Different voice phone and broadband providers with FTTP?

I've recently moved into a new-build house and it just has a fibre-to-the-premises line installed. OpenReach have come round and installed their ONT (optical network termination) box.

The ONT box has one socket with an ethernet cable coming out of it, and one socket with a phone cable coming out of it. Now, as I understand it, it's possible (even with FTTP) to use one provider for the phone, and another for the broadband.

However, this seems to be much more of a headache with FTTP than it was with FTTC. With FTTC I just told BT I wanted phone service with them, and Zen I wanted broadband-only with them, and I got deal from both that didn't break the bank. With FTTP, however, BT are telling me that to get phone-only service from them, I have to pay £20/month (!!!!!) and then in addition I'd have to pay £35/month to Zen.

In an ideal world, I'd just go with Zen for both, but Zen don't yet offer a phone line package, annoyingly.

So I was hoping some people here had some knowledge about what my options are. Let's say I want to use Zen for my FTTP broadband at £35/mo. How can I get a phone line service from another provider? Which providers will do it, and will any of them do it for less than £20/month?

You should consider VOIP for your phone service - sipgate provide a basic service with a free number, no monthly line rental and low calling costs from 1p per minute - unlimited call plans are also available. You can connect existing DECT phones using an ATA adapter or buy a new wireless VOIP phone.

In reply to a post by jez9999:

The ONT box has one socket with an ethernet cable coming out of it, and one socket with a phone cable coming out of it.

I thought I read somewhere that BT were withdrawing use of the telephone port on the ONT for new customers which isn't the end of the world as you can still use VOIP via an analogue terminal adapter (ATA) or a compatible DECT phone if you don't want your telephone line coming over a copper cable.

I'm just interested in the technical difference between using the phone socket on the ONT box and plugging a VoIP box into the internet router. What's happening differently behind the scenes?

Isn't that answered in your other identical thread?

The other thread has a reply saying that you plug the phone into the Openreach box rather than the router. It doesn't say why that is done, and what's different technically about how the VoIP is implemented that means you plug it in to a different box.

If you have a BBU ( Battery Backup Unit) the phone will continue to work if the local power is down. If the FTTP service fails completely both will stop working.

The FTTP is powered from the distant exchange and Your equipment is powered at your end. The exchange has backup batteries ( and generators) the BBU supports your Voice port and VLAN over the FTTP NOT the BB part. You would need a phone that does not require mains power to use the port in these circumstances ( Not a DECT phone unless you have your own UPS for it)

A VOIP service will stop if you lose local power as it is over the BB part of the FTTP.

VOIP goes over the BB part of the FTTP via your BB provider and the internet to your VOIP provider who will then route your call to a normal PSTN service. If VOIP end to end it will be connected via the Internet to the distant customer.

The BT service uses a separate VLAN ( path) over the FTTP ( 128Kbit) that is routed via the FTTP, then BTs core network using a call control to route it into BT's voice network or to another VOIP customer. Only Major difference is the power backup and the separate VLAN.

In reply to a post by jez9999:

I'm just interested in the technical difference between using the phone socket on the ONT box and plugging a VoIP box into the internet router. What's happening differently behind the scenes?

I thought (my usual caveat of I may be talking garbage applies) that the main difference was that the FVA service via the phone socket on the ONT was a dedicated 128k channel separate from the main data channel.

Edit: Just seen the reply from kitcat it explains the difference so much better

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Oct-19 22:27:46)

Are you saying the power for the phone socket comes from the exchange? Does that mean that the "fibre" line coming into the house also has a copper line? Fibre can't carry power.

In reply to a post by jez9999:

Are you saying the power for the phone socket comes from the exchange? Does that mean that the "fibre" line coming into the house also has a copper line? Fibre can't carry power.

No that's not what being said, the ONT effectively has an analogue terminal adapter built in so its power is via the ONT mains power source in your property. Some people who don't use the ONT phone socket choose to retain their copper telephone line (if the property has a copper feed) or use a separate analogue terminal adapter with a separate VOIP supplier.

Edit: Some ONT's have a separate battery backup unit (BBU) fitted next to them (or in the combined enclosure) but in recent weeks/months Openreach have stopped supplying these so you may not have one that just means unless you have some form of local power generator the telephone socket on the ONT (as well as the broadband which was never protected by the BBU) will stop working if your property loses power.

Edited by deleted (Fri 25-Oct-19 10:36:07)

OK, so if you don't have an ONT with a BBU, I'm not seeing any benefit whatsoever to using the phone jack in the ONT rather than the one in the router. Is that right?

Also, if they're going to stop offering battery backup to the ONT, why even bother having a phone jack in the ONT?

Also, if they're going to stop offering battery backup to the ONT, why even bother having a phone jack in the ONT?

