In reply to a post by binary:

If I was an ISP, I'd question the value of being in the market for voice service provision. It's a declining market with many alternatives.

Fixed line voice has been in steady decline (minutes and revenues) for the last two decades and hasn’t been revenue positive for BT since the noughties. The retirement of WLR will hasten the decline. I think a huge number will just not bother to continue. That is both customers and providers.

To my mind it’s more a generational behavioural change than just a technological change.

Edited by Pheasant (Tue 15-Feb-22 17:06:24)

Just replying to the last post for no reason.

So in a BT stop sell area where you cannot migrate without going FTTP.

Is the installation free for the FTTP?
Or is this another money making scheme from BT.

It's up to the provider if they want to charge for installation of FTTP.
I believe the standard Openreach installation charge applies to the provider.

Most of the big ISP's don't charge an installation/activation fee as they come with 18/24 month contracts.
Smaller providers may pass this on.

Thank you John.

I transferred from Sky FTTC to BT FTTP in late 2020

Then you had the choice to keep your copper voice or to swap to digital, you could not have both.

In summer 2021 we were forced to switch to digital voice, or lose the phone line. We decided to go digital, there was no charge and we were provided with 3 digital phones free of charge.

The existing phones in the house continue to work because I linked that copper circuit into the digital box.

I can now receive 2 phone calls at once.

When I moved our internal wiring for our voice line over from our copper line coming into our home over to the ONT TEL1 via FVA I phoned the number given and followed the instructions, I can say after that the copper line had no dial tone.
But this was a long time ago and things change and may be done differently now.

I have remained on FVA and will do so right to the last moment possible, I have already dropped BT's Fibre 900 service which is due to end some time next month and just kept the voice service via FVA, this is the first steps for porting our number over to a 3rd party VoIP Service.

Paul

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

When I moved our internal wiring for our voice line over from our copper line coming into our home over to the ONT TEL1 via FVA I phoned the number given and followed the instructions, I can say after that the copper line had no dial tone.
But this was a long time ago and things change and may be done differently now.

That's very true: there was a stop-sell applied for voice services on the FVA port a couple of years ago, and newly installed ONTs don't even have one.

My guess is that FVA services will be switched off entirely when the PSTN is shutdown in Dec 2025, if not before.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

That's very true: there was a stop-sell applied for voice services on the FVA port a couple of years ago, and newly installed ONTs don't even have one.

My guess is that FVA services will be switched off entirely when the PSTN is shutdown in Dec 2025, if not before.

Ah, ok.
Yeah I know there has been a few newer versions of the ONT.

Yeah, I asked BT if they can keep us on FVA as long as possible due to I don't want to be forced into using an ISP provided router due to I have nothing but issues with the hubs, they said they will hold off as long as possible but at some point I will be switched over.
Also that we needed the BBU for emergency phone calls during power loss which was also why BT left things as is.

TBH I thought it was end of 2024, but ok.

Hopefully I would of ported our number over to a VoIP Service by then, I just needed to separate our broadband and phone first which I have done with our broadband.

Paul

If the Openreach FTTP is just being used for FVA and Comm Fibre is providing your broadband then you could port the FVA number out without fear.

Probably better to do it sooner rather than have BT drive the process.

In reply to a post by PaulKirby:

I don't want to be forced into using an ISP provided router due to I have nothing but issues with the hubs

In that case you'll want to move to a third-party SIP provider, so that the ISP-supplied router is doing nothing except for forwarding IP packets. This also lets you use your own router.

For the handset you have a choice of using a softphone app, a SIP DECT base station, a standalone ATA, a new IP phone connected by ethernet or wifi - or any combination of those.

If emergency calls are your issue then I'd suggest you get a small DC UPS to power your ONT and router, and use a softphone client like Acrobits (since that device is already battery powered). Note that if you do have a mobile phone, and your network and device support wifi calling, then you'll be able to make emergency calls using that anyway - even if you have no mobile signal indoors.