BT Digital Voice

[Hroth]

BT are rapidly progressing the switch from copper landlines/conventional exchanges to fibre to be completed by 2025.

 

I first knew that my area was going to be converted two days ago, an email this morning announced that the switchover would take place in six days time, which doesn't give much leeway for the supply of DV compatible handsets or adapter boxes.

 

I preferred the old landline, which is why I've stuck with BT. I'm not sure that a system routed through a broadband modem, susceptible to power supply glitches, backed up by a mobile phone is a step forward.

 

Has anyone here been converted to Digital Voice yet? What are your experiences of the switchover?

 

 

 

[Jonboy]

Haven’t experienced this version yet, but, like the majority of companies these days,  have been using Voice over IP (VOIP) systems for years at work, both with an in house exchange in the office, and latterly a stand alone handset at home that connects back to the mothership over the internet.

 

• For 99% of calls there is no difference at all to a normal call. 
• Rarely you experience a poor signal that is like one party being on a mobile with poor reception.
• Very occasionally I find when talking to another so equipped call centre they simply won’t sync and one party cannot hear the other. 
• Early on with the first system at work we couldn’t enter numbers to navigate through menus and enter one time passcodes etc and needed settings tweaked.
• As you say in the event of a power cut you have no connections at all, unless both your router and phone are plugged into a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), which do last for hours under such a light load but are bulky and not a good look on the living room table.

 

I understand this system works with conventional phones plugged into your router/home hub, which gives BT standardisation over the settings etc and should hopefully be much smoother for the home user experience.

 

The fun with just 8 days notice will be for anyone with analogue dependent services such as intruder alarms, distress pendents or multiple wired handsets around the house.

 

It will also be more interesting for anyone using their own router etc where BT cannot change settings remotely if there are support issues or updates to the network settings.

[RFS]

Not had the switch-over yet but expecting it soon.

 

I have full-fibre to the house even though I live in a small village over 3 miles from the exchange. The phone is still analogue but travels via fibre only as far as the pole outside my house where it is converted to copper for the rest of its journey. About a year ago there was a serious problem with the copper cables about half-way to the Exchange, and we lost our phone connection along with many others in the village. Took nearly 3 weeks to rectify as the road had to be dug up and new cables laid. But the fibre connection was not affected so we had full internet access throughout.  Had we had DV then we would not have had a problem. 

 

With this in mind I see DV as a positive change. 

[Metr0Land]

Haven't been looking forward to this and now it's almost upon us.  We were amongst the first 5pct in the land to have full fibre end to end even though we live in rural west Wales.  At the time there was no mobile phone signal, but from easter 2017 we had fibre broadband and retained copper phone. (I had a mobile I could use if I went a mile away). My wife was declining fast and one time we lost the phone so could use internet, and once the other way round.  I lost my wife in 2018 so less of an issue to lose service now.

 

FF to 2022 and I had to have a new hub last Nov but retained phone over copper.  I naively thought that when I would have to plug the landline into the new hub that my existing Panasonic phone would talk to the hub (I have 3)  now I'm not so sure.  This morning I had an email saying they're switching to digital on or around 04Feb (ie just a week's time).  I phoned BT this morning and have had to send a text to 61998 saying HANDSETS.  You don't actually get a response.  Allegedly you get 2 new handsets free and have to pay for any extra (not sure how much).  Given they didn't supply and handsets last Nov I'm wondering if they're gonna try and charge for the 2 they're sending.  Time will tell.  Now I have a 4G mobile phone (there was no 4G west of Swansea when we moved in 2014) and get 2 bars - not totally reliable but I have some signal most of the time.

