Home phone service upgrade (DV?) - impact on other services using landline

[grainywand]

Hi @Lesley_W

Many thanks for your input/advice.

Just to close the loop, I called BT Customer Service, between Xmas and New Year, and they were very helpful …

They confirmed that the home phone service upgrade order (originally scheduled for 6/1/26) had indeed been cancelled (and therefore BT didn’t try to do the DV migration on 6/1/26), and that I had received the mixed BT comms (letters/email) in the wrong order, which caused the confusion.

It appears that BT use a different system (‘Velocity’) for these landline only/DV migration orders, which explains why I couldn’t see that particular order in my BT online account … and it may also explain why an email was received when the order was cancelled (whereas the other BT comms regarding the DV migration were letters sent by post).

Anyway, so we’re now going ahead with getting our monitored burglar alarm system ‘divorced’ from the BT landline, on 19/1, as planned … and, once that’s been done, we can then proceed with upgrading our Plusnet broadband to full fibre (FTTP), and getting rid of our BT landline.

Many thanks again to you and @iniltous  for your assistance with this, it looks like we’re now on the right track!🙏😁

[Lesley_W]

Thanks for taking the time to pop back with an update @grainywand 

I'm pleased you're sorted with a plan in place.

Lesley

[me123]

This is an old thread. I have just come off this SMPF. I have been paying EE since 2014. I was on an old Brightbox after they took over Orange. I was paying EE 26 pounds a month for an old, slow broadband and line rental, and another family member was paying BT for a home phone line rental and call package at about 40 pounds a month. both using the same landline started in 1998. I never really understood it until lately, and I thought this BT digital was going underground and they were doing away with all these telegraph poles and copper wires. Has anyone pursued a refund?

[WSH]

No, way too expensive to bury all the overhead cables.  Even fibre optic can be, (and is), delivered by overhead cables, as well as underground.

The thread is about DV.  DV will run quite happily over copper and does not necessarily require full fibre.  The driving force behind DV is that the old PSTN, (Public Switched Telephone Network), equipment is old, obsolete and spares are becoming hard to get as no one makes them any more.  Hence the switch to a phone system based on broadband, (whether it be copper or fibre).

Refund for what?

[me123]

I guess it would be VM came down the street bury cables i though Bt were probably going to do the same,do VM go overhead with cables as well?

[WSH]

I would expect so.  They do have an agreement to share the ducts etc. so I expect that would extend to overhead.

Why don't you ask on the VM forum?

Edit:  Ah, I think see where the confusion is.  The infrastructure is Openreach.  While Openreach and BT are both part of BT group, OFCOM rules oblige them to operate as separate companies.  The forum has no more link to Openreach than, say, Sky, so who knows what Openreach may or may not do?

[me123]

You seemed quite knowledgeable, that was the reason I asked, I'm not with VM and a BT customer, so it's not worth it to join to find out. It was the second poster who mentioned SMPF, something I learned recently: What is DV?

[WSH]

Sorry, I thought that was what you were asking about, going by the thread title.

DV is Digital Voice, the replacement for the old Public Switched Telephone Network, (the PSTN), that will be shut down completely by 31st Jan’27.  Basically, it’s the phone over the broadband rather than as a separate service sharing the copper wires.  (The SMPF you mentioned).

No reason why you can’t create an account on the VM forum and ask questions.  I do, on a lot of other forums.

[me123]

I see your Edit, have BT never owned the telegraph poles and always belonged to another company? When I was using SMPF, were EE and BT paying Openreach a commission?

[WSH]

Yes, Openreach (OR) are a separate company who provide network access to a large number of ISPs.  And they don't do it for free, of course.

As I said, OR & BT are both part of "BT Group" but they are separate companies and BT the ISP have no more say, influence or favour with OR than Sky etc. do.  No one on here will be able to tell what OR may or may not do, as there is no link between this forum and OR.