BT DV via exchange without router.

I read on one of the threads that this was to be a thing, not sure if I've missed a story about it?
We had a letter at one of our properties, and it looks like the phone only line is maybe being swapped to DV at the exchange. The letter makes no mention of DV, but it does say to check any healthcare alarm, pendant, or security alarm after the "upgrade", and that the "upgrade" will be done "remotely at the exchange", also that after the "upgrade" an area code must be entered for all calls.
As it happens the occupant of the 'granny annex' doesn't have any alarms, but they are listed as a 'vulnerable person', which got me thinking, how are they checking to ensure any person is not relying on alarms?

I can confirm this has already happened, got a call from SiL on calling in, she had been met at door by very agitated resident who had received call asking to speak to bill payer (not him):and he had been unable to contact us.
It seems vulnerable people are once again being let down by a system that cannot cope with being slightly out of the norm.

Hi,

it isn't clear from your post exactly what has gone wrong and who has been let down by who.

From what you have said, someone received a phone call from their phone supplier asking to speak to the person who pays the bill. On the face of it, that is a very reasonable request.

Are you saying that the phone supplier didn't use specific contact details associated with the account, i.e. that they have a different contact details for the bill payer but went ahead and called the number they were paying for anyway?

I'll try and simplify it.
We own a house where the main occupier (of at least part of it) is a vulnerable adult, and listed as such with the local authority. Some of the bills are in our name, the phone line being one of them, but the line is noted as having a vulnerable adult. When BT (although this might now be EE as that's where e where passed to when phoning them) phoned they asked to speak to the 'bill payer', whilst some might think this is reasonable, it takes no account for the bill payer not being there, and as it is noted the line has a 'vulnerable adult' they might like to consider that they may well be speaking to that person especially if phoning during daytime. We'll never know exactly what was said, but if they had taken the time to ask who had answered and then tailored the info around that then it would have caused a lot less anguish and at least he would have known to include the area code when trying to ring us.

In reply to a post by burble:

it would have caused a lot less anguish and at least he would have known to include the area code when trying to ring us.

My Voip equipment is programmed to insert the area code for local calls.

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

In reply to a post by burble:

it would have caused a lot less anguish and at least he would have known to include the area code when trying to ring us.

My Voip equipment is programmed to insert the area code for local calls.

We have been away for a couple of weeks, we only opened the letter informing us of a change yesterday, this afternoon I amended the phone to ensure all numbers have a area code including local numbers, but I believe he was 'dialing' the number from the keypad.
My point is, it would appear BT will only talk to the 'bill payer', in most cases this will be fine, but how many will hit a problem like ours, thousands? For people like me (edit-on my own phone) it's no problem, but if a phone line has a vulnerable person listed then the provider should expect to go the extra mile and it not be "computor says".

Edited by burble (Tue 21-Oct-25 15:53:06)

The other issue could be that the vulnerable person IS the bill payer but doesn't understand the technology.

It is a catch-22 scenario.

For the user it's fairly simple if they are told all they need to do is to always use a area dial code, even for local numbers, no having to plug in to a router.
As this will be for 'phone only' lines it looks like a good solution as it should work in a powercut for those with ye olde phones, assuming the exchange has adequate back up. I'm guessing the 'phone only' lines are disappearing, even on this line we may be swapping to FTTP in the new year as family circumstances change.