 

 

I have an elderly friend who's 77 and totally technically illerate (she won't mind me saying).  She lives 30 miles away and I try and sort all her tech stuff.  She's never had a mobile and doesn't really want one but the penny has dropped that she really will have to have one (she'd been aware or some time that 'BT are doing away with landlines')and I'm trying to sort something really simple for her.  (That may be subject to another thread soon).  A week ago she moved onto BT Home Essentials deal for which you need to be on benefits, but is a really good deal (though I guess most people would rather not be on benefits and pay for a more expensive deal).   As part of that deal she had to have a new hub and 2 new phones, though I guess whatever she does that would be inevitable, and as most carriers buy their capacity from Openreach you're gonna be forced sooner or later.  Yesterday I installed her new hub, and inspected the kind of phone BT send now.  For now I've left her old phone via copper but suspect I'll have to return soon when she gets notification of cutover.

 

 

What's really galling is that in the brave new world of digital, their notification includes something along the lines of 'of course you'll need to retain a mobile for emergencies'.  What these numbskulls in ivory towers don't realise is that there are customers who don't have a (relaible) mobile signal, and there are customers who really don't need the expense of even a cheap PAYG mobile adding to their outgoings.  All of which is just as aggravating as when your broadband goes down and you're on hold - 'you can always check our website for details' NO YOU CAN'T.

 

 

Rant over.  I haven't had a good rant on here for ages.

 

 

 

 

[Tony_S]

We had our BT system changed to Digital Voice late last year. So far no problems. The changeover happened exactly as planned. BT sent us a couple of digital handsets and I used a voucher code to get an adapter for our “traditional” phone that had been on an extension upstairs. Our main Dect  phone base station now plugs into the socket (previously covered with a sticker) on the back. We have had no problems. If we are using a phone, the Digital voice can accept or make  another call too. The digital voice auto answer cut in before our DECT answerphone but that was easy to configure.  My mother in law has been told her phone would be converted to digital voice but will decline as she has a health call pendant thing. I suspect by 2025 or whenever all lines are digital there will be new devices available. 
Tony

[figworthy]

We've had some preparatory work done here, but I've no idea on when we get moved across.

 

I'm in two minds as to what to do about the phone line.  These days there are only a couple of people who routinely call me on it (apart from wrong numbers or junk calls which won't be missed).  So do I fiddle around with it and go for the UPS and keep the phones, or do I manage without (and if possible get the calls redirected to my mobile).  Mobile coverage around here is generally good, although I noticed that there was no service one morning last week.

 

I do think that giving a week or so's notice of the change over is rather poor, particularly in the current environment where ignoring customers appears to be standard.

 

Adrian

[mezzoman253]

We went full fibre last June. I'm still waiting for my "free handsets".

 

We followed the link to the BT website and entered our number and it came back with" this number is not available for the service". We tried the text option on 61998 and got nothing, no acknowledgement or anything.

 

Supplying the whole country with 2 free handsets by 2025 is going to set BT back a pretty penny. Perhaps that's why the link and text didn't work.

 

Rob

[uax6]

I'm lead to believe that the fibre to the premise version can have a battery fitted to keep it up for approx 4 hours in a power cut (with 1 hour of talk time in that 4), but there appears to be some issue with the supply of the batteries, so BT are not advertising them...

The 999 access during a power cut is somewhat more problematic than just having a mobile. Most mobile base stations have also only got about 4 hours of standby batteries, so what happens then? Well as shown in the last winter storm, nothing, you have no 999 access at all....

 

Andy G

[Hroth]

Thanks for the comments, there's much food for thought!  I got a LETTER from BT today. Very informative, it repeated word for word the email they sent a couple of days ago! I suppose that I'll next get a postcard on Monday notifying that the switchover date would be the 4th....

 

An interesting thing is that the link in the first email to bt.com/DigitalVoice now 404s and there doesn't seem to be any reference to free handsets anywhere.

 

The best thing is that I moved house at the beginning of December and the Openreach operative who installed the SH2 on the 6th didn't mention that DV was on its way.

 

 

[Metr0Land]

Things have been moving fast with my friend.  We were told she could keep her old phones (which I'll come back to) so when I installed her new hub on Friday I left the new phones in their boxes.  Yesterday without warning they switched her phone line over to digital so I had to trek back down there today as she had no mobile but internet was working ok.

