FTTP Voip & BT's Forced Monopoly! (DO NOT GET DIGITAL VIOCE IF YOU WANT TO USE YOUR OWN ROUT

[DisgruntledDave]

Already been told by a manager I can leave free of charge 

[DisgruntledDave]

Wasn’t my suggestion, what I was told in faults.

I was also told at faults to buy a gigabyte lan switch and plug that into my WAN connection and then plug in the sh2 and my own router into the switch 😂😂

BT have problems, if this is their advice 

[gg30340]

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@DisgruntledDave wrote:

Already been told by a manager I can leave free of charge 

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Hope you got his full name.

[-Richie-]

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@DisgruntledDavewrote:

As some of you may or may not know, BT Openreach are slowly phasing out the old phone system and replacing them with Digital Voice / Voip. This has finally caught up with me and Open Reach have disconnected my traditional Landline, and connected me to their Digital Voice service. 

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I fixed your typo, It's Openreach that are retiring the PSTN (copper phone line) network, not BT or any of the other 600+ communication providers that use the network.

The reason comes down to cost, more and more of the UK are connecting to full fibre (FTTP) and running an old analogue network and fibre network costs money, on top of that the old copper network has more faults and costs more to maintain, so Openreach announced way back in 2016 their intentions to close the PSTN down, now all providers have introduced their own product, with BT that is Digital Voice.

[oldbuffer1]

The idea of having to connect one router to another (call it Home Hub or whatever, its still a router) doesn't make a whole lot of sense - just another software problem to outsort if it all goes pear-shaped. As far as I'm aware, and please correct me if I'm wrong, there are only three companies so far that offer a phone package (presumably as DV) integrated with FTTP, namely BT, Sky and Vodafone. All the others I've looked at are Full FIbre Internet only . Keeping a separate copper landline to maintain your home phone service as well as Full Fibre broadband must be somewhat expensive. And given the intention to abandon copper altogether sooner rather than later, DV is way to go if you wish to keep your old phone number. Some of my neighbours are in a similar situation whereby when requesting to switch to the recently installed fibre in our street, they have been told  by their service provider that the existing copper phone line will disappear as they dont do the phone service over FTTP. This also leads to a problem closing their current contract ie Phone + Broadband and going elsewhere. Should there be exit penalties since the provider cannot give the customer the service they had originally?

[-Richie-]

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@oldbuffer1wrote:

As far as I'm aware, and please correct me if I'm wrong, there are only three companies so far that offer a phone package (presumably as DV) integrated with FTTP, namely BT, Sky and Vodafone.

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Discussing other providers goes against the forum rules but basically any provider that uses the Openreach network will stop offering PSTN, some areas that have FTTP available are in a stop/sell process where Openreach won't supply a phone service.
The likes of Virgin Media and the many Alt Nets don't use the Openreach network, so they are not impacted by the change.

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@oldbuffer1wrote:

Should there be exit penalties since the provider cannot give the customer the service they had originally?

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You have a broadband and telephony service, if you move from PSTN or FVA (Future Voice) to Digital Voice, then you still have the same telephony service, the contract is to provide a voice service, it doesn't specify how that's delivered, so yes early termination fees would be applicable.

[oldbuffer1]

Was not my intention  to discuss other providers - purely to list them as I understood it. However,  to be more specific, and to keep this hypothetical, say I have a FTTC Broadband connection with Phone Package and right now I have the option of "upgrading" to Full Fibre (Ultrafast Fibre, FTTP or whatever you like to call it) broadband. Having gone through the speed options available from my current provider I can either see no  mention of a phone service, or an information panel that tells me I can have a Fibre only service -  NO phone. I then look around for a provider that can give me Full Fibre plus Phone Package (ie one that integrates my existing phone service with Fibre Broadband )- try it, and such an available option you can count on one hand!  I'm quite happy to switch to DV as long as my existing home setup works and I can keep my  existing phone number. So having established that although my existing provider can upgrade me to FTTP at whatever whizzo speed I wish to pay for, they cant provide any phone package to go  with it.  As it is imperative I maintain my phone service even switching to DV, I  now need to cancel the existing  contract and go elsewhere, because they can no longer supply  me with the service I had originally. At this point using that argument, I feel I should be able to switch to a contract with another provider without incurring any financial penalties. What does the team think?

[licquorice]

I would agree, but that is entirely up to that provider whether they see it that way or not.

You can always stick with that provider for broadband and get a third party VoIP service.

[iniltous]

Digital Voice ( DV ) is the ‘brand’ name of BTs IP phone offer , it’s not a generic term for IP telephony , if other Communication Providers (CP) use ‘DV’ as the name of their equivalent product that will only confuse consumers.

Telephony isn’t a money spinner, the total number of phone calls minutes has been in ( terminal ? ) decline for years , many CP’s may look to get out of this market altogether , any customer they  have still requiring a phone service could always use a third party VoIP provider if their preferred ISP will only supply broadband .

Your current internet supplier presumably isn’t BT , because BT do offer IP telephony , if your ISP doesn’t offer Telephony on their FTTP packages, your ability ( or inability ) to leave them penalty free is a discussion to be had with them , it isn’t really an issue for BT customers and therefore this BT Customer forum.

[NigelB72]

As others have pointed out, the stark reality is that as mobile technology has improved, less and less homes are using fixed line phones. We've not had a home phone plugged in for nearly 9 years as we use our mobiles.