Elderly/vulnerable customers without Broadband - Notification of new Digital Voice service

[Tim123]

My parents have phone with BT and internet with EE (an arrangement that's been in place since Freeserve days). Presumably BT will lead their switchover and treat them as if they are telephony-only (i.e. in the final phase), especially if BT are unaware that they have third-party broadband (which is more than possible, even though those two companies are now in bed together). Luckily my parents have me to inform them that they'll eventually need to get their internet and phone with the same provider (as I already have) - I'm sure that many people who are still on SMPF won't have a clue. The fact that such customers are now in the minority is no excuse for BT's and other providers' silence on this vital issue.

[blackprince]

More than the two weeks BT told me today, I then?

[blackprince]

"they'll eventually need to get their internet and phone with the same provider"

Whoah! Why's that?
This is nothing to do with my mother, but is the arrangement I have. I have my landline with BT, and my broadband from another provider who offered much better customer service. Why will I need to change that?

Never heard of SPMF - off to search for that.

[blackprince]

Hmmm - the only SPMF I can find is an open.source data mining framework

[chrisjp]

If there's a power socket within reasonable distance you could use an extension lead as a temporary solution

[licquorice]

@blackprince it's smpf

Shared metallic path facility

[blackprince]

OK. What's one of them, how do I know if I have one, and why might it mean I have to have my broadband and voice line from the same provider?

[licquorice]

The simple reason is that your voice service will be provided by broadband therefore it is impossible to separate providers.

[licquorice]

To put it simply, with the current analogue phone system, your phone service terminates in one location and your internet connection in another. These 2 services can be provide over the same pair of wires by 2 different providers.

Once the whole analogue phone system is closed down in 2025 (not just BT, every provider) the 2 services are combined into one service which by definition can only come from one provider.

[blackprince]

I am really failing to understand this.

So when this happens I will stop paying BT for anything and my broadband provider takes over everything?  Will they preserve my BT number?  And everything else just carries on, but without the £20 per month to BT - I will see no other change at all, and just be £250 per year better off?