topic Re: BT digital rolling out in Everything else

BT digital rolling out

ceresian — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:19 GMT

I've been looking around the forum but I'm just getting more confused!

I have a Plusnet router connected via my BT phone line. As the nationwide rollout of Digital Voice is coming closer to my area, will the router still work on the new line?

Alex.

Re: BT digital rolling out

dvorak — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 08:11:51 GMT

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Broadband to Everything Else

Re: BT digital rolling out

dvorak — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 08:13:16 GMT

You router and broadband is not impacted by Digital Voice.
It does have implications for your telephone service, if you have / use it.

Re: BT digital rolling out

Townman — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 08:24:16 GMT

As ever there’s devil in the detail.

You refer to “your BT line” - if your current voice service is provided by BT Retail whilst your broadband is provided by Plusnet, then the future is far from clear. There’s a county mile difference between technology and commercial considerations.

At some point BT Retail will seek to move users off the current voice service products - done unilaterally that will terminate other services on the line, irrespective of the fact that existing broadband services could technically be just switched to SOGEA.

BT Digital voice is only available with BT broadband using BT’s hubs.

There’s are other voice (VoIP) providers available, one does not have to go BT digital voice - there are lots of threads around here discussing those options.

Re: BT digital rolling out

Baldrick1 — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 11:17:25 GMT

@ceresian

Expanding on what’s been said, if, like I suspect many others.you retained your BT telephone service when you joined Plusnet then it’s important for you to cast off your confusion and decide on a plan of action as soon as possible.

In a nutshell you cannot have both a digital version of the BT phone service AND Plusnet broadband on the same line. Something has to change.

Do you use Plusnet as your email provider? If so, this is also an important factor.

If you do not use Plusnet as your email provider then your easiest option is to ring Plusnet and ask to be transferred to BT. They should then agree to this without imposing cancellation charges. From here on the move to digital phone is easy, you simply plug your phone into the BT hub rather than the wall socket. The down side, apart from BT being more expensive, is that as soon as you transfer away from Plusnet your email service is cancelled and, assuming that the IMAP email protocol is used, all stored sent and received messages permanently deleted.

The alternative is to ring Plusnet and ask to be transferred to a SOGEA account. I assume that this will cancel the BT phone service. At this point you have 30 days to move the number to an independent VoIP (digital phone) service. After then the number is lost.

Re: BT digital rolling out

ceresian — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 21:47:01 GMT

If I had to choose I would prefer to lose the BT phone service and keep my email with Plusnet. The trouble is that mobile signal in my house is abysmal and although I don't use it very much there's always the chance that someone might need to speak to me urgently.

I can't see anything about SOGEA on the main Plusnet site. And anyway if it's a copper-based technology (as a quick search suggests) won't it disappear when Digital Voice arrives?

Re: BT digital rolling out

bmc — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 22:12:50 GMT

@ceresian

I assume you're a PN customer as you speak about PN email.

BT's roll out of Digital Voice is for their customers only.Thanks to the press there's confusion over this as many people think it applies to everyone.

However, landlines are being withdrawn, probably this year. When that happens your internet connection will switch to a SOGEA copper line - which is basically internet only. No real changes to your speed or service - you just lose the phone line.

If you want to stay with PN and keep a phone you'll need to consider VOIP using an independant provider.

Brian

Re: BT digital rolling out

MisterW — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 07:39:32 GMT

And anyway if it's a copper-based technology (as a quick search suggests) won't it disappear when Digital Voice arrives?

@ceresian to be clear, only the phone service over copper lines is going. Broadband service over copper lines (SoGEA) will remain for a long time yet as the rollout of full fibre to all will take years! Digital voice (Voip) works over broadband and whether that broadband service uses copper or full fibre is irrelevant.

Re: BT digital rolling out

ceresian — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:41:29 GMT

The last two posts have put a much clearer light on the problem. I hadn't made the distinction between being a BT phone-only customer and a BT broadband customer, and it seems that SoGEA is a new name for what I've had for years with Plusnet - a broadband router on the end of a copper wire from the pole across the road!!

So I now hope that the 'nationwide' Digital Voice rollout will roll right past my house and some day my phone will stop working and then I can decide whether I want or need VoIP.

Thanks everyone!

Alex.

Re: BT digital rolling out

HPsauce — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 12:21:45 GMT

@ceresian said "SoGEA is a new name for what I've had for years with Plusnet" - well no, it probably isn't so beware!

It's relatively new (I'm on it and have been for about a year) it's roughly the "old" FTTC system for broadband but without any copper landline capability.

See: What is SoGEA? | SoGEA | SoGEA broadband | Plusnet

Re: BT digital rolling out

Baldrick1 — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 12:25:38 GMT

@ceresian

You can’t just sit back and hope that it will ‘just roll right past you’.

If BT decide to remove your landline phone service then this will trigger the termination of your Plusnet service and deletion of your emails. Out of the blue you will hopefully get a ‘sorry you are leaving’ email alert.

You must move your Plusnet connection to a SoGEA service and in doing so cancel the BT landline phone connection before BT make any changes.

Also note that if you contact BT and cancel your phone service, that again will automatically close your Plusnet account.

