Full Fibre now available to new customers

[#1]

The good news ... https://www.plus.net/broadband/full-fibre/ 

The not so good news is you still lose your landline and phone number.

Plusnet say if you want a phone service you can keep your line with your existing supplier ( so continue paying line rental and call charges ) in addition to your new Plusnet Full Fibre contract.

Looks like it's going to be a real mess.😫

From the Phone T&Cs  .... These terms apply where you take home phone and cover line rental, call plans, call features, and Line Rental Saver. Our full fibre products do not come with a home phone option and these terms do not apply to full fibre customers.

[#2]

At least you can sign up and then port your existing number to VoIP from your old provider after your PN full fibre has gone live.

[#3]

@dvorak  Yes that's true.  I already have a Voip service and my landline number is not important, but for some customers it seems to be essential for them to keep their existing number so they are going to have problems.

Plusnet's work around of  keeping the copper line with another provider just seems ridiculous, for a start many providers don't offer phone line only contracts (Plusnet being one of them 🙄) and the extra cost of the line rental etc would  bump the overall price up significantly.

I suppose new customers could keep their existing service running and then order FTTP from Plusnet as long as that doesn't kill off the landline which it shouldn't, then port their number to VOIP which would cease the landline and broadband.

Sorry dvorak, I have just repeated in a long winded way what you said. 

[#4]

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@dvorak wrote:
At least you can sign up and then port your existing number to VoIP from your old provider after your PN full fibre has gone live.

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But then will you lose your email?

[#5]

Assuming your old provider isn't plusnet - you won't get email in the first place.

[#6]

No I meant current Plusnet customers trying to keep both their land line and email by asking for FTTP as a "New client" connection.

Academic to me as I removed my landline from the FTTP Trial connection I have many years ago and don't use Plusnet email, but many others do and many of those are very attached to their landline too.

[#7]

Then yeah when your old account ceases email will go with it.

[#8]

So, from my reading, the choices seem to be:

1. Take out a new account, keep your landline number by transferring it to a VoIP provider but lose your email account and domain if you have one

or

2. Transfer your existing service to FTTP and lose your landline phone number.

[#9]

If you take Full Fibre and keep your FTTC and telephone account then port the number to a 3rd party VOIP provider, causing the closure of the FTTC account, will you be liable for Early Termination Charges?

Also is the transfer to BT's FTTP service without incurring ETCs still available?

[#10]

This strikes me as particularly nonsensical. Switch your b/band to FTTP with Plusnet ,but still pay for a telephone service (which would include b/band) with a second Company ? What happens if BT change the exchange over to Digital Voice ?

Seems to me that PN want out of the telephony side totally and (possibly) BT want PN to vanish !!!

[#11]

If you upgrade to FTTP, you will lose your copper connection (they take away the overhead line when they run the fibre to your home, although I did read somewhere that they may not do that if your line goes underground). It doesn't seem possible to have FTTP and a copper phone line, or to separate an existing FTTC + landline service into FTTP and landline (except for VOIP digital voice).

Looking into this further, it seems that the only viable option to keep the same landline number is to transfer from Plusnet to BT, or another provider who offers FTTP and digital voice. If you are within a contract at the moment and speak to Plusnet support, they can arrange a transfer to BT without early termination charges (which could be around £150 if you've got a year to go). 

BT seems to offer a 100mb service and then try and get you to sign up for the 500mb service for £45.99 and £5 / month for digital voice, although the call tariff is 22p a minute, so better to go for the £7.50 option which includes 700 mins / month.

[#12]

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@davidj66 wrote;
Switch your b/band to FTTP with Plusnet ,but still pay for a telephone service (which would include b/band) with a second Company ? What happens if BT change the exchange over to Digital Voice ?

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I get the impression that some people think that ‘Digital Voice’ only works with FTTP. This is incorrect, it will and is out there at the moment working fine on ADSL and FTTC connections.

[#13]

As far as I understand things, Digital Voice is the BT Retail VOIP service. It is not an Openreach product.

OR have created a wholesale digital product (can't remember what it's called) purely to work with VOIP services where a phone only service is required (I think it's 0.5 up and down which apparently is enough for VOIP).

If you have an overhead feed and install FTTP the copper cable from the pole will almost certainly be replaced by fibre which would cut off and other copper service.

Brian

[#14]

@bmc 

When I wrote 'Digital Voice' I was of course referring to VoIP as per the initiating post. I suspect that Digital Voice will become the  equivalent to people referring to their vaccum cleaner a 'the Hoover'.

[#15]

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@bmc wrote:

If you have an overhead feed and install FTTP the copper cable from the pole will almost certainly be replaced by fibre which would cut off and other copper service.

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Earlier this year OpenReach installed overhead fibre cables. Talking to the guys doing the work I was told that the connection to each house could be a hybrid system with fibre and copper wires. They may have been mistaken though.

I initially signed up for FTTP from PN but cancelled the order when I found that I would lose my landline phone number. Now new customers can signup for FTTP but with an expensive method of retaining their landline number (not available to existing PN customers).

What are my options?

• I could move to BT and have Digital voice as a £5/month extra with call charges based on the old copper wire system.
• Accept I'll lose my existing phone number and sign up for FTTP as I already have a new number with Sipgate that has my local area code.
• Wait until my current contact runs out, jump ship and find an ISP that can supply what I want.