Both of the Executive offices did not mind me talking to them about my odd set up at the moment and ideas about them setting up a totally independent phone service,one said ' it was a change from people moaning about they can not get FTTP and there neighbor can' .

I am pursuing the the idea of the extra ONT port etc supplied by BT. Will cost me £0, as under Ofcom rules it should not cost me any more to get BT Digital voice.

I am quite capable of setting up a VOIP set up through my pfSense firewall over FTTP at the moment, but if in the future that system goes wrong and I am not capable to sort it out do to my health, my wife could not sort it out and she would not have a working phone !.
Remembering as I have said before we do get any mobile signal at all !.

Grandstream HT802 ATA ordered
AA told me they can let me use one of there spare numbers to do some test with VOIP.

Our biggest use of the phone is my Wife calling her sister every day for hours, So I am looking at setting up a 'Asterisk open source pbx VOIP system ' for her to phone her sister for free each day.
Looking at not going through a VOIP provider for this setup.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

Our biggest use of the phone is my Wife calling her sister every day for hours, So I am looking at setting up a 'Asterisk open source pbx VOIP system ' for her to phone her sister for free each day.
Looking at not going through a VOIP provider for this setup.

Not an unreasonable plan. You can have more public voips and private asterisks than you can shake a stick at over the one FTTP

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

I am quite capable of setting up a VOIP set up through my pfSense firewall over FTTP at the moment, but if in the future that system goes wrong and I am not capable to sort it out do to my health, my wife could not sort it out and she would not have a working phone !

All the more reason to make the system as standard as possible and not mess around with multiple ONT ports.

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

Will cost me £0, as under Ofcom rules it should not cost me any more to get BT Digital voice.

So out of interest how much is it currently costing you as that is clearly not £0

How much is a standalone (without broadband) telephone service these days? maybe £30 a month? if it is then you'll be paying £360 a year instead of £60ish a year for a VOIP service from another provider.

Having read your post a few more times you speak of a need for

1) a second FTTP service just for BT digital voice
2) a new ATA for VOIP via AA
3) building an Asterisk open source pbx VOIP system

all while keeping things simple for the wife.

Edited by PCJM40 (Tue 01-Jul-25 22:39:47)

+1

just an aside, none of the regs here, in thread, are trying to be horrible, just wanting help you get the best setup possible and spend least amount/best value for money ..

Its easy to see text written that might seem harsh when its not. Hopefully you already know this and everything is good

🍦💚 (using a green heart to tie in with the front page and that the red hearts don't work)

In reply to a post by Taras:

none of the regs here, in thread, are trying to be horrible, just wanting help you get the best setup possible and spend least amount/best value for money

As you say we all want the best for the OP and their wife.

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by Taras:

none of the regs here, in thread, are trying to be horrible, just wanting help you get the best setup possible and spend least amount/best value for money

As you say we all want the best for the OP and their wife.

yes exactly, i just wanted to make sure aptman knew that

In reply to a post by APTMAN:

Both of the Executive offices did not mind me talking to them about my odd set up at the moment and ideas about them setting up a totally independent phone service,one said ' it was a change from people moaning about they can not get FTTP and there neighbor can' .

I am pursuing the the idea of the extra ONT port etc supplied by BT. Will cost me £0, as under Ofcom rules it should not cost me any more to get BT Digital voice.

I am quite capable of setting up a VOIP set up through my pfSense firewall over FTTP at the moment, but if in the future that system goes wrong and I am not capable to sort it out do to my health, my wife could not sort it out and she would not have a working phone !.
Remembering as I have said before we do get any mobile signal at all !.

Grandstream HT802 ATA ordered
AA told me they can let me use one of there spare numbers to do some test with VOIP.

Our biggest use of the phone is my Wife calling her sister every day for hours, So I am looking at setting up a 'Asterisk open source pbx VOIP system ' for her to phone her sister for free each day.
Looking at not going through a VOIP provider for this setup.