 

I had to ring BT as I either misunderstood what I had to do or like most blokes didn't RTFM.  Anyway we spoke to a helpful lady who talked me through it (basically take the phone jack that went from the splitter to phone base, and stick that end into the new hub, simplicity itself once you know!)  All was well and the extn in the bedroom worked fine.

 

I didn't have a moan as the lady was really good and she asked if I wanted to make a complaint as it didn't go right first time. I said I didn't but she said she could make a complaint on my behalf and close it straight away and it would still be seen by complaints team who would understand the specific complaint didn't need to be followed up but general feedack would be observed and poss added to the population of 'complaints'.

 

We had a chat about the fact that BT (well Openreach so nearly all operators) were changing from 2 lines to one by combining voice and data - so what about people like my elderly friend (who's a technophobe) or me who has very poor mobile signal?   She offered that fact that for people like my friend who would have nothing if they lost their service, there's the ability for BT to provide a free mobile with free SIM for emergency use!  There's nothing about this on their public docs.  Apparently you have to ask for it.  My friend now has a mobile on its way.  As I've been to my friend 3 times in 10 days I doubt I'm going to get my hands on it until late Feb.  The BT lady couldn't tell me much more than it's for emergency use so whether it lets you call 999 and/or BT and/or anything else I can't say at this stage.     It looks like if you have no mobile registered on the account you can get this emergency phone, if you already have a mobile registered to the account holder you wont get it.

 

This is quite long already but a couple more asides if I may, which aren't too far OT?

 

Tech seems to be moving backwards in some areas.  One reason for my friend wanting to keep existing phones (aside from the faff of reinstalling all your addresss book on new phone) is it seems better for HER the way it handles spam calls.  Some of the phones with call Guardian seem quite daunting for a little old lady (Press 1 for this, Press 2 for that etc)  Her phone has a feature where you can add a ringtone to each name in her phone list which modern phones don't seem to have.  I set it up so that everone she knows has a jingle of some sort, so if the phone rings 'normally' she's on alert that it MAY be a scammer.  Simple and effective.  If she knows doctor/dentist is likely to ring she's comfortable with picking up the phone on those days when it rings normally.

 

I always used to dread ringing BT and the waits haven't got any easier but..... in the last 3 days I've had to ring BT at least 8 times with problems on my account and my friend's.  Some of them were asking for help, and others were a couple of bizarre issues.  BT for some reason kept sending my friend invitation emails to create her BT ID but clicking on the accept button just froze.  At the same time we were trying to make me 'account manager' on her account and everything turned into a mess.  (I had problem last night where just one of my 5 email addresses locked me out and the other 4 were fine).  I had a long chat with a guy on Friday about my friend's BT ID issues.  He promised to ring back at 9am Sat and then again 1pm - which he did both times. AIUI the BT Home Essentials package is 'at cost' and they certainly can't be making much on it yet everyone has bent over backwards to help and nothing has been too much trouble. Even when you get the dreaded 'I'll have to pass you on to someone else' it's all gone splendidly.  I don't normally carry a torch for BT but the service has been excellent over the last few days, they really seem to have upped their game (all UK call centres too).

 

(No connection other than as a customer)

 

oh and the 3rd of the asides.  Since my friend moved to her current location in Sep19 myself and her 2 daughters have been begging her to get a mobile for just those occasions when everything goes down or she's out and feels unwell.  In the early 2000's I had a Nokia 6301i phone which was rugged and simple and historically seems to have been the best ever for battery life.  I sourced a 2nd hand unlocked one from ebay and put a giffgaff PAYG SIM in it.  Today I took her through a training session showing her how using the phone is virtually the same as home phone handsets (texting will be way too difficult for her and she won't need it anyway).   In the last hour she's made her 1st mobile call at age 77 (to me).  Result!!!!!!

 

Now, about my cutover to digital voice next week.....

 

 

 

 

[kevinlms]

On 29/01/2022 at 21:13, Jonboy said:

Haven’t experienced this version yet, but, like the majority of companies these days,  have been using Voice over IP (VOIP) systems for years at work, both with an in house exchange in the office, and latterly a stand alone handset at home that connects back to the mothership over the internet.

