Is AAISP a SoGEA service?

Is AAISP's service a SoGEA line or is it a normal phone line but where they just do not terminate calls or something?

I do not understand the technology, so sorry if that question sounds stupid, but I am trying to sign up to iDNet's explicitly labelled SoGEA service and am being told I need to pay a fee to convert the line as there is a live service on it, which was a surprise to me.

There is a number associated with the line on the control panel, though I just assumed that maybe all lines needed an assigned number as a reference. So I tried plugging in a phone and there is a dial tone yet it does not allow me to make calls (solid tone after a few digits of entering a number) or receive them (four quick beeps and disconnected when I tried calling).

But checking the website and knowledge base, there is no reference to SoGEA, and it would be odd for them to not be explicit about the technology. So now I am thinking maybe I misunderstood what they meant on the order form by:

The copper pair (telephone line) is provided solely for use with the associated broadband service and does not provide a telephone service.

Which I took as saying that after migrating the copper pair does not provide a telephone service, but maybe I am being too literal, a curse of being autistic, and it actually means something I am missing?

It isn't SOGEA. It's broadband and line rental, but with the line blocked from making calls.

At the moment new installs are non-SOGEA. We will be publishing our migrations to SOGEA plans and making all new orders SOGEA shortly.

SoGEA mean you will lose your own landline number but I think SoGEA is only available on both FTTC 40/10 and 80/20 but no line rental with phone number.

The point of SOGEA (and having it available to customers) is that it's not a product on top of WLR and so won't stop working when analogue voice services are withdrawn.

In reply to a post by Rebecka:

Is AAISP's service a SoGEA line or is it a normal phone line but where they just do not terminate calls or something?

As it stands, what they do is provision lines normally - eg PSTN + the ADSL/FTTC service. They add a service sold by BT Wholesale to prevent the line being used for outgoing calls - well actually what they do is use a service that means anytime the phone goes off-hook it auto-dials a number - which is a number A&A control and that plays out a generic message they have. They block incoming calls.

It isn't anything "special" - but it has the effect of making the phone line useless to you as a phone line. Perfectly within A&As rights to do so and if you want voice, don't put the PSTN (or copper pair as they call it) with them.

It is effectively a pre-SOGEA way of doing it that only a few people use, A&A being the most well known.

I believe in the past some lines did get a dial-tone and could be used for calls.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, and to everyone else for their replies.

Once my line was migrated to them I immediately unplugged the phone, so did not realize there was a dial tone until being told I had an active phone line and investigating. But I suppose the only difference to a customer is that SoGEA is future-proofed while this method I assume will require a one-off "you may loose service for 10 minutes on Wednesday while we perform essential maintenance "type situation at some point. But I would have happily continued without knowing or caring how my service was provided had it not affected how the it is migrated between providers.

Incidentally, my line does not seem to be auto-dialling a number, the dial tone seems constant until I dial something. Trying just now and as soon as I dial any digit it either goes to a solid tone or silence Not that it matters, just a curiosity I guess.

As I understand it , any ordinary WLR line can be made OCB ( outgoing calls barred ) where dialtone is delivered, but the only allowed calls are to 999, 100, and customer service , typically 150, this is the state TOS ( temporary out of service due to non payment ) customers are placed in , incoming calls barred ICB can be set separately, with TOS lines , the incoming service was maintained, so the Telco could ring the delinquent customer to gain payment , or payment plan etc , but with ICB applied , the net result would be a line , still connected to the ‘exchange ‘ whereas a SoGEA doesn’t need to be connected to anything other than the FTTC cabinet, but effectively cant make or receive calls …however from a wholesale point of view the ISP would be paying more for this than a ‘proper’ SoGEA line
With a line in this state 17070 could still report a directory number , if not already tried , give it a go , although any number reported wouldn’t be of any use as calls to it would still be barred….it’s also possible that 17070 could also be a number that’s unavailable

Edited by Iniltous (Sat 25-Jun-22 11:38:01)

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

the net result would be a line , still connected to the ‘exchange ‘ whereas a SoGEA doesn’t need to be connected to anything other than the FTTC cabinet

SOGEA lines are still connected to the exchange via the E-Side pair for line testing.

The only exception to that currently is 2 small "SOGEA D-Side only" trials in Mildenhall and the East Anglia region.

I am with UnchainedISP now with SoGEA FTTC 80/20 no phone number or line rental anymore. Just GEA FTTC.

Your E-Side is still connected between the PCP and the exchange, connected to the line test equipment in the exchange.

In reply to a post by Rebecka:

I am trying to sign up to iDNet's explicitly labelled SoGEA service and am being told I need to pay a fee to convert the line as there is a live service on it, which was a surprise to me.