The battery back up was to run the FVA service in case of a local power failure.
A stipulation of OFCOM, now apparently waived.

Why still make them ? Because some people choose that service, some CP�s offer that service, and if older installations go faulty Openreach would need to replace like for like.

There are people using FTTP who ONLY take the voice service , and like/understand a normal analogue handset.

I notice that a few CP�s routers now come with a PSTN jack on them ...

...the times, that are a changing.

In reply to a post by jez9999:

Also, if they're going to stop offering battery backup to the ONT, why even bother having a phone jack in the ONT?

Going forward, they won't. They're replacing the 1+1 ONT with a 1+0 ONT (i.e. 1 data port, no voice port). Voice, should the customer ask for it, then becomes entirely the responsibility of the communication provider taking the data service.

Fewer and fewer people want landline voice these days, hence the plan to turn off the PSTN completely by 2025. Before then you can expect to see a complete stop-sell on voice services; it will be GEA (data only) for new lines.

Quite amusing/infuriating, then, that my new house builder - in 2019 - have daisy-chained a bunch of old-fashioned voice phone sockets into various rooms in the house rather than Ethernet ports. I'm amazed builders are still doing this. Perhaps it's an outdated part of the building regs.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

They're replacing the 1+1 ONT with a 1+0 ONT (i.e. 1 data port, no voice port).

Have been looking forward to seeing the new ONT's, believe Nokia are making them.

In reply to a post by jez9999:

Quite amusing/infuriating, then, that my new house builder - in 2019 - have daisy-chained a bunch of old-fashioned voice phone sockets into various rooms in the house rather than Ethernet ports. I'm amazed builders are still doing this. Perhaps it's an outdated part of the building regs.

Sadly there is no control over what the developers provide as standard, I always recommend to anyone buying a brand new house to consider how they live and what acceptable changes they require and get them in to the developer early (I am not talking about structural changes) as although it will add extra cost for say extra plug sockets or data cabling it will be worth it in the long run.

Edited by deleted (Fri 25-Oct-19 14:13:52)

jez9999

Builders have no regs on phone sockets but just keep doing what they have until someone insists they stop!

After many years of complaints they finally started specifying ( to the electrics team) sockets in each room, just as Dect phones started to mean you didn't need them.

They have now just been dragged into providing FTTP but have yet to be nagged into changing the phone sockets to ethernet or providing Wifi Discs. Remembering that FTTP and wifi are very new to most builders!

There needs to be some official sounding body that provides a guide in how to provide Ethernet around a house and then get the housebuilding federation to adopt it. Also providing training to the next batch of electricians how to provide Ethernet.

It is more complex than phone wiring and does somewhat depend on the router you will provide. Do you want each room to have a separate ethernet cable. how many ports, where will the router be etc. and most answers depend on the householder and their preference for WiFi / Ethernet / Parental control to each room etc. Then think about the number of rooms to Ethernet ports on a router etc.

If builders provided this in a comms cupboard many would complain about their wifi, if in the living room about the number of the sockets / wires. It is a no win scenario so they haven't yet bothered.

The wiring's a piece of p*ss, I've done it many times. It's inserting 8 wires from a cat5e cable instead of 2.

The good news is that the bedroom I want my Ethernet port in is the first in the daisy chain, and they used cat5e cable to connect the voice phone lines. I'm going to disconnect the rest of the daisy chain, put blank wall covers on, and just connect this cable up to cat5e wall sockets to give myself an Ethernet port in this bedroom. They got the wiring (to this room, at least) right more by luck than judgment!

But yes, they absolutely need to change their electricians' wiring standards and put Ethernet ports in to a central cabinet with a separate cable to each. The electricians I've talked to from my current builder seem amazingly clueless about it all.

Edited by jez9999 (Fri 25-Oct-19 19:33:01)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Why still make them ? Because some people choose that service, some CP�s offer that service, and if older installations go faulty Openreach would need to replace like for like.

Is that always the case? When my second OR supplied FTTC Modem failed, I was advised by by ISP, Andrews and Arnold that OR were no longer obliged to replace. The first failure was the Huawei psu which OR replace with a complete ECI Modem which used to drop out. Luckily the OR Engineer left the old Huawei with me and I found a replacement psu on eBay.

Whilst trying to find the make of the non-Huawei modem, cam across this:-

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2015/02/bt-ope...

I wonder if OR will in the future apply this to FTTP equipment?

Cheers!

But the FTTP ONT is more like the �NTE� . Your VDSL modem was from an early managed install product.

You cannot supply your own replacement ONT, it doesn�t work like that.

In reply to a post by Ancient_Mariner:

I wonder if OR will in the future apply this to FTTP equipment?