 

• For 99% of calls there is no difference at all to a normal call. 
• Rarely you experience a poor signal that is like one party being on a mobile with poor reception.
• Very occasionally I find when talking to another so equipped call centre they simply won’t sync and one party cannot hear the other. 
• Early on with the first system at work we couldn’t enter numbers to navigate through menus and enter one time passcodes etc and needed settings tweaked.
• As you say in the event of a power cut you have no connections at all, unless both your router and phone are plugged into a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), which do last for hours under such a light load but are bulky and not a good look on the living room table.

 

I understand this system works with conventional phones plugged into your router/home hub, which gives BT standardisation over the settings etc and should hopefully be much smoother for the home user experience.

 

The fun with just 8 days notice will be for anyone with analogue dependent services such as intruder alarms, distress pendents or multiple wired handsets around the house.

 

It will also be more interesting for anyone using their own router etc where BT cannot change settings remotely if there are support issues or updates to the network settings.

I'm in Australia,  so I don't know what Digital Voice is,  but to only have 8 days notice sounds hopeless. 

We have an 18 month window for people to switch to a higher speed service called the 'National Broadband Network', the actual method of delivery varies, depending on what they decided for your area.

 

But it's amazing how many people leave it to the last month, before they realise that if they don't migrate to the new system, they WILL be disconnected. Almost like wishful thinking will stop the need.

[Matt C]

We converted to Voip over a year ago ( business line) and I must say I've been pleased with the service provided. As its internet based it's far more versatile than land line based systems, the quality is good and using the App I can change things 'on the fly' using my mobile from wherever I am. Setting up or changing verious Call divert options so my number either rings a short time in the house, then diverts to my mobile, or rings on both at once or diverts to any number I choose. ( As I say its a business line so I don't know how many of these features domestic customers get ?) 

 

When making a call from my mobile I get to choose whether to use my mobile number OR use the business number over Voip

 

One added advantage is that if you move, you can take your number with you, wherever in the country you move to even if you move to a different area code as its digital, internet based rather than being exchange based.

[RFS]

One thing to bear in mind is that if your broadband service is upgraded to BT FTTP (ie full fibre) then you may no longer be able to make phone calls during a power cut even though you have not been upgraded to Digital Voice. With my conversion, the FTTP upgrade brought not only the Smart Hub 2 but also a modem, both of which need power to work. My phone socket is now connected to the modem (as is the hub) where it travels via fibre only as far as the pole outside my house, where it gets split between fibre (broadband) and copper (phone). I don't know whether there are any variations on this method whereby both copper and fibre cables remain in place. 

 

You can also lose landline phone access if either the Smart Hub 2 or the modem develop a fault. So far not had a problem there thankfully (he says fingers crossed!). 

[MyRule1]

Interesting that people are reporting  being given very short notice of this changeover. 12 years ago, when I managed a large multi site telecomms operation I argued at a BT liaison meeting that this change was coming and that BT or Offcom needed to give it the same level of publicity as earlier campaigns such as natural gas, dialling code changes etc. I know that the number of traditional land lines has fallen greatly in the last 10 years but I certainly think more publicity and notice should be given as it will be the most vulnerable in our society who as but by the change.

[Jonboy]

I suspect the clue is @Hroth’s comment about moving at the start of December, what notice period did anyone else being changed get I wonder?

[Metr0Land]

3 hours ago, Jonboy said:

I suspect the clue is @Hroth’s comment about moving at the start of December, what notice period did anyone else being changed get I wonder?

 

For myself, I had a new hub in Nov and knew the DV cutover would be coming at some stage.  It was just a bit of a shock last Friday to hear it would be 7 days hence, and of course that particular date/few days were of course ones where I'd be out a lot.

 

However, for my friend who lives on her own and is a technophobe I changed her hub last Friday but left the phones as they were.  All the doc/emails from BT were saying 'we'll let you know when the voice change is happening'.  Without warning last Saturday (ie the day after the hub was connected) her phone was cutover without warning.