I migrated to an iDNet SOGEA service in April 2021 from AAISP and there was no charge.

I wonder why your circumstances are different?

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

With a line in this state 17070 could still report a directory number , if not already tried , give it a go , although any number reported wouldn’t be of any use as calls to it would still be barred….it’s also possible that 17070 could also be a number that’s unavailable

I just tried and that is correct, it reported a number (the one shown on A&A's control panel) but ring back did not work.

In reply to a post by ferretuk:

I migrated to an iDNet SOGEA service in April 2021 from AAISP and there was no charge.

I wonder why your circumstances are different?

Maybe they have changed their prices? I checked all the options before moving to AAISP, and iDNET were listing a migration fee to take over a line unless it was already SoGEA. It was part of why I paid the upfront cost to join AAISP on a one-month contract, thinking that when and if I want to move after splitting my broadband and phone service it would have meant the "SoGEA fee" had been paid anyway.

But unfortunately it seem my monthly usage is around 600GB,, and AAISP's pricing has nothing between 500GB and 5TB so staying with them will cost me £19 per month more than iDNET. So as annoying as it is having to pay a migration fee twice, it is still much cheaper than staying.

But at no point did AAISP mention SoGEA so it is my fault for making that assumption. Though I am not sure there was any other option to do what I wanted, which is to move my phone service to AAISP's VOIP without loosing broadband access for a few weeks. Though had I known they were not providing a SoGEA line I would have probably committed to AAISP for six months to save on the first fee, but which would have ended up costing me more overall.

In reply to a post by ferretuk:

I migrated to an iDNet SOGEA service in April 2021 from AAISP and there was no charge.

I wonder why your circumstances are different?

Can I ask if you had any problems migrating?

I was told by iDNet that they were having problems placing my order. They saiid they could try to find out why so I asked them to keep trying, but as I have not heard anything back I expect they will come back to me to say they have been unable to resolve the situation. I am not in a minimum term and the control panel says 'Transfer requests allowed'

I am not sure what other options there are for a static IP and no phone service other than Zen (whether SoGEA or an arrangement like AAISP), but presumably anyone else would have the same problem anyway.

This leaves me worried my only option would be to have a new line installed and then cancel the old one. Oddly the installation cost is no different to migrating, but needing a physical installation would be greatly disruptive at best and not good for my health. But while AAISP's service is fine, it is just too expensive.

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

As I understand it , any ordinary WLR line can be made OCB ( outgoing calls barred ) where dialtone is delivered, but the only allowed calls are to 999, 100, and customer service , typically 150, this is the state TOS ( temporary out of service due to non payment ) customers are placed in , incoming calls barred ICB can be set separately, with TOS lines , the incoming service was maintained, so the Telco could ring the delinquent customer to gain payment , or payment plan etc , but with ICB applied , the net result would be a line , still connected to the ‘exchange ‘ whereas a SoGEA doesn’t need to be connected to anything other than the FTTC cabinet, but effectively cant make or receive calls …however from a wholesale point of view the ISP would be paying more for this than a ‘proper’ SoGEA line
With a line in this state 17070 could still report a directory number , if not already tried , give it a go , although any number reported wouldn’t be of any use as calls to it would still be barred….it’s also possible that 17070 could also be a number that’s unavailable

FWIW, A&A use another feature, there is no dialtone.

In reply to a post by Rebecka:

In reply to a post by ferretuk:

I migrated to an iDNet SOGEA service in April 2021 from AAISP and there was no charge.

I wonder why your circumstances are different?

Can I ask if you had any problems migrating?

It doesn't help I guess, but my migration was seamless...

Others will be able to add detail on the migration process - I think there used to be a process that needed a spare port in the cabinet as it involved provisioning the new service and then re-jumpering. I'm hoping that I'm either wrong about this, or that there's a more streamlined method of provisioning now as it would be scuppered by a full cabinet!

Thank you. It is helpful just to know the problem is something peculiar to my line. It is very strange though as moving from a combination of BT and Sky to AAISP was as seemless as it is supposed to be.

Along with SoGEA, are VRI (Voice Re-Injection) faceplates going to become available?

If everyone is being taken off analogue voice services, there are going to be people who want to continue using their telephone extension wiring with their VoIP phone service?

In reply to a post by Rebecka:

Thank you. It is helpful just to know the problem is something peculiar to my line. It is very strange though as moving from a combination of BT and Sky to AAISP was as seemless as it is supposed to be.

