New digital equioment

[Edinburgh-wg]

Rather than logging into your router, I suggest you phone the BT's helpline and ask them to check this for you. If they say your service is inactive, they can maybe do something to activate it soon. For those users that are less familiar, there should be a process to help them, rather than an expectation that they'll know what is going on.

Maybe digital voice is inevitable and the future, but since its set-up is different from the usual, more effort needs to be made by ISPs to have something ready in place to make this transition very smooth.

[WSH]

It's a lot easier to set up than A&A's.

(I've used both.  Quite like A&A but DV is plug and play by comparison).

[Noura]

It’s easy for you because you understand. I don’t. I have absolutely no clue

about copper or anything else.  I have BT basic if that’s any help. I had an email last week to say

“Great news, we're moving you to our Digital Voice home phone service.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

Your switch over should take place on 20 Jul 2026. We'll confirm once this has happened.

What is Digital Voice?
Digital Voice is our new home phone service that uses your broadband to make and receive calls. It's a big upgrade to keep everyone connected now and in the future. You'll keep your current phone number, and your contract and broadband plan won't change. The main difference is you'll need to dial the area code for all calls.”. If this doesn’t help then I’m stuck. At my age technology is a total mystery.    Thank you.

[Noura]

Yes I feel I need guidance and patience and not assumption that it’s easy for me. It’s hard being older and being expected to understand clever technology. Thank you for the suggestion.

[licquorice]

Actually for the vast majority of customers it's extremely simple, no technical knowledge required at all. 

It simply involves unplugging the phone from one socket and plugging it in to another.

However, for a very small minority it's not that simple. I won't try to explain.

[Noura]

I thought that was exactly what I did do but no dial tone. Obviously I’m not as clever as most people. Never mind. I’ll use my mobile. At least I have the internet. Thanks anyway.

[WSH]

Don't be so hard on yourself.  It's probably just that the service has not been activated yet.

[imjolly]

You say you received a huge new phone can you post a photo or is there a model number.  It is unusual now for a free phone to be provided when moving to digital voice

Does your router connect to the openreach master socket or a differnt socket from your phone?

[iniltous]

If your  switch over date is 20th July , then expecting it to work before then is weird….if you have more than one handset obviously you can  have one pre connected to the router phone socket in readiness, while maintaining the service from the wall socket until the changeover date , then when the service is switched over (most likely on the 20th July , three days time ) you are ready to go , if you only have a single handset, don’t move it to the router until the 20th, you may have a little time without service but generally the date given is the date it happens.

As far as the new phone is concerned, your old existing one will work fine connected to the new router (after the switchover) so if you don’t want to use the new phone , don’t , just plug your existing phone into the router socket , but not before July 20th.

[Noura]

The weird bit apart from me, is that the phone is connected exactly as it's always been, only the router has been swapped to the new one BUT the phone has lost its dialling tone. I give up!