New Digital Voice home phone service on BT

[imjolly]

DECT coverage is far better than your hub wifi coverage.  have you actually tried the new DV phones to see how far coverage is in your home

[Fumbledore]

Is there an answer yet for non BT fibre router users? Is there a way to connect the BT Router purely as a DECT receiver whilst maintaining my non-BT Router for Internet connection?

[imjolly]

no you still need to connect the SH2 direct to internet to receive DV

a question may be when will router providers make them capable of working with DV as this will affect all ISPs using the openreach network

[licquorice]

There is no way to connect the hub purely as a DECT receiver. You can bodge the 2 routers together though if you don't mind double natting.

Of course, you could always dispense with BT's Digital Voice and use a third party VOIP supplier with your other router for voice.

[Fumbledore]

Thank you for that. I have a VOIP setup, but obviously not a BT one. For my Telephone service with BT I use the POTS that has been in the house for years. But I thought the way forward was service via the digital network. It seems that BT are making it difficult unless I use their products. 

[SidF]

I changed over to DV on 6th August. On the copper wire, I was using a Panasonic DECT phone with the base unit located in the middle of the longest axis of the house. It reached both ends of the house easily and gave me caller ID plus a few saved numbers. I was more or less forced into FTTP two years ago when the copper wire developed an upload fault on broadband. It wouln't upload anything, just the occasional mouse click to navigate round a browser. Even emails wouldn't upload. BT claimed that they didn't guarantee any upload speed  amd that there was nothing wrong with the coppler wire so it had to be my fault. Several visits didn't find any fault in my wiring but after two weeks with essentially no broadband I gave in and went for FTTP. The situation wasn't good as there is no mobile phone signal in my house for any of the networks. When OpenReach put in the ONT box they said the copper wire phone connection would stay as it was. So they fitted the ONT box at the end of the long axis of the house, a bungalow with 5 block work walls and 20 meters from the room where the ONT box and the SH2 is to my wife's office at the other end of the house. My Panasonic DECT wouldn't go that distance and neither do the two Digital Voice handsets that BT sent me. They sent me a Digital Voice adapter which functions with the Panasonic DECT base unit  but didn't give caller ID. At the moment I have 10 meters of telephone cable running over the floor from the SH2 /ONT box in my office through the living room and into the hall where the Panasonic  DECT base unit is. This works but isn't pretty and gives problems if I want to close doors. I have one of the black Discs in middle of the house which gets WiFi to my wife's office but the Disc is orange (not blue) , showing that all the signals have trouble with the walls. Apparently the Digital Voice handsets can't connect to Discs. I have arranged to have the ONT box and the SH2 moved to the middle of the house. Hopefully that will solve the problem.

[Fumbledore]

Thank you for all that information. Pity BT can’t put a phone socket in the ONT or release the details so I can setup my Cisco SPA112 to work with BT’s phone service.

[Rmh56]

This topic seems to have sprung into life today.. not sure why.

key question - landline is so little used that I wonder why BT aren’t making this more appealing?

ive since changed my router from the smart hub. I hardly use landline

why would I want digital voice?

[licquorice]

@Fumbledore  if you have a VoIP setup, why do you need another voice service?

[Rmh56]

Er.. I don’t have VoIP.. my question was why would I bother with digital voice given lack of landline usage..