[Metr0Land]

11 hours ago, RFS said:

One thing to bear in mind is that if your broadband service is upgraded to BT FTTP (ie full fibre) then you may no longer be able to make phone calls during a power cut even though you have not been upgraded to Digital Voice. With my conversion, the FTTP upgrade brought not only the Smart Hub 2 but also a modem, both of which need power to work. My phone socket is now connected to the modem (as is the hub) where it travels via fibre only as far as the pole outside my house, where it gets split between fibre (broadband) and copper (phone). I don't know whether there are any variations on this method whereby both copper and fibre cables remain in place. 

 

You can also lose landline phone access if either the Smart Hub 2 or the modem develop a fault. So far not had a problem there thankfully (he says fingers crossed!). 

 

As it happens here in rural west Wales we were amongst the first 5pct in UK to go full fibre.  When we moved here in 2014 broadband speed was 3Mbps (though often 1Mbps for others locally).  We had to wait for 44 miles of cable to be laid from Carmarthen to Aberystwyth.  Giant leap forward in 2017 when we had wonderful BB speed (30+Mbps). 

 

At that time we kept phone on copper and the current smarthubs were 'in the future' knowing that at some stage they'd combine the 2.  That was very useful in the early days as fibre was problematic at first and my wife was very ill.  If BB went down we had the phone and vice versa.  I've had 5 years notice of impending change so can't complain about that but it's just they've managed to pick an awkward time at short notice for it finally to happen, and my mobile signal is weak here.  I can prob manage but plenty of old folks will be really stressed by this.

 

As far as BT/Openreach management are concerned 'most people have mobiles anyway'.  NO THEY DON'T (or don't have reliable signals)

[Reorte]

Not really keen on the idea. There's fibre available to my house (put in last year) but there's been no notice of any forced change. I don't mind it for the internet but I'd prefer a phone system that'll stay up in a power cut, and I'm not getting a mobile just in case that happens (if it sits in a drawer unused for months or years the odds are it'll have a flat battery by then anyway).

[Hroth]

5 hours ago, Metr0Land said:

As far as BT/Openreach management are concerned 'most people have mobiles anyway'.  NO THEY DON'T (or don't have reliable signals)

 

The other thing the "management" say is that everyone with cordless phones are in the same position even on copper. If their power goes out, then they're phoneless.  That is the case as far as it goes, but while I do have cordless phones, I've also a standard corded phone ready to plug into the phone line as a backup...

 

It'll be interesting if I have to plug THAT into the back of the Smarthub 2 to maintain communications* on switchover day. Back to the days when there was only one phone in the house, in the hall...

 

* The hub and the fibre terminator both need power, there are only two power sockets where they are located, their power plugs are oddly shaped with wires popping out of inconvenient ends and so can't share a two way plug and I don't want a 4 way trailing power strip tripping people up at the foot of the stairs, so there's nowhere to power the base station for the cordless phones from.

[Reorte]

27 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

The other thing the "management" say is that everyone with cordless phones are in the same position even on copper. If their power goes out, then they're phoneless.  That is the case as far as it goes, but while I do have cordless phones, I've also a standard corded phone ready to plug into the phone line as a backup...

Same here. Unlike an emergency mobile the corded phone can sit in the back of a cupboard, ignored, indefinitely, until it's needed, and still work. Well, I think I've got one that does... think I ended up with two for some reason, pretty sure I had another one when I pulled a couple of useful components out of one when I was wiring up some point motors.

[Hroth]

Promised copper-off day is tomorrow, the BT postcard advising me about Switch Over Day options arrived this afternoon.

 

The most impressive paragraph is the "What happens next" one.

 

Quote

We'll be in touch soon with your Switch Over date, so please order everything you need to get ready for Digital Voice now. And if you don't already have a SmartHub 2, don't worry, we'll automatically send you one for free in the post.