If retaining your emails is important then you need to sort this out with Plusnet. It may be later than you think!

Re: BT digital rolling out

bmc — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 13:12:47 GMT

@ceresian

As @Baldrick1 says you may need to act sooner rather than later. This also applies to your phone number. If you want to keep it you have only 30 days from when you transfer to SOGEA and it's always best porting the number sooner rather than later in case of problems. Remember, you can't port the number until you're on SOGEA.

Brian

Re: BT digital rolling out

HPsauce — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 14:32:18 GMT

@ceresian It sounds like you are in the exact same or equivalent situation I was a year ago, please confirm:

1. A contract with BT for a landline, hopefully as I was "out of contract" so minimal notice required.

2. A separate contract with PlusNet for broadband, is this ADSL or FTTC? MIne was ADSL.

In the end I decided the simplest/safest route to keep my landline number was:

1. Ask PN to install a NEW, SEPARATE broadband line (new account!). This was SOGEA/FTTC so roughly 3 times as fast.

2. Set up a digital VOIP phone account with A&A and source appropriate (used) kit from eBay. Set up with a new number (supplied by A&A) on my local exchange.

3. Once everything was up and working cancelled my OLD PN ADSL broadband account. Actioned the same day and I actually got a small refund.

4. Next I asked A&A to take over my (now not linked in any way to my broadband) BT phone number. Transfer took a few days but worked fine and my BT line ceased working. BT also issued a refund in due course.

My BT line was still "live" with a dial tone for some months with a different (local) number allocated but only worked for engineers testing, no incoming or outgoing calls. It finally went totally dead quite recently.

Note that I had to pay installation charges (about £50) for the new line but there were significant savings by switching from a BT landline to A&A so I recouped that in about 2 months! I don't use the A&A "landline" for outgoing calls though as they are chargeable and mobile works fine here, so they may not suit everyone. The VOIP phone kit costs I have also recouped though my old DECT phones were in need of replacement anyway.

Re: BT digital rolling out

IMM — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 14:31:34 GMT

@HPsauce Would that approach keep the original poster's Plusnet email account(s)? I think they were more worried about those than their phone number.

Re: BT digital rolling out

HPsauce — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 14:36:28 GMT

No @IMM , the old email accounts will go, but how much longer will they survive anyway? I missed that point.

Personally I'd advise anyone with a PN email account to plan a move elsewhere, probably with even more urgency than the digital phone migration. Just my opinion though.

Re: BT digital rolling out

Townman — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 14:38:27 GMT

No, it would not.

That process involved a new account and the eventual cessation of the old one.

@HPsauce given that definite dates have been given for landlines, I'd suggest that is where there is urgency. There has been no formal announcement about the future of email ... even ill informed scaremongering from support agents has ceased.

Re: BT digital rolling out

HPsauce — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 22:41:46 GMT

@Townman Yes there are no dates for email cessation, but it's potentially more complex. That's why I think people should give it priority.

The landline issue is, relatively speaking, simple. You do certain things and the landline number goes. You then have 30 days to "recapture" it (assuming you want it, many won't) and set up a convenient VOIP service. If you can't be bothered to DIY there seems to be a default migration option to EE/BT.

Moving many email connections, especially financially linked, to a new account is a right royal PITA in comparison. As I said above "Just my opinion".....

Re: BT digital rolling out

Baldrick1 — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 10:08:14 GMT

The merits of using an email account tied to an ISP, or in my opinion, any freebie email service, could be debated ad infinitum. However speculation about the future of Plusnet’s email service is just that, pure speculation. Meanwhile @ceresian is currently heading into very stormy waters having a Plusnet broadband service stitched onto a BT PSTN line, with BT advising that they are moving ever forwards with closing down their PSTN lines.

This needs urgent attention now. Once the Plusnet service is secured for the future then discussing the best way to manage emails in today’s world becomes a more relaxed exercise.

Re: BT digital rolling out

paul_blitz — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 17:58:05 GMT

"Moving many email connections, especially financially linked, to a new account is a right royal PITA in comparison. "

Agree with you 100%!

Ages ago, I bought my own email domain, and when I moved to Plusnet, just needed to forward it to their servers. I'm currently in the middle of migrating them all again (more to do this time) to an external email provider. The accounts I have moved were relatively easy, as they only involved me. The next one, the family one, will involve my wife's email too! Not so easy.

But I'm a technical person, so can do things like set up my Outlook to monitor the old and new email servers (so I don't loose email). Plus I also use POP3, so MY email is all on my PC. Easy! My wife uses IMAP on her tablet, so when I move HER email, I have to download all the on-server emails onto my PC, then re-upload them. A non technical person would struggle to do this.

The SIMPLE solution is to get a new, long-term, email address (gmail seems to be popular!) and tell everyone to start using that. Kinda like when you used to move house, and give everyone the new postal address phone number. And pay someone to forward any paper-based mail.

Re: BT digital rolling out

MisterW — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 18:30:00 GMT

@paul_blitz

My wife uses IMAP on her tablet, so when I move HER email, I have to download all the on-server emails onto my PC, then re-upload them. A non technical person would struggle to do this.

https://imapsync.lamiral.info/ I have it installed on a Linux system but there a free online option