New FTTP ISP with Landline and Voicemail

Good Morning,

I am looking for a new ISP for my Mum who is in her 80's. She is currently on an FTTC service with Vodafone which has come to the end of it's 24 month minimum period and we are looking to move her to a new ISP, one of the important requirements (which maybe strange for some) is to have a voicemail service on her landline, ideally one that's accessed via 1571.

She now has FTTP available so that's going to be the option to move to from her sub 35Mbps FTTC connection.

I have checked and both EE/BT offer this, as does coop broadband and Community Fibre.

EE/BT are, for what they offer, very expensive which I am not over shocked by and coop is the next cheapest, Community Fibre comes out cheapest and with symmetrical 35Mbps an option as well.

Does anyone have any thoughts on any of the providers I have mentioned, or any other suggestions?

We don't want to go down the VoIP route or have another number to have to access for voicemail, it needs to be as simple as possible.

Thanks in advance.

Confusion in terms. The phone connection will be down the VoIP route (Voice over Internet Protocol). The phone connection may be provided natively by the ISP you select but it will still be VoIP.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Confusion in terms. The phone connection will be down the VoIP route (Voice over Internet Protocol). The phone connection may be provided natively by the ISP you select but it will still be VoIP.

Hi GonePostal, apologies my request was meant to indicate an included VoIP solution not a separate/standalone one. I am aware new services are now all going digital.

Zen, Vodafone & Sky offer a VoIP / Digital Voice service. TalkTalk did but are not offering it whilst they migrate their customer management platform, and given their other issues probably best avoided.

I know the Zen offering uses the voicemail service built into the Fritz!Box router, and uses **600 for access. Not sure if the other providers do or not, or if they use different access codes either. A workaround for the latter if the phone(s) have the functionality is to program a speed dial button with the voicemail number.

Sadly despite Vodafone assuring us they offered voicemail they don't, hence the move away. Zen was a contender until I found out the odd option to access Voicemail. Not checked out Sky tbh, I'll have a look.

Does your Mum dial 1571 or use a button on the phone to call voicemail? IIRC there have been other forum threads and some models of phones allow their dedicated voicemail button to be programmed with a different number from the default one.

To my knowledge the phone does not have a dedicated button to program, she'd have to dial 1571

You could try Andrews and Arnold and ask them what they could do for you.

In reply to a post by CJT:

To my knowledge the phone does not have a dedicated button to program, she'd have to dial 1571

Is that a non negotiable requirement - that is would she be averse to something like a big button phone that had a single (reprogrammable) button to dial voicemail?

In reply to a post by CJT:

To my knowledge the phone does not have a dedicated button to program, she'd have to dial 1571

Looking at the Sky help https://www.sky.com/help/articles/about-internet-calls states 'Our call features are the same for all our Sky Talk customers, with Talk features when making or receiving a call, Sky Voicemail and Sky Talk Shield all available.' and details the Voicemail service https://www.sky.com/help/articles/using-sky-talk-voi...

As Vodafone don't offer a voicemail option and Zen use a different access number that just leaves the expensive BT/EE option of the large combined broadband and voice providers.

Migrating broadband and voice to different providers is more complex but would offer more choice, given the existing setup (PSTN + FTTC) the recommended method is to install a new FTTP broadband service leaving the existing service as-is, i.e. not a switch, then port the phone number to a voice provider which will cease the original phone and FTTC broadband service.

A quick search shows some voice providers offer voicemail using 1571 for access, e.g. Voipfone.