BT timetable for move to VOIP?

Has BT published a timetable of expected dates for move of customers to VOIP for different areas?

It’s a national program. Won’t be done by geography (except for the trials in Salisbury and Mildenhall). The key dates are:

September 2023 - national WLR stop sell
December 2025 - full withdrawal of WLR including PSTN and ISDN

https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/produc...

Thanks for the info, Pheasant.

No worries. Rather than geography / area it will come down to the individual comms provider and their customer (types).

For example BT have been moving their broadband + landline customers over to their Digital Voice platform for a while now. It’s a fairly straightforward shift for these customers. Other customers - particularly those with no broadband - will be done in later phases.

Terryphi

Further to Pheasant's info. If you are in any of the FTTP only exchange areas listed by Openreach at https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/produc... BT will only provide Digital voice ( as will some other ISPs) if you can get FTTP.

Any change to your services in an affected area will mean a move to FTTP and if you are a BT customer a move to digital voice. Some other ISPs are taking a slower approach but some are doing the same as BT.

Good point. I forget about the FTTP priority exchange areas.

Hi all,

As I understand it, there will be a copper stop sell date on an exchange area by area basis, when the amount of FTTP reaches 75% of the exchange area.

So there will be a stop sell on a geographic basis in Tranches as well as a national basis.

see https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/produc... and then Openreach event at https://www.openreach.com/events/the-uk-digital-upgr...

Cheers,
Tony

Edited by tonygibbs16 (Fri 01-Apr-22 12:55:42)

In reply to a post by tonygibbs16:

Hi all,

As I understand it, there will be a copper stop sell date on an exchange area by area basis, when the amount of FTTP reaches 75% of the exchange area.

To add to this, it's when an area reaches 75% "Ultrafast" which (hilariously imo) includes G.Fast over 300Mb/s.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

Terryphi

Further to Pheasant's info. If you are in any of the FTTP only exchange areas listed by Openreach at https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/produc... BT will only provide Digital voice ( as will some other ISPs) if you can get FTTP.

Any change to your services in an affected area will mean a move to FTTP and if you are a BT customer a move to digital voice. Some other ISPs are taking a slower approach but some are doing the same as BT.

Unexpected news earlier in the week about BT pausing their Consumer division rollout of Digital Voice.

Will be interesting to see what mitigation strategies they come up with for additional resilience and also what the overall impact will be to their conversion timetable. They haven’t indicated that this will impact the (Openreach division) end date of December 2025 for WLR withdrawal, even though they have some 10 million customers to change.

Openreach have stated the announcement of BT Consumer temporarily pausing their mass migrations under the All IP programme doesn't effect the 2023 WLR nationwide stop sell and 2025 closure date. The other 600+ communication providers are still continuing with their own migrations from the PSTN to their own VoIP service.

Openreach are also encouraging communication providers to engage with the industry forums and working groups set up and to speak to their own customers to understand their needs so they can raise requirements and to obtain help with their own migration strategies to Openreach, the Telco industry and other industries and bodies.

I would presume that as BT Consumer who were quite a bit ahead in regards to migrating their own customers to their VoIP service that they can afford to take this time to improve their processes. This time should also be seen as an opportunity for individuals to speak to the supplier and organisations that have supplied them equipment that connect to the copper phone line today. E.g Telecare and alarm systems ect...

Edited by cymru123 (Sat 02-Apr-22 20:25:32)

Two things I would say there.

Firstly on your point "I would presume that as BT Consumer who were quite a bit ahead in regards to migrating their own customers to their VoIP service that they can afford to take this time to improve their processes."

Well Marc Allera's statement acknowledged that "With hindsight we went too early, before many customers – particularly those who rely more heavily on landlines – understood why this change is necessary and what they needed to do."

So yes they went early, but whether they are/were indeed "quite a bit ahead", on target, or behind of their own programme milestone or indeed their competitors really is not clear - unless you have some insight? The fact is after storms Arwen and Eunice, BT copped a serious amount of flak over the resilience of the IP-layer voice network and in particular operating with (sustained) power loss.

