BT Digital Voice and Full Fibre? Several questions please.

First some background. I understand that we will all be compelled to switch to BT Digital Voice by 2025 as the old analogue phone system is shut down.
This house is currently on BT VDSL FTTC 24Mbps down and 6Mbps up and standard BT phone line. It is currently being offered BT Full Fibre - this is 01803 (Torquay area).

I'll try to break my questions down into chunks as they cover rather a lot, and I'll number them. I've done my best to research online. I am also very familiar at another location with Gigaclear fibre and with use of Vonage for phone calls (including how to safely wire the Vonage box to existing home phone extension wiring so all old wired and cordless phones work as before).

Phone calls
(1)The current hub is BT Hub6. I have looked at the BT Digital Voice Adapter. Would I need a new hub to use the BT voice approach and would that hub work with VDSL like the current one?

The house is long with thick stone walls that wireless signals do not pass through. The hub is in an underground comms room. The house is wired with CAT6 thoughout for voice and data and there are three wired phones and one cordless phone system.
So I would need four of the BT Digital Voice Adapters. It seems a messy solution. I also see reviews saying sound quality is poor.

(2) Looking at the BT website it appears one can now use BT broadband without paying for a phone line. So I'm thinking I could order a Vonage box, plug it into the existing BT hub, get the current BT phone number transferred to Vonage, then terninate the BT phone service. That should avoid the 2025 issue. It would allow me at no cost to keep all the existing phones and wiring as now. Do you see any problems with this idea?

Broadband
(3) Can I stay with FTTC or will I be compelled at some point to go full fibre?

Much as I would like full fibre the present service is good enough and I'm worried about installation.
There are practical problems with installing fibre as the line goes on poles through a wood (do they put fibre up on the poles?) and then down a pole at the garden border into the ground, then through a conduit in the garden under a tarmac path and then somehow through a thick wall into a comms room that is effectively underground. (This used BT Openreach recommended components when built 10 years ago). I have calculated that a long drill aimed up at an angle near the ceiling should come out an easy digging depth outside. But it all looks difficult and non-standard.
(4) What would BT Openreach do when confronted with this challenge?

You don’t have to use the BT Digital voice at all, choose your own VOIP provider, use whatever kit you’d prefer.

FTTC will be around for a fair while yet.

In reply to a post by Growltiger:

(2) Looking at the BT website it appears one can now use BT broadband without paying for a phone line. So I'm thinking I could order a Vonage box, plug it into the existing BT hub, get the current BT phone number transferred to Vonage, then terminate the BT phone service. That should avoid the 2025 issue. It would allow me at no cost to keep all the existing phones and wiring as now. Do you see any problems with this idea?

If you transfer out your existing number now it will also terminate your FTTC service so this is not recommended.

Post deleted by Growltiger

In reply to a post by dect:

If you transfer out your existing number now it will also terminate your FTTC service so this is not recommended.

Thank you, I would not have guessed that.
The BT website says that if you terminate the phone service you lose the number and cannot get it back.
But if I try to transfer the number it will terminate the whole BT service including the broadband.

So it seems to be a Catch-22, and there is no way to switch to a VOIP provider such as Vonage and keep the BT broadband without losing the number? This seems crazy.

Growltiger

There is a way.

Order a new FTTP broadband only service, ( be very careful not to Transfer your voice service or cease your fttc service). When FTTP is working transfer your number to the VOIP provider of your choice. This will cease your FTTC service.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Growltiger

There is a way.

Order a new FTTP broadband only service, ( be very careful not to Transfer your voice service or cease your fttc service). When FTTP is working transfer your number to the VOIP provider of your choice. This will cease your FTTC service.

That is ingenious, thanks for the suggestion. That would be an excellent solution for most people.
Unfortunately,as you see from my questions, it seems likely getting FTTP could be very difficult in this house.
It would be helpful to know if Openreach when installing FTTP are willing to tackle special cases like mine, perhaps making an estimate for an extra charge or subcontracting it to a specialist installer?

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Growltiger

There is a way.

Order a new FTTP broadband only service, ( be very careful not to Transfer your voice service or cease your fttc service). When FTTP is working transfer your number to the VOIP provider of your choice. This will cease your FTTC service.

It really is the ONLY way to ensure that a cherished landline number is not lost. It has another advantage too that if the FTTP installation runs into problems with the installation, then you still have a working broadband and voice service. The downside is that for a while you are paying for two services. It is also possible that you might be charge a termination fee on your former service and might have to continue with the service for longer than you wished to.

Don't forget to factor in a porting charge by the gaining VoIP provider of the number. Whereas if you took out a new number with the VoIP provider there is no fee payable apart from an ongoing monthly fee which most hosted VoIP providers charge.

Could also order a second FTTC service to be installed. Once that is up and running migrate the number from the original service and that will cease it. As long as there is a spare pair it should be possible to get a second FTTC in the premises. Downsides are again that you would have a crossover of paying for 2 services and also the second pair might be lower quality than the first so could have poorer Internet performance.

The hubs have a phone port on the back I think, so you could use this to wire in all your existing telephone extensions. If you need better wifi coverage you could use your cat6 wiring to add additional access points

In reply to a post by ian72:

Could also order a second FTTC service to be installed. Once that is up and running migrate the number from the original service and that will cease it. As long as there is a spare pair it should be possible to get a second FTTC in the premises. Downsides are again that you would have a crossover of paying for 2 services and also the second pair might be lower quality than the first so could have poorer Internet performance.

