Full Fibre - Losing my landline

[#1]

Just had full fibre connected today, so if I understand it correctly I will be able to get a VOIP account with say someone like A & A and then get my telephone number back as long as it's done within 30 days.

Also am I correct in thinking that I will need to purchase a VOIP phone to use also.

[#2]

You don't have to purchase a VOIP phone - you can use an app on an Android or iPhone or you can buy a VOIP ATA adapter and connect your existing analogue phone or a VOIP base station that has DECT support for connecting existing wireless DECT phones.

[#3]

Our house was built in 2014 & the current copper wires are all underground with the master socket being in the under-stairs cupboard so there's a cable from the master socket to the external OR socket & this cable isn't visible so presumably it must run in conduit under the floor.

Also in the under-stairs cupboard is the Ethernet patch plate that feeds Ethernet outlets to all the rooms so basically what I'm saying is that the FTTP wiring route would have to mirror what we have now with the ONT under the stairs.

We don't want OR telling us the ONT box will have to be on the same wall as the external CSP which would put it at the back of a settee in the front room.  

In the nine years we've been here we have never had a single issue with our phone line & at 79 I'm more & more inclined to think "if it ain't broke, don't mend it".

[#4]

@caravanj 

Unfortunately, if in the future Openreach decide to discontinue the use of your copper connection then they will break it for you.

However all may not be lost. If one of your existing Ethernet cables terminates at a convenient location for the new fibre ONT then it could be repurposed to connect the ONT to the router, which can be left where it is.

[#5]

I've read that after the analogue switch-off the FTTC copper cable from the street cabinet to the house will be maintained so I assume my phone calls are already using the fibre route from the street cabinet to the exchange.

[#6]

@caravanj 

"I assume my phone calls are already using the fibre route from the street cabinet to the exchange"

Not as I understand it.

AFAIK, you, (and I), still have a "copper pair" back to the exchange, the FTTC broadband intercepts this and sits across the line in the cabinet? This may change after PSTN shutoff and the copper cables between cabinet and exchange recovered?

***There may be some exceptions to this: I think that in some areas where new housing estates were built around 20 or so years ago, where the estate was far from the local town's telephone exchange, rather than provide a very long and expensive copper cable from the exchange to the new estate's cabinet, a fibre link was provided that carried broadband and telephony, with then copper to the houses. Similar to FTTC broadband, but with PSTN telephony also carried?

[#7]

@Mr_Paul 

Thanks for that.

Our house was built in 2014 so hopefully at a time when FTTC was well into the implementation phase & FTTP was already in the offing.

We actually got FTTC in 2016 & our latest Hub Two has a digital voice socket so I suppose we could keep our existing FTTC broadband & get VOIP telephony that way.

We could of course remove our landline from our internet banking etc & just use our mobiles which we use for banking anyway but VOIP would be good for when our local O2 mast goes down, which it does frequently.  

Decisions, decisions.

[#8]

@caravanj  At present Plusnet do not offer any digital voice service and the Hub2 phone socket is non-functional for any sort of VOIP service. The BT version of the Hub can provide only BT Digital Voice so to get it you would need to move your broadband to BT.

[#9]

@RealAleMadrid 

Thanks, yes I should have remembered that this thread was about having to get a new VOIP provider. Lol

[#10]

Has anyone looked at services like this? Landline on a SIM and looks like you can port in.

Need a mobile but plenty have spare old mobiles. Or dual SIM phones.

Advertised at businesses but their social media replies say plenty people buy it for personal use.

https://onsim.uk/landline-sim

[#11]

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from Full Fibre to Everything Else 

[#12]

OR can only cut their own incoming telephone line & move their master socket. The wires going from the master socket are the property of the householder & under no circumstances can OR cut these wires without the householder's permission. They have to be removed, undamaged, from the master socket & the householder is legally able to fit his / her own master socket & connect his / her wires to it.