For the record

[Geoff765]

I was notifed on 5th February that my phone was to be migrated to digital voice.

Today I was informed that the date of changeover to digital voice will be 28th June. It would appear that the pause in migration to digital voice is ended. My age puts me in the vulnerable category. I have not been contacted regarding how the changeover may affect me!

All promises are either lies or jest?

[jac_95]

Hi Geoff765,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Community.

This is an automated response as I can see you have a question about BT’s Digital Voice service. Rather than waiting for a response from the Community, you may find an answer to your question by using the search bar on the Community homepage. We also have a thread that contains a wealth of info related to BT’s Digital Voice, click this link to take a look, Digital Voice FAQs.

If you have already looked for the answer to your question and have not found anything that can help, then please ignore this message. One of our Community members will be along shortly to help you further.

[garybs29]

You say your age puts you in the category but have you noted that you're vulnerable with BT? I suspect they don't contact people solely based on age tbh

[Bob1001]

@Geoff765  BT seem to imply they help the older more vulnerable customers see the link below however they did not consider me vulnerable enough although I thought I fitted their criteria age/cancer(now recovered) / heart attack (OK now have pacemaker). At the time I applied I was suffering from all of the above, still old however can't think of a way of getting young.

So worth phoning to see if you can get help.

https://www.bt.com/help/landline/help-for-people-who-may-be-older--have-an-impairment-or-with-par

[iniltous]

Do you suffer from frequent power outages and have no mobile coverage ?, chances are that it’s neither , or at worst , one of those, so DV makes you no more vulnerable than you are now , honestly, what would you do if your current landline developed a fault that made making and receiving calls impossible, would you move out for the duration of the fault ?

age alone doesn’t signal vulnerability.

[Geoff765]

I believe that my situation will be more vulnerable than it is now. If my electricity fails now, I can telephone for assistance, etc. as the PSTN system would still be working. If the PSTN system fails, my home would still have heating and lighting: the lack of a phone is not too critical. BT are effectively making me reliant on the electricity supply for communications. So if I lose electricity, I lose heating AND the ability to notify the supplier of that loss.

Mobile phone - I suppose that I can acquire one to "back-up" my HD digital voice system, BUT, then why would I need BT's digital voice system? I could just use the mobile phone!

I was expecting BT's Marc Allera  to make some announcement as to what provision was to be made for people who relied on the land line AND to notify those people as to how to make contact with the relevant BT section rather than letting them negotiate the labyrinth of BT's "help" system.

Otherwise, what was the purpose of the "pause of digital rollout"? Merely to let the public gaze shift elsewhere?

[gg30340]

---

@Geoff765 wrote:

Mobile phone - I suppose that I can acquire one to "back-up" my HD digital voice system, BUT, then why would I need BT's digital voice system? I could just use the mobile phone!

---

... and there is one of the reasons that the  phone system is moving to digital. More and more people have a mobile phone with "free" calls and do not use or have a need for a land line phone.

As a result it is becoming less and less attractive for Openreach to maintain an old expensive landline phone system that is becoming obsolete in the same way as we no longer have black and white analogue TVs and many other items from the past.

[iniltous]

There is a very simple solution if you assert that you don’t need DV if you have a mobile for calls , ( and consider you would be unnecessarily paying twice for the ability to make calls ) , that is take a broadband only service …you can get BT Broadband without any telephony, and it’s a little cheaper too ( this is an option where there are no incoming or outgoing calls possible, there is no dialtone , you don’t get a phone number )
I dare say the pause in DV was to identify areas where those BT customers genuinely affected by the lack of a mobile signal and frequent power outages,( thereby qualifying for a free battery back up  should the mains fail, ) have been identified, and have a reasonable chance of being provided with a BBU should they request one.

As before , if you don’t qualify, then make your own arrangements if you feel a BBU is necessary  , if you feel more vulnerable, and no doubt some will undoubtedly consider themselves at risk ,  but by any objective assessment they are not , BT have no responsibility to provide you with a ‘safety blanket’ they are not a social service,

If someone has such critical health issues then you would imagine they would already have a mobile ( what if the health crisis happens away from home or they have a regular landline default  ) and you would imagine they wouldn’t chose to live  in an area so remote that power outages are a serious problem.

[gg30340]

I fail to see how BT or any other telephone provider are responsible for ensuring a connection when there is a power outage. If it is a frequent problem the electricity supplier should be getting held to account.  

Before anyone complains about the extended power outage during the big storm. This was not a " normal" outage and I am pretty sure the electrical company were aware of the outage without having to be informed by telephone from every person affected.

[Bob1001]

@iniltous  When I tried to get on BT's vulnerable register my landline was out of order and I was waiting for a call about when I could start chemo, I did not have confidence that the hospital would phone on my mobile as they had not in the past. I was trying to get the repair done more quickly.

However that was not enough to get me on the vulnerable register. I managed to find the number of someone high in BT  and the fault was fixed the next day, the fault desk had told me it would be at least a week.