As others have said AAISP connections are currently line rental + FTTC, but with incoming and ougoing calls barred. There are various Openreach charges for provider to provider migrations and others for conversions such as ADSL to FTTC or WLR+FTTC to SoGEA, many providers just lump these together in a generic "setup fee" which covers their admin and Openreach charges so it may be iDNet have a lower generic price for the straightforward cases and pass on any additional Openreach charges.

In reply to a post by njh:

Along with SoGEA, are VRI (Voice Re-Injection) faceplates going to become available?

If everyone is being taken off analogue voice services, there are going to be people who want to continue using their telephone extension wiring with their VoIP phone service?

There were trials of various VRI faceplates including switched, to change between exchange-fed and local, and various components allowing the line test equipment to identify if a VRI faceplate was fitted.

Given the majority of voice installations are a single DECT base plugged into the master socket I suspect providers don't want to get involved as there is a huge mix of both the original NTE5 and new NTE5c, let alone installations which predate them. Customers would have to identify the correct type of master socket and be capabile of fitting it if faceplates were to be supplied by the provider, otherwise the customer/provider is going to have to pay for an Openreach engineer visit.

BT Retail have Digital Voice adapters for their offering, basically the works of a DECT handset which is plugged into a 13A socket and has a standard BT socket. This allows for other wired extensions which are not adjacent to the BT Hub to be connected, but doesn't address anything using fixed extension wiring in the premises.

I suppose some third-party offerings may be produced, it depends if the companies who do this sort of thing see there is any profit in it.

In reply to a post by tdw42:

I suspect providers don't want to get involved as there is a huge mix of both the original NTE5 and new NTE5c, let alone installations which predate them. Customers would have to identify the correct type of master socket and be capable of fitting it if faceplates were to be supplied by the provider, otherwise the customer/provider is going to have to pay for an Openreach engineer visit.

Ah yes, very good point about the mixture of master sockets.

I was thinking that ISPs would just need to put a faceplate in the post - but a relatively small number of people probably have NTE5c sockets.

As long as your sure to disconnect the incoming pair at the master socket, then you can hook up the voice port / FXS port on the router back into the faceplate and have it use the existing extension cabling.

In reply to a post by therioman:

FWIW, A&A use another feature, there is no dialtone.

Perhaps not always the case. Following my Renumber & Export (from BT to A&A) followed by my original BT number being transferred to A&A's VoIP (see my posts in AAISP 21st Feb 2022), I just checked this afternoon and I have a DialTone, dialing 17070 gives me a number associated with our local exchange - this is NOT my original number that I transferred to A&A. Dialling that number from my mobile gives, "It has not been possible to connect your call. Please try again later."

That said, in the very early days of my Renumber and Export, there was NO DialTone, but instead, ""This is line number one. This is a monitored broadband only copper pair provided by Andrews and Arnold. Do not disconnect or re-use this pair. Andrews and Arnold circuit number nnnnn This is line number one. Quiet line test."

After a couple of days, the above message was replaced with DialTone as above.

Cheers!

In reply to a post by Rebecka:

I am not sure what other options there are for a static IP and no phone service other than Zen

Cerberus sell SOGEA:
https://www.cerberusnetworks.co.uk/connectivity-broa...
Static IPv4(*) and IPv6 (/56) as standard. Free migration if you take a 12 month contract, otherwise a charge applies.

(*) It says "1, 4 or 8 IPs" but I think there's an extra monthly charge for more than 1 - I can't find it right now though.

After looking at Cerberus I think I may need AAISP's help now, because it seems to me that something must have gone wrong when they took over my line.

The migration fees were quite ambiguous on that Cerberus web page, so I clicked the order button to see precisely what I would be charged.

With just my street address it seemed to correctly identify my line under 'copper line availability', at least it correctly give the last two digits of its phone number. Yet despite selecting to take over the line, it still required me to choose a new copper line for installation installation.

That was with the SoGEA option, so I tried again for FTTC. That did not even show any option for a current copper line current line, and only offered a new installation for £156. For SoGEA the new line would have only been £40.64 or £60.73.

Incidentally, while the main page only lists £33 for FTTC without line rental, the order page only shows it as £43.80 inclusive of line rental. Which makes sense for them to provide if are provide the new line just for their service. I assume it would a similar setup as AAISP use with no voice service. But that monthly cost makes the PSTN option slightly cheaper than SoGEA at £45.

In reply to a post by Rebecka:

I am not sure what other options there are for a static IP and no phone service other than Zen (whether SoGEA or an arrangement like AAISP), but presumably anyone else would have the same problem anyway.

CIX (the retail sales arm of ICUK) only sell SoGEA now. £32.40/mo for 40/10 or £34.80/mo for 80/20, a static IPv4 address is an additional £1.80/mo.