Landline with no broadband

[iniltous]

No point connecting the new hub to the phone only line until the day of changeover is reached , and you need to leave it connected even if initially it seems not to work , doing so before then is pointless and will prove nothing apart from convince you that something is wrong , connect your router too early it won’t work and obviously DV won’t work , you can identify the phone socket beforehand though , that’s a worthwhile thing to do.

If you have separate accounts one with a single phone service on it and one with a standalone broadband service on it , and you pay separately (so you make two individual payments) I don’t see why you are concerned, they won’t mistake one for the other …plus calling BT before the changeover regarding the telephone only line probably only needs the telephone number to identify the account , as obviously the broadband only line has no phone number to identify it by ….once you establish you are talking about the phone service , you can them simply ask ‘ is this line scheduled for migration to Digital Voice or not , and if it is , have you sent me a SH2 to facilitate this change ‘….I’m not sure why this gives you any anxiety , it’s pretty straightforward 

[Jane2018]

Thanks. I will do it as late as possible and wait until the landline is no longer working. 

As well as the voicetext to the landline today and the email I have just had the post which includes a card on setting it up, but that does not really help as it says remove phone from wall socket (I DO understand that bit); then 2. plug phone cable into back of new hub (but that does not help me know how to find a master socket which is not mentioned on the card at all as to where to plug in the new hub when it comes next week) and 3. Ready to use. 

For this particular DV change over I have one relevant account with BT with one landline on it withough BB and with a BB line whcih comes in 2 stories up at other side of house with just BB on it on a  different telephone number but same BT account number). 

The card today by post does say i f your phone is far away from you hub (which might end up being if the hub has to go on a shelf up in the garage by what may be that master socket) then I can order a free adapter but I will take this as a step at a  time - next step the Hub2 will arrive and I will fiddle around with where to plug it in - garage, office etc.

I don't use any cordless and both landline phones are just the old fashioned type without even a  battery in them so very simple.

[iniltous]

How many times does it need stating, plug the new router cord (possibly via a ADSL filter ) into the socket that the phone is plugged into , then plug the phone into the router, you don’t have the phone plugged into a socket in the garage so why assume the router would need connecting in the garage ….if the socket the phone is connected to is the master socket or an extension from the master socket probably doesn’t matter , if it does matter (after you have connected to the socket the phone currently uses , and it doesn’t work )  , then look for the master socket .

[licquorice]

Rocket science it isn't!!!!

[Jane2018]

I think it is helpful if people see how some of us struggle with these kinds of things. I have found the help on this thread very useful. Today as I had a bit more time I have explored where the master socket is for that line - it is the one marked in the garage just below the roof with the landline number written on. I was able to plug a spare landline in there and call 17070 and also call it from my mobile . (It is also clearer than that line on the extension in my office although it has taken me years, nay decades (nearly 30 years since we moved here and got that number) to notice that).

I suspect when I plug the new HUb2 which is coming into the landline extension socket in my office and then the landline into that that the line will be clearer with DV and all will be well but we shall see.

I have also been flat on the floor on my tummy having taken the side off the office unit where all 2 the phone lines come in there and had a go at seeing if a microfilter would help the sound on the line - there is one in the socket next to it but that's just because that line has landline and broadband on it so the spare microfilter I tried out is now back in the spares drawer.

It has also forced me to sort out 4 shelves of old stuff today - 5 old landlines thrown out, long cable I bought in 1998 in case I could not take work calls the day after the twins were born other than upstairs, 5 devices we don't use and bought a very long time ago to try to boost wifi signal my son says we won't need and much else. A kind of "bonfire" of 1990s telecoms/computer stuff.

[Jane2018]

Interim update 3 Nov: The new Hub2 came today for the landline without broadband on it. So far so good.

The grey cable is missing but  I don't think that will matter  as I have a couple of spares black colour which will fit at one end into my spare splitter at wall and at modem end seem to fit into the grey hub spare. I just retrieved them from my wheelie bin (if you throw things away it is amazing how soon you need some of them again which is I suppose why hoarders never do). 

 I can see where the landline will plug in to the modem too (and there is no yellow cable of course to run modem to computer as the line will just have basic telephony on it when it goes live about 6 November later this week although if I had needed one I have a spare).