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

But the FTTP ONT is more like the �NTE� . Your VDSL modem was from an early managed install product.

You cannot supply your own replacement ONT, it doesn�t work like that.

Hi Ancient_Mariner

Totally agree with the comment from Zarjaz.

With ADSL/VDSL you have a dedicated pair of copper wires to your property so your are isolated to an extent from other customers but with full fibre (FTTP) its much more risky as the light that hits your ONT (from the OLT in the exchange) is the same light that hits all the other ONT's on your 32 way fibre splitter so if you do something that affects that light it could service affect up to 31 other customers which isn't good. The ONT is a demarcation point to protect you and other customers.

Edited by deleted (Sat 26-Oct-19 12:41:11)

In reply to a post by kitcat:

It is more complex than phone wiring and does somewhat depend on the router you will provide. Do you want each room to have a separate ethernet cable. how many ports, where will the router be etc. and most answers depend on the householder and their preference for WiFi / Ethernet / Parental control to each room etc. Then think about the number of rooms to Ethernet ports on a router etc.

A decent approach would be a dual RJ45 plate in each room, and bring two CAT5e's to a central patch panel. You can then either have phone+data or 2 x data at each point, with flexibility to patch what you want where. But that works out significantly more expensive than daisy-chaining some cheap two-pair phone cable.

I'd certainly pay a few hundred quid more for this as part of a new-build, but I don't think everyone would. Offering it as an option, just like what colour bathroom tiles you want, would be good.

So you can't supply your own ONT, and OR don't have to supply a replacement in future.... does this mean that when yours breaks, you can never have a FTTP connection again? lol

Edited by jez9999 (Tue 29-Oct-19 09:12:20)

Post deleted by RobertoS

I imagine that the latest ONTs will very soon simply plug into a connector, exactly like the connectorised pole-mounted fibre-optic links now. So easily replaceable by a moderate competent person.

In fact I�d be surprised if they don�t already, with it just being a matter of moving that connection point to a more accessible position.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but when they came to connect my ONT they just plugged it into a fibre optic cable that had been run into my house, if that's what you mean.

In reply to a post by jez9999:

So you can't supply your own ONT, and OR don't have to supply a replacement in future.... does this mean that when yours breaks, you can never have a FTTP connection again? lol

Read the post again.

OpenReach will replace a broken ONT for anyone with a current FTTP service.

Zarjaz made no mention of OpenReach not having to supply an ONT. Simply that you can't use your own.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 29-Oct-19 09:46:04)

Right . That�s exactly what I was talking about.

There is therefore no technical reason whatsoever preventing people being able to supply their own, exactly as they now can modems and modem/routers. Not being able to is presumably just a standard �it�s early days so Openreach want only their kit on the line� position?

But at what cost a John, once out of warranty?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But at what cost a John, once out of warranty?

If you have an active FTTP service then it's part of the contract between OpenReach and the ISP.
There won't be a "warranty" period.

You wouldn't be charged to replace a faulty 10 year old Master Socket.

The ONT is just a more expensive NTE and is the demarcation point.
It's OpenReach's, not yours.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 29-Oct-19 09:53:41)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Right . That�s exactly what I was talking about.

There is therefore no technical reason whatsoever preventing people being able to supply their own...

The fact you get the data of all 32 users on the Splitter node on your fibre is a pretty technical reason.

Edited by j0hn83 (Tue 29-Oct-19 10:14:54)

Ummm. Good point.

But how therefore is criminal replacement going to be avoided? Spoofing of the registration information fed back to Openreach is unlikely to be far away.

The data is end to end encrypted isn't it? So spoofing would not be enough you would need the private key for each endpoint to actually get at their data.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

But how therefore is criminal replacement going to be avoided? Spoofing of the registration information fed back to Openreach is unlikely to be far away.

Virgin cable (and all DOCSIS systems) have the same problem, and they hvae been getting more and more secure with improvements in technology. I believe they now use digital certificates. I believe instances of 'theft of service' are rare in the UK. It is quite well punished by the courts.

In reply to a post by andyhurley:

The data is end to end encrypted isn't it? So spoofing would not be enough you would need the private key for each endpoint to actually get at their data.

Don't confuse user data on an in-service connection with the registration of a piece hardware with "home" at installation time .

Thanks James for that about VM .

I agree it's a very low probability, but with national coverage on FTTP the incentive and rewards might increase. Openreach may already have it covered, but they may not.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Don't confuse user data on an in-service connection with the registration of a piece hardware with "home" at installation time .

Are you saying it's not encrypted at the hardware level? I find that hard to believe in this day and age, at the very least the ONT should be implementing the equivalent of a VPN on each channel if the fibre is being 'shared' between customers. If not then a suitably hacked ONT could give access to all 32 channels to a nefarious user.