What you are asking about is called 'Naked DSL'

No the OP is enquiring after MPF or SMPF.

I would imagine that they are probably thinking of the lost revenue from no longer having to force people to have a 'phone line' when they don't need it.

How would this 'naked DSL' get from A to B without a 'phone line' ?

I've also read in the past, that people with Naked DSL often found that their line got disconnected, as when an engineer went to a street cabinet to find a free pair to the exchange, as there was no dial tone on the line when they listened across the pair, they reused the connection back to the exchange.

AFAIK there is only one supplier who puts nothing but data down the line, all the other data only services use DC whetting, so at very least there's polarity on the line. It's not the E-sides that get pinched, it's the D-sides, but then most engineers test phones have a digital services alarm on them, so they would know there was 'something' on the line.

Yes, in theory they should test the line, but I hate to think of how many times I had to sort out a faulty SDSL line, coz an installer just checked for dialtone when looking for a spare

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

What you are asking about is called 'Naked DSL'

No the OP is enquiring after MPF or SMPF.

Erm, no, the original poster also stated

we want to avoid paying for a POTS voice service and we're not bothered about a VoIP service with the line which some suppliers can provide. I understand there are two options here

Naked DSL seems to fit that

I would imagine that they are probably thinking of the lost revenue from no longer having to force people to have a 'phone line' when they don't need it.

How would this 'naked DSL' get from A to B without a 'phone line' ?

Ok, so sematically, I probably should have said without a 'voice line'; as with Naked DSL, you wouldn't pay BT Retail (or whoever your voice line rental is with), therefore BT looses out on that revenue.

I've also read in the past, that people with Naked DSL often found that their line got disconnected, as when an engineer went to a street cabinet to find a free pair to the exchange, as there was no dial tone on the line when they listened across the pair, they reused the connection back to the exchange.

AFAIK there is only one supplier who puts nothing but data down the line, all the other data only services use DC whetting, so at very least there's polarity on the line. It's not the E-sides that get pinched, it's the D-sides, but then most engineers test phones have a digital services alarm on them, so they would know there was 'something' on the line.

Yes I know that they do; but was just stating what I'd read elsewhere.

You would pay BT or whoever as there still needs to be line rental for the line no matter what you're putting across it voice or otherwise though i could be cheaper ?

I'd have thought the "line-rental" portion of a naked DSL bill would currently be very high. No economies of scale.

Too true. [sad]

Thanks to everyone for their contributions. I've certainly got plenty of food for thought. A Digital Region Limited chap and one from an ISP on their network reckon between them that the cabinet "SHA029" which serves me will be commissioned on October 27th though it may well be another three weeks before BT Openreach connect it to their PCP. I can wait that long but suspect my wife won't as she buys and rents video from the iTunes Store et cetera. (She's due back from a period of working abroad at the end of September so I have time to choose.) So, to Be or not to Be - or to DR ISP... et cetera. I'll post an update when I jump.

Edited by deleted (Tue 06-Sep-11 18:43:16)

I gave up on the lack of landline option as there wasn't much (if any) choice and ended up going for an ADSL2+ service (with landline) from Plusnet (in other words BT) despite their "Internet For Idiots" advertising. (That annoys me every time I access my account as their advertising idiot pops up even on the login page.) We're getting around 10 Mbps downstream and (after getting it uncapped free) 1 upstream - which is fine for our purposes. It's also been fairly reliable with the only dropouts being occasional and brief - and then we suspect our (secondhand) router as I know it had problems in a past life. (I didn't want the "free" one from Plusnet as it looked awful and I'll get a new one soon with the current one being held in reserve.) One good thing about Plusnet is that they have a UK-based call centre - the likes of BE not - the latter being a typical nightmare to deal with when I enquired. I'm also glad, given the proposed sale of BE and O2 Broadband to BSkyB, of the choice I made as I loathe the Murdoch empire. I know they only have 39.1% but the day will come when they try again for the lot.

What are your router stats?

Please elaborate. My modem/router is a Netgear model and I am familiar with the web interface - including the "Show Statistics" page - so should be able to establish what you're after quite easily.