Politely, this is crazy. If your intended aim is to keep things 'simple' then asterisk (trust me I've done a few now) is *not* simple. Flexible, yes. Amazingly configurable, yes. Simple - especially to a novice / definitely not.

You can have a cheap, reliable and very simple VOIP service without going over to asterisk. realistically a spend of £50 on an ATA if you want old fashioned handsets or the same on a VOIP capable DECT base on the same FTTP connections as everything else is dead easy and cheap.

REITERATING: There is absolutely *zero* need or requirement to have another separate FTTP connection just for voice. This only adds needless complexity and expense. There is *no* resilience or ease of maintainability benefit running over the same FTTP source network. You're just paying double line rental for absolutely nothing.

You apparently have SMPF from Eclipse/BT , and are looking to replace it with telephony only from BT (via FTTP in your case as FTTP is available ) , but why do you think a telephone only service from BT will be at zero cost ? , it isn’t currently zero with your Eclipse ISP /BT shared metallic path arrangement , and although you have never said what the division of the £636 annual cost is for the shared metallic path service , you obviously pay BT something , probably more that 50% of that £636, this has always been an unnecessarily expensive arrangement, although you do benefit from inclusive calls from Eclipse , something to factor in when taking BTDV , if you do use these inclusive minutes, then BTDV will be very expensive on PAYG , so presumably the Unlimited option on BTDV is the one you would take .

If you accomplish this change to BTDV as a standalone service via FTTP , migrating from SMPF , (Eclipse removed completely ) , the old SMPF terms are obvious no longer valid, the current cost of a telephone only service from BT , with no discount on the fee for not having broadband which obviously you do not qualify for , as you do have broadband from No One ( personally I think a ridiculous name for an ISP ) , is £30 with 30ppm for any outgoing call with PAYG , or £48 if included calls are needed , so a long way from zero and hugely more expensive than adding a VoIP provider to run over your No One FTTP service .

Add to this the undoubtedly rarity (and consequently difficulty ) of providing a BTDV phone only service , something that I have never seen or heard of being provided , either personal knowledge or via forums such as this , ( although the mechanism seems to be a very low bandwidth profile ) I’d suggest getting this won’t be straightforward, AFAIK no service specific BT equipment exists for this , so presumably a standard SH2 router will be provided.

I do think you will be stress testing the provision process if you manage to get an order raised for this ,( SMPF to BTDV only , over FTTP ) possibly as the first ever customer, I dare say all existing phone only BT customers are still on PSTN , and every other SMPF customer ( can’t be that many ) will want a broadband service when they are moved from SMPF as part of the PSTN retirement , I think you may well be unique in your requirements.

It’s possible BT are entertaining you on this , as a way to have a proof of concept type ‘live’ order before shifting existing phone only customers from PSTN , so perhaps you are an unknowing participant in a trial.

It’s difficult to see what your motivation is here , it certainly can’t be economic, if it’s a separation of services , you get no redundancy anyway , as you will still only have a single phone service , the DV service may fail , the router may fail etc , there is no ‘network’ redundancy as the same optics are used for the No One broadband as the BTDV , so a PON fault affects both , the only benefit is if No One go bust with no warning ( and therefore no period to move provider ) your telephone service continues but that’s hardly a realistic concern, it seems to me you are simply being ‘difficult’ for no other reason than it’s possible for you to request this

Edited by Iniltous (Wed 02-Jul-25 08:39:08)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

You can have a cheap, reliable and very simple VOIP service without going over to asterisk. realistically a spend of £50 on an ATA if you want old fashioned handsets or the same on a VOIP capable DECT base on the same FTTP connections as everything else is dead easy and cheap.

To be fair to OP, the asterisk looks more like a side project to allow wife and SiL to speak for hours on end over a private system and provided he gets his public network telephony sorted, it won't be a real problem if one day he can't maintain his asterisk. asterisk.