telephone only, our current broadband is via EE Mobile (with a dish pointing to a mast ).

I would like to port the landline number to my VOIP service, but this would seem to leave me with a landline connected to my house but without a number.

We are told that we'll be getting full fibre (FTTP) later this year. I want to avoid any possibility that we won't be connected with fibre because we appear not to have a landline any more!

What is the solution, please? Or am I worrying about a problem that will not exist?

[imjolly]

If you port your number from your phone only contract to a VOIP provider that will terminate your phone contract with BT.  If and when FTTP becomes available you can just place order with whichever ISP you decide using address

[ramasaig]

Thank you. That is encouraging.

I have assumed that because I (currently) have a landline number then BT/Openreach or their contractor would automatically provide me with a fibre connection when that day arrives. I want to be sure that this will still happen if I port the number to a VOIP provider. In other words that I won't fall off their 'to do' list because I have a copper landline but no longer with a corresponding phone number.

It's not clear to me how an FTTP connection is designated. Does it still have an associated 'phone number' ?

When you say "...you can just place order with whichever ISP you decide using address." What address is that?

[imjolly]

ISP  - internet service provider

you can place your order for FTTP when it is available at your address with whichever ISP you decide BT, SKY etc

when you decide you can get broadband only which does not come with a phone number and as the package suggests you cannot make/receive on a home phone

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

When FTTP becomes available, they don’t move all the existing working copper pair connections onto fibre , they continue to use copper , it’s only new or recontracting customers  that use the new FTTP network , however the entire area is dimensioned , in that all properties, regardless of them having an active Openreach service or not , are included in the size of the FTTP network that is provided , so should any property order Openreach FTTP via an appropriate ISP , the connection is possible ( there won’t be a capacity problem ) .

If you move your phone number to VoIP , your copper pair will become unused , that makes no difference as far as ordering FTTP , if or when it becomes available, it simply means instead of being an existing customer migrating from a working copper line to FTTP , you will be a ‘new customer’ with no existing copper service, a distinction without a difference 

[ramasaig]

Thank you.

That has fully answered my previous question(s). The corollary must be that if I port now (pre FTTP) there's no going back.

[iniltous]

If you cease your copper pair ‘landline’ , but attempted to return it to service before FTTP becomes available, by joining another ISP or rejoining BT , that is possible , but because of the PSTN stop sell , you couldn’t have the same PSTN  landline only service you currently have , it would have to be SoGEA or SoTAP , so basically FTTC or ADSL broadband with an IP phone service ( if you wanted a phone service) , in BT’s case that’s called Digital Voice , presumably the fact that you use mobile broadband suggests the speed available to you over the current copper pair isn’t sufficient for your needs , IP telephony needs hardly any bandwidth, so even if your copper pair broadband speed is poor , it’s going to be OK for telephony only .

[ramasaig]

Thank you, that's very helpful.

As you rightly suggest, I've opted for mobile broadband (in 2018) because I could only get 0.5Mb/s on my landline. It had formerly been about 5Mb/s, but suddenly dropped one day and never recovered.

I'm just slightly goosey about VOIP on EE mobile as the service does drop briefly from time to time, and the ping time can be quite long (an effect called 'jitter' ?). I'm currently trying a VOIP service, and it has been OK so far. But of course most people are ringing in on the landline, so the test has been somewhat uni-directional (though I don't see why that should make any difference).

You have made it clearthat although it might be possibleto go back to the landline, it would effectively be to a VOIP service. So a sudden thought: Could I opt for a VOIP service on my landline now?

[iniltous]

The answer to your question could you opt for a VoIP service on your landline now doesn’t have a simple answer ,if you mean a VoIP service from a traditional supplier, a prerequisite would be a broadband service on the line first , that broadband service provided with or without a its own IP  phone service service, if you mean Digital Voice from BT it’s a little more complicated and TBH ,it’s  not particularly clear what would happen if you didn’t also order BT broadband at the same time .

Openreach have a very low bandwidth broadband ( 0.5Mb ) service, intended for  IP telephony  only providers ,  that’s probably only ever going to be BT , as only they  have an obligation to supply a telephony only service, and need  a way to deliver telephony on an all IP network, the assumption was , order a BT telephone service without any paid for broadband , you still get a broadband service ( 0.5Mb  , supplied in the background, not a charged for service ) you are supplied with a mains powered box ( effectively a broadband router with an inbuilt ATA ) and you plug your phone into that , the price  being the same as a traditional PSTN phone line , but a post on this forum suggests someone requesting telephone only  was provided with a SH2 router with no restrictions on internet access   that thread is hopefully going to be updated  as the poster was not the customer but the customers relative so a few assumptions were being made by the poster .

There is another solution, the ATA ( analogue telephone adapter) is at the exchange  rather that the customer premises, that  way although an IP phone service, the customer has no change to their existing setup, no mains powered box  , the wired phone  sockets continue to work as they do now, but there isn’t any real world users yet posting on this forum  about that product so it likely still just a concept, not a product you can ( or BT ) can order .

In your case , if you continue with a PSTN phone service, with presumably a phone number that’s important to you , by December 2025 something will have to change as that’s the final date for PSTN switch off anyway , chances are you  telephone only customers will be the last group to be dealt with , if you are prepared to pay line rental on the copper pair you may as well wait , or given that broadband and phone isn’t much more than a phone only service , get broadband put back on the line and migrate the phone number to DV 

[ramasaig]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a comprehensive reply.

I don't want to be paying  for two broadband services, one of which would be useless (except perhps for the DV phone service). So I think my choice is fairly clear now.