 

Which, seeing as switch over, according to last Saturdays email, will be tomorrow, the 4th February, so they're not leaving much time for sorting people out.  Not that I need a SH2* in the first place but I do understand that a DV phone is essential for full configuration of the SH2 DECT base station. Its going to be fun plugging an old corded phone into the SmartHub!

 

Well, I've just texted Handset to 61998 as advised on the card, but there's been no response so far.

 

Meanwhile going to bt.com/DVequipment pops up the dialog box

 

Quote

Digital Voice Offer

Enter your landline number to see if you’re eligible for a free device and to get your voucher code.

Landline Number:xxxx xxx xxxx

Which responds with

Quote

The number entered is not eligible for this offer. Please check you have entered your number correctly.

 

There's always the freephone number...

 

 

* That was installed at the beginning of December.

[Metr0Land]

I too am promised cutover tomorrow (and as it happens am due a bollocking phone chat from the diabetic nurse about my recent numbers first thing).  My new phones are due to arrive Monday 6th.....

 

Am a bit more relaxed, having sorted my friend as per my post 09:45 Monday - I managed to cutover her donkeys' years old phones ok so am hoping my 7 year old ones will be ok.

 

If I turn into Captain Oates, there's no need to send a search party too quickly.

 

 

[Hroth]

Update.

 

No response to the "Handset" text, so I got through to the freephone number.

Very helpful chap on the other end, gave him name and number (as it were) and the DV handsets are on order. He claimed that I should get them tomorrow (!!!) or at least Saturday.  So we'll have to see.

 

If they don't arrive tomorrow, the emergency corded phone gets plugged into the Hub.

 

Back to the 50s!!!

 

Update 2. (4/2/22@00:55)

Just looked at the SH2 management page. DV section is now live, Copper is still active.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Hroth

[Metr0Land]

And so it came to pss that the morning of 04Feb dawned.  I was up early for my phone call from the diabetic nurse, hopefully before BT screwed me over cut my phone over to digital voice.  No call from the nurse all morning but my phone still had the normal dialling tone.  It wasn't until lunchtime that I thought to dial out, trying 1471 1571 and one other local number.  All I got was 'sorry that number is unavailable on this line' (or somesuch).

 

Immediately the penny dropped that they'd cut me over without telling me ('don't worry we'll let you know.....').

 

I tried 1471 and the nurse had called at 09:11 (I had asked for an early call if possible).  The surgery's now closed for training 1-2pm (though strangely is always closed for training at lunchtime) so I'll have to grovel after 2pm.  Thanks BT.

 

I phoned some friends locally and they said I sounded very clear, though their speech and speech from the vet's surgery sounded a bit rasping.  I haven't tried my other 2 extensions yet but believe they'll be ok - will report back if they aren't.  Not sure of the model number but Panasonic landline phones are 7 years old.

 

I didn't realise they were changing the dial tone (is nothing sacred?) so if you weren't aware you are now.  Also I knew a change was coming whereby you can't dial the short number for local phones so need to update speed dial numbers from eg nnnnnn to 01559 nnnnnn.  I wasn't aware that it wouldhappen at the same time though it is logical, but if you have elderly friends/relatives you may have to update their speed dial numbers accordingly, though I guess you don't have to wait for the cutover to do this.

 

[Hroth]

Yes, as noted above, I found that the Hub was active just after midnight, but I was expecting the fabled email to say all was go!

 

Just tried 1471 on the normally connected cordless handset and got the tritone and message.  So I'll pop down to the Hub and plug in the Corded Emergency Phone into the back of it and sample that. 

 

...

 

Seems to be working. Used the mobile to phone my number and the corded handset rang out. The voice quality (esp the 1471 robot) is rather muffled, I'll have to see how it sounds when I actually make a real call later today...  I'll also wait and see how well the DV handsets work, when they arrive!

 

Another thing is that if you have a cordless set with a built in answerphone, you need at least one BT DV phone to manipulate the BT voicemail response time to prevent it hijacking your answerphone!

 

Update: BT good to go email just arrived. Most helpful.

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Hroth