My BT landline down for days.. Chester. Unable to get a reason from BT.

[Liz15]

@rbz5416 I tend to agree with you on social media comments. Re the switch over to digital, I'd watched You Tube/BT film, and also some "Which" information on same to be prepared.  What I had not realised (and maybe never picked up on because I don't recall this being mentioned) was I have an extremely old BT Hub that doesn't have a phone socket for my land line for when the digital swap happens. 

Anyway, via access to BT inf I've found - hopefully - the area and cabinet number for my land line. If this is correct, then it does look as if that cabinet is only VoIP now. If that's the case then it looks as if the only solution for me is to have an adaptor or a new Hub to re-activate my land line. But I'm not an engineer, just a cut off for the moment "land liner."

[rbz5416]

There has ben a general stop sell on analogue/copper phone lines since I think September. But that only applies to new/recontracted connections.

[Liz15]

@iniltous That is really interesting about whether a SH2 can help the situation or not. I think my confusion regarding this, was unfortunately reinforced by a BT customer message interaction. That seemed to imply that a new contract with a SH2 would resolve my lack of land line issue. I could of course be wrong! Anyway, the date for resolution is slipping backwards for my land line anyway. 

[flaxzune]

Thanks. Will look under products.

[iniltous]

TBH , migrating to DV , if you are happy that it will  be a  recontracting event ,  so new minimum term , possible change to calling plan , for example 700 mins isn’t available so if you have that , you would change to PAYG or Unlimited, then  getting DV and a new SH2 router as part of a new deal should get around your PSTN phone problem , as stated DV is mandatory for new BT phone customers but not existing ones , the alternative is to wait for whatever problem that is affecting your PSTN phone to be fixed .

If there is a major cable fault ( for example ) and it requires road closures etc.  to affect the repair then those type of issues can be time consuming, notice for the council etc , and if it’s a main road that’s not a simple request, so by recontracting your broadband and including a migration  to DV , it would get around that issue …but it’s your choice , eventually the BT instigated change would happen , but that doesn’t change any existing contract , but obviously that means you wait until the PSTN issue is resolved, the BT instigated change to DV could be upto 20 months away 

[Liz15]

@iniltous Thanks. Some advice which I'll consider. Wouldn't it be really good to have local engineers etc who can let consumers know what the local issue is & probable real time scales involved for resolution? Ah. Memories! 

[Jane2018]

I might be wrong but it seems to me the digital voice roll out may  be having some kind of impact on landlines. I have not been moved to DV yet but since 15 March in this bit of outer London my landline has been down and each week the date to fix on "service status" is pushed back another week - now supposedly 12 April but I will believe when I see it. May be BT are doing a lot of work to ensure all mobile and landline numbers of all kinds can still call landlines once moved to DV and this is calling thes local landlines down for days (or weeks, nearly a month in my case).

[Liz15]

@Jane2018 You could be right about digital voice. However there is definitely major work being done by Openreach in my area judging by the number of vans and temporary traffic controls I went past yesterday. Could be a fault not linked to digital voice roll out. Such a pity that the customer services "arm" of BT have no local knowledge of what is going on. That wasn't the case in the past.