Very true but almost certainly you would be tied into a contract fir the second FTTC service ranging from 12 to 24 months. That alone should knock that idea on the head.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

In reply to a post by ian72:

Could also order a second FTTC service to be installed. Once that is up and running migrate the number from the original service and that will cease it. As long as there is a spare pair it should be possible to get a second FTTC in the premises. Downsides are again that you would have a crossover of paying for 2 services and also the second pair might be lower quality than the first so could have poorer Internet performance.

Very true but almost certainly you would be tied into a contract fir the second FTTC service ranging from 12 to 24 months. That alone should knock that idea on the head.

Nope not at all, if you have a look at Now Broadband or cuckoo broadband they offer FTTC in one month contracts.
You'll be pleasantly surprised by pricing

Edited by RR_The_IT_Guy (Wed 25-May-22 09:32:31)

In reply to a post by mwarby:

The hubs have a phone port on the back I think, so you could use this to wire in all your existing telephone extensions. If you need better wifi coverage you could use your cat6 wiring to add additional access points

That is very helpful indeed, thanks.

I see the phone port in the new hubs seems to be a standard BT phone connector. So one could plug any old phone or cordless phone base into it. This seems to mean the so-called BT Digital phones are simply standard cordless phones? The VOIP is built into the Smart Hub 2. So this is actually just what the Vonage VOIP device does, but integrated into the hub.

I have worked out there are two versions of the Smart Hub 2, one does FTTC the other does FTTP.

(The tiny Vonage VOIP device has an RJ11 output socket. An RJ11 to BT plug crossover cable, plugged into a BT socket, provides everything one needs - dial tone etc. So no problem having four old phones on existing wiring. SAFETY WARNING. NEVER DO THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE ISOLATED THE BT MASTER SOCKET FROM THE INCOMING BT CABLE AND PUT A WARNING LABEL ON IT TO NOT CONNECT IT TO BT.)

I have a couple of extra wifi access points here so have good wifi everywhere as well as cabled ethernet (a couple of gigabit switches distribute it.)

Edited by Growltiger (Wed 25-May-22 10:26:25)

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Order a new FTTP broadband only service, ( be very careful not to Transfer your voice service or cease your fttc service). When FTTP is working transfer your number to the VOIP provider of your choice. This will cease your FTTC service.

If FTTP isn't available yet, then the alternatives are cable (Virgin Media) if in your area, or mobile data (e.g. 5G broadband box from Three). I personally moved from Plusnet to cable, when the cable was up and running, I ported my old BT/Openreach/Plusnet number to AAISP VoIP and that ceased my openreach based service.

In reply to a post by Growltiger:

This seems to mean the so-called BT Digital phones are simply standard cordless phones? The VOIP is built into the Smart Hub 2.

Yes. software implementing VOIP and DECT base hardware are integral to the hub.

Other providers do similar - the current Zen Digital Voice on SOGEA or FTTP use the AVM Fritz!Box 7530 which also has an inbuilt ATA & DECT base.

In reply to a post by tdw42:

In reply to a post by Growltiger:

This seems to mean the so-called BT Digital phones are simply standard cordless phones? The VOIP is built into the Smart Hub 2.

Yes. software implementing VOIP and DECT base hardware are integral to the hub.

Other providers do similar - the current Zen Digital Voice on SOGEA or FTTP use the AVM Fritz!Box 7530 which also has an inbuilt ATA & DECT base.

Thanks for that - so DECT is built in too - clever.

That one phone socket in the back is so helpful to me. I wonder if it even provides a ring signal on pin 3, in case an ancient phone is plugged in..

Does this mean that landline customers will lose our telephone numbers on the 2025 FTTP changeover? This would cause great anxiety to older people, including ourselves who have had the same number for 40 years. Have to say that many of us won't be here to worry about it

Its not necessarily an FTTP changeover at the end of 2025 - its the withdrawal of WLR (Wholesale Line Rental) including PSTN....effectively dial tone (and voltage) from the exchange. Migration scenarios include:

1. Customers with only a voice-line (no broadband), and with no FTTP available to the premises, would be transitioned to SOTAP - which is effectively a lightweight broadband service strictly for the carriage of voice over the (very low bandwidth) broadband provided. The voice service would come from the analogue port on a SmartHub type device.

2. Customers with voice and broadband over copper would be told to connect their phone to the analog port on their router (similar to above). This is otherwise known as SOGEA with voice over the top.

3. Customers with voice on copper and broadband over FTTP would be told to connect their phone to the analog port on their router (similar to above). This is FTTP with voice over the top.

Scenarios 2 and 3 above have been underway for some time, albeit with a recent 'pause' to some migrations whilst BT figure out how to increase resilience for vulnerable customers following the spate of outages following the major winter storms.

Thanks Pheasant, but can we keep our old numbers?

Yes. Apologies I thought that was implied. You'd only lose the number if you closed the account, without securing it beforehand though a porting request.

To be clear the number is associated with your voice service provider - how they choose to provide access (physical copper pair etc from Openreach or via SIP etc.) to that number/service it is another matter.

The technology change (in this case by the national withdrawal of WLR/PSTN by Openreach in 2025 or FTTP Priority / Stop Sells in certain exchange area earlier than 2025) is not in itself a reason for existing landline numbers to somehow be ceased.

Edited by Pheasant (Wed 25-May-22 14:21:43)

Thank you. Keeping our old number is important to us non-techies and all our contacts over many years. The question of reliable service in power cuts etc is another big issue but our association is among many talking to BT so we'll tackle that fence when we come to it ... if we're still around ...

Also Pulse8

In reply to a post by jelv:

Also Pulse8

Good to know, however they work out more expensive for your average person since they don't have a VDSL 2 modem (to be honest I no longer have any, they were all binned ages ago, having virgin I only need my router ethernet cable and a modem or ONT.
I another reason i avoided VDSL, additional kit to add in (at least compared to what I have now)