For what it's worth there is zero chance I would ever recommend a friend/family member looking to retain a landline goes down the path of an ISP and an ATA. SIP is just too fragile to stick behind a NAT gateway that becomes an easy target to point fingers at from the VoIP providers perspective.

If someone comes up with a VoIP service that isn't SIP and so won't get mangled by NAT or CGNAT and can provide an ATA that auto-provisions itself then I'd feel a lot more comfortable, until then even if the total cost is £5-£10 more each month I think it's worth it to have one box that the ISP is responsible for that is the bit providing the broadband as well as the bit providing the phone line.

I have a Cisco ATA191 on A&A and my ISP is Lit Fibre, it works for me but I wouldn't want to put anybody else through the process of getting the tones sounding right for the UK, the ringing cadence configured properly etc.

In reply to a post by CJT:

who would you suggest are a viable option in my Mum’s circumstances?

Any of the mass providers who do a combined broadband and phone service.

The negativity about Zen may be a valid experience for some. After 7 years with Zen, moving to FTTC with DV, then Fibre 900, I have never had any issues with BB or phone. I will soon be moving the phone to a VoIP provider, as the Zen £6/month for 1000 minutes isn't justified by our negligible phone usage. As a service, however, it has been perfect. Plug any analogue phone or DECT base into the supplied Fritz! router and it just works.

In reply to a post by jpm:

For what it's worth there is zero chance I would ever recommend a friend/family member looking to retain a landline goes down the path of an ISP and an ATA. SIP is just too fragile to stick behind a NAT gateway that becomes an easy target to point fingers at from the VoIP providers perspective.

If someone comes up with a VoIP service that isn't SIP and so won't get mangled by NAT or CGNAT and can provide an ATA that auto-provisions itself then I'd feel a lot more comfortable, until then even if the total cost is £5-£10 more each month I think it's worth it to have one box that the ISP is responsible for that is the bit providing the broadband as well as the bit providing the phone line.

I have a Cisco ATA191 on A&A and my ISP is Lit Fibre, it works for me but I wouldn't want to put anybody else through the process of getting the tones sounding right for the UK, the ringing cadence configured properly etc.

I have had a VoIP phone behind CGNAT and NAT, usually worked OK, but when it didn't, other things not phone related were in problems. This was wireless broadband rather than NAT or CGNAT causing problems. Now with fibre and behind NAT, everything is fine and the phone is even networked with an old run of phone cable.

As for getting the tones sounding right, you could just accept the defaults or there are pages with the settings - you only need to set the basics. https://ytexplode.com/uk-regional-settings-for-grand... refers

I'm not denying that it can't all be configured or that it will work, I'm saying that I cannot be bothered to do that for someone else who is then going to be reliant on me to support them.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by CJT:

who would you suggest are a viable option in my Mum’s circumstances?

Any of the mass providers who do a combined broadband and phone service.

Which, having ruled out BT/EE and Sky due to there overly expensive Phone packages, leaves me with my original choice of Zen (which you have suggested to avoid) and Vodafone.

In reply to a post by CJT:

Which, having ruled out BT/EE and Sky due to there overly expensive Phone packages, leaves me with my original choice of Zen (which you have suggested to avoid) and Vodafone.

When using the words "mass providers" I not for one second considered Zen to be a mass provider, probably medium at best. If you're going to rule out everyone apart from Zen you know who you will be left with

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by CJT:

Out of mild curiosity what is your issue with Zen?

You make it sound like I have a beef with Zen

For your relatives use case, I don't believe Zen are the correct provider, add that to Zen's own backhaul being problematic it doesn't bode well. I've said my piece I won't raise my concerns again I promise

No! You rather made it sound like you had a beef with Zen when you could easily have expressed your "concerns" over eg. their backhaul at the outset. The rest, without any explanation or justification just sounds like YHO.
As many others have had no issues whatsoever with Zen, then I'd certainly take you remarks with a pinch of salt.
I'm not sure why @CJT found the need to apologise either. I can quite see where he's coming from and his proposed solution sounds like he's considered the options well.

In reply to a post by ChrisAO:

I'd certainly take you remarks with a pinch of salt.

Chris, I will be taking your post with a pinch of salt as well and putting it straight in the garbage bin as you are clearly out of touch with whats been going on at Zen even though you being retired I would have hoped you could have done your research before make stupid uneducated comments.

There's always one person who's a day late and a dollar short who wants to join in the discussion.

I did exactly what you are suggesting and moved from Plusnet to Zen last week. I thought that you might be interested in my experiences.

1. I have had a problem in that my seach engine thinks that I am now in Singapore. Zen are being slow in sorting this out. we are a week in + a bank holiday weekend. It is causing us problems. No such problem in the last 6 years with Plusnet. We are in the UK.

2. The Fritz!box 7530AX router.

I set up our DECT phones to work with the DECT hub built in but I have swopped back to the old base station which just plugs straight in to the router. We had 2 problems. Firstly the DECT range with the Frtiz!box base station is considerably less that with the Panasonic. It is fine in the house but doesn't really work in the garden. Secondly we often don't know which phone is in which charger. With the Panasonic base it doesn't matter as with an incoming call all bases are live & if we need to transfer a call you just pick up any handset and you are good to go. With the Fritz!box you need to transfer the call which means you need to know which handset you are transferring to. It didn't really work for us. Having said that we now have the "cleanest" and easiest to hear telephone calls ever.

The WiFi range of the Fritz!nox isn't as good as the Plusnet Hub 2 that we were using but better than the Hub One that preceeded it.. All 3 were in exactly the same location

Conclusion
As Vodafone have upgraded their router in the last couple of days I would give them real consideration.