I think the instruction leaflet inside could have been better set out for people without broadband on the line as they include things like typing numbers into a browser, but if you just have landline on the line you won't have it connected to a computer. It also says about connecting it to the internet but presumably that is forbidden as I am only buying the landline service DV on that line. I probably will not need the wifi etc codes on back of new hub either although I will take a photo of them just in case.

Switchover is 6 November - Thursday so I will just not plug anything until that day and only when they confirm it is working that day. I will first try setting up in my office and if that fails will move to garage at other side of house where master socket is.

I think this (and the hub2 I got the other month for the account) may be the first time I have had property in my house not owned by me as I even buy cars outright but I do remember my parents in the 1960s having a telephone owned by the telelphone company and then the massive change over when in about the 1980s you could suddenly buy any telephone you liked and plug  it in. I don't like the idea of having someone else's property in my home but there we are -  we have moved full circle except the new telecoms does not work in power cuts etc etc so may be in some ways will be worse. We shall see.

[Jane2018]

The Gods of resilience are out tonight..... we had a power cut from 7pm for nearly 2 hours - very very rare in outer London but there we are. The landline on digital voice I tried and of course does not work. The landline that is still analogue until tomorrow worked and the electricity power co. had sent a message to it to which I could listen which will not be possible from tomorrow.... but then may be we will not have a power cut again. It did seem to be quite prophetic and I was glad so many things are disconnected from each other - water, gas all fine, home telephone (what I call the landline) fine on analogue......

Will report back tomorrow when the DV switch over happens (hopefully seamlessly on the telephone calls only homeline).

[iniltous]

So what emergency happened in this period from 7pm that required you to make a call  ? none , right ? , plus , if you had registered your mobile number with the power company the message you so helpfully was received from them to tell you something you were already aware of , on your still working PSTN  landline would have also been received on your mobile as well , which should you have had an emergency you could have also used to make a call anyway .

so what point are you making , you had a power outage but your mobile was available to make calls should the need have arisen , but it didn’t ….IMHO , hardly worth posting about .

You say you tried your landline on digital voice which didn’t work during this power outage   , but your previous posts have indicated  you have two lines ,  a broadband only line (so no digital voice on that ) ,and a PSTN  phone only line , the one  due to be converted to DV in the very near future that ‘thank god’ was still working ……presumably the point you are attempting to make is that your yet to be converted PSTN ‘phone only’ line continued to work during this power outage  , but I’d ask , how did you try your line on digital voice if you don’t yet have DV ,when  you clearly couldn’t have DV on your broadband only line ?

[Jane2018]

Analogue phone still working but BT called that line for a very short time this morning but left no message. I have plugged new hub2 into master socket in garage and it is now "green" colour but phone plugged in back of modem has no sound to it.

I logged into mybt and worryingly when it talks about a new order for digital voice it mentions my completely separate broadband only number saying 

Your number:

[it then gives not the correct landline, home telephone number which is the only change/switch today but the broadband only line}

Sorry, we can’t show your landline details at the moment

We’re just updating your details following your recent order, so please come back later."

So that makes me worry that when the landline goes dead later as I assume it will that in fact I will need to replace the old modem upstairs which is used extensively by that side of the house with the new one which is al ot of work, new codes etc etc just to try to see if some how the 1997 homephone number has been moved over to that separate line by BT. Anyway for now I will leave everything as it is  = new hub 2 and a spare landline all plugged in the garage and just wait to see if there are more instructions from BT later today and/or if the landline goes dead.

[iniltous]

How can your broadband only service have a landline number , by definition a broadband only line has no landline number associated….given your somewhat vague understanding of this you were advised on message 21 to call and verify which ‘line’ the router was being sent out for …the problem is if you don’t give accurate information the advice may be misleading….so does your broadband only line have a telephone number associated, irrespective if you use that number for telephony, and only use the broadband, TBH , if that ‘line’ does have telephony even if you don’t use it , and hasn’t been previously converted to DV , it’s much more likely to be the line migrating to DV than your standalone telephone line , that’s assuming that doesn’t also have broadband you don’t use so consider it a phone only line.