Secondly to your point "This time should also be seen as an opportunity for individuals to speak to the supplier and organisations that have supplied them equipment that connect to the copper phone line today. E.g Telecare and alarm systems ect...".

Given that the change has been deliberately flown 'under the radar' is it actually realistic (or fair) for individuals to speak to their suppliers or the other way around - wouldn't you expect this be driven by the comms providers giving they are making the changes, to proactively give information to their customers and not the other way around?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

So yes they went early, but whether they are/were indeed "quite a bit ahead", on target, or behind of their own programme milestone or indeed their competitors really is not clear - unless you have some insight?

From looking across the biggest communication providers BT Consumer's migration of exiting customers seems to have been more proactive in terms of starting a mass migration. Sky seems to be doing new customers and those that upgrade. I've not seen any TalkTalk Consumer customers being moved yet (Their FTTP services is data only at the moment, so no voice service).

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Given that the change has been deliberately flown 'under the radar' is it actually realistic (or fair) for individuals to speak to their suppliers or the other way around - wouldn't you expect this be driven by the comms providers giving they are making the changes, to proactively give information to their customers and not the other way around?

This is more around those that have alarms and other equipment that connect to the phone line today. Communication Providers are unlickely to know about such devices. Ideally it should be the health care and organisations that supply those devices but with resources especially in Council run social heathcare units this can be quite slow to trickle the info. That's why it's also a good idea for individuals to check what they have connected today and contact those organisations to firstly make sure they are aware that they will soon be migrated to a VoIP service and moved off the PSTN and also to get the ball rolling so they can be checked and upgraded before the migration.

In reply to a post by cymru123:

This is more around those that have alarms and other equipment that connect to the phone line today. Communication Providers are unlickely to know about such devices. Ideally it should be the health care and organisations that supply those devices but with resources especially in Council run social heathcare units this can be quite slow to trickle the info. That's why it's also a good idea for individuals to check what they have connected today and contact those organisations to firstly make sure they are aware that they will soon be migrated to a VoIP service and moved off the PSTN and also to get the ball rolling so they can be checked and upgraded before the migration.

The pause in proceedings was according to Marc Allera all about resilience - indeed not enough thought on sufficient mitigation strategies in respect to power loss and engagement with their customers about it.

There are already well established and tested alternatives for things like alarm systems, patient monitoring etc which are natively IP capable. Not sure why you believe the delay is down to that?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

There are already well established and tested alternatives for things like alarm systems, patient monitoring etc which are natively IP capable. Not sure why you believe the delay is down to that?

Appolgies I was saying that individuals who have health care monitoring systems and alarms and other equipment need to treat this time in getting their health care equipment upgraded if not done so already so it's compatible with all IP. Lots of people I've spoken to have not done this yet and seem to be waiting till the last moment. As for keeping communications running in mains power failure yes more availability of devices needs to be made available. If you have the knowledge about it there are steps you can do but it is about making people aware. The BT Consumer temporary stop is due to improving their own process and making sure their consumer unit has more availability of devices and solutions to provide backup power or alternative ways to allow emergency communications.

It is unfortunate that there's no TV and other advertising like there was with the digital TV switch over, but that was due to the digital TV switch over getting government funding for that.

If FTTP is available to you but you choose to stay on ADSL2+ for example, are you still switched over to BT Digital Voice?

Thanks

Yes, at some point they would move you to digital voice if you are a BT customer.

What is the minimum speed required for BT Digital Voice?

thanks

Probably about 128Kbps I would guess as that would be around the speed of a normal VoIP data stream.

In reply to a post by ultimagtr:

If FTTP is available to you but you choose to stay on ADSL2+ for example, are you still switched over to BT Digital Voice?

That's a good question.

If you're in an FTTP area where there's an active copper "stop sell", this means that no modifications may be made to your existing copper service. I'm not 100% sure, but that *could* mean your line cannot be migrated to SOTAP, which is ADSL without the voice.

If that's true, then you'll be forced to migrate to FTTP + digital voice (or lose service completely).

SOTAP exists to serve those people who can *only* get ADSL, where there is no FTTC or FTTP available.