Moving to FTTH

Hello all

We have been informed that the OR FTTH is now available to order at my location in Linslade (Leighton Buzzard (SMLBD)). Looking perhaps at EE.
Currently with Sky FTTC. We have a need to keep our telephone number and incoming only service (outgongs on our mobile plans). Was wondering if we decided to move to EE where our mobiles are based,:

1. Is there any VOIP service with EE to use and does the existing telephone extensions plug directly into the supplied router?

2. Any VOIP providers just for incoming>

3. Or would a separate service be better, although will I need to purchase an ATA? This then just plugs into the ethernet port on the router?

4. Have anyone else successfully ported their landline number from Sky to either EE or another VOIP provider?

Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks in advance.

Kevin

EE certainly offer VOIP phone, but you have to request it when ordering and there is an extra cost. If you are not going to use it for outgoing calls then their PAYG service would be fine, Phone plugs into the back of their router.

If you subscribe to www.aa.net.uk you could make and recieve calls at home via a wired or Dect phone or using the GS Wave app on a mobile phone. Wired phones wold need an ATA such as the Cisco ATA191. For Dect phones there is the Gigaset Dect base station such as the now superceded N300, which works best with Gigaset Dect phones.

1. Yes as noted above. There are also several respected independent (of ISP broadband agreements) VOIP service providers based in the UK. Most folks these days generally land on the other VOIP service provided by either Andrews and Arnold (A&A) or Voipfone. There are others, many temptingly 'cheap' but caveat emptor / beware would be my advice - you get what you pay for. I would investigate both noted above, as they offer different packages and prices etc.

2. You don't have to call out with VOIP providers. Inbound only is legitimate use case. If you have an "all you can eat" mobile package then go for it via that for outbound.

3. You can depending on your preferences slice and dice this in many ways:
- a VOIP voice service that is bundled with your broadband, mostly that will be delivered via the FXS voice port on their supplied routers. Plug a standard analogue phone in and away you go.
- a VOIP service that is completely independent of any broadband. This is probably the most flexible for optionality both in portability (moving between broadband providers etc is seamless) and in the device(s) software or hardware that you decide to access the service with - could be an ATA + analogue phone(s), could be an IP phone, could be a soft phone that is an app on your computer or smartphone.

4. Shouldn't be a problem, Sky are bound by Ofcom rules on number porting. So yes.

Keep the questions coming, it's a rather large topic for both the uninitiated and initiated! 😅

Edited by Pheasant (Fri 16-May-25 18:29:40)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Keep the questions coming, it's a rather large topic for both the uninitiated and initiated! 😅

And the questions would be best asked in the VOIP section as they're not really about Fibre...

In reply to a post by g1bwt:

3. Or would a separate service be better, although will I need to purchase an ATA? This then just plugs into the ethernet port on the router?

You could purchase an Internet phone and plug that into an ethernet port. It effectively has the ATA built in. If you want more than 1 phone on the line, of course the ATA is the better solution

About 2.5 years ago I was with Plusnet and moved to Sky who converted me to a digital voice line in the transfer. (this was on FTTC).
After 6 months I transferred to Vodaphone (still on FTTC) and the transfer went well and the phone line move was ok.
I have just moved back to SKY on conversion to FTTP and the phone line transferred back ok.
The problem I had was the online Sky ordering wanted to guive me a new number and I had to go thought the SKY online contact ordering who sorted out the transfer of my original number at the same time as conversion to FTTP. Sky honoured the offers on the web site ordering. This transfer was in April 2025.
My telephone num,ber was origionally a BT number.

Both SKY and Vodafone give a free digital voice line (you just pay for calls) wheras EE and BT charge £5 a month.
There is a company offering to transfer your incoming digital voice line calls to a mobile but it costs.

Hope this helps

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I went with EE in the end as Sky seemed to be stretching the truth a bit about extra charges which aren't mentioned on the website (possibly buried in the legal bits).
Will come back when everything has been installed etc. Many fingers are crossed.