Should i opt to accept ‘Digital voice’ option?

Geoff9999

I’m probably going to be switching to BT and they offer the option of having ‘digital voice’ instead of a traditional landline, i know it’s essentially a landline over broadband connection but my confusion is when it comes to switching to another provider, will that cause me problems as it did when switching from Virgin to another provider? E.g needing a new line?

iniltous

BT DV is delivered over the broadband connection, your phone is plugged into the phone port of the router, drawbacks are you have to use the BT hub and during a power outage that takes your broadband down , the phone service will goes down too, although a UPS would keep both going, and if you use cordless DECT phones now, a power cut would stop you using them anyway.
There is no reason why a BT/DV customer couldn’t port the number to VM or any other provider if they wanted to do that.
DV is a type VOIP , and eventually all telephony from all providers will be delivered this way, as PSTN  ( regular exchange based telephony) is being retired and will be pretty much done by 2025.
VM and Openreach are two separate networks , anyone moving from one to the other would obviously need access to both networks, VM don’t have 100% coverage of the country 

matelodave

I've had BT digital voice for the past six months and just last week changed from BT to Vodafone.to save nearly £30 a month (and 30% faster).

The Vodafone router has a phone socket and works just as well as BT DV. The transition from BT to Vodafone  took around ten minutes to pull the connector out of the BT router, poke them into the VF router and I tweaked the router SSID & passwordso it was the same as the BT router and everything was back on line.

As Openreach are going to move all PSTN phones to digital  (VoIP) there's really no reason to hold off.

SallyTrickett

I’m afraid that you don’t have any choice .You can’t even cancel your contract with BT as it is deemed an “upgrade”.  I’ve just spoken with a very pleasant lady at BT in the “Early Life” department (previously known as Connections) yes you read the name correctly,  it’s an even worse name than ‘Digital Voice’ which is BTs name for what they’re switching us to which is simply an Internet Phone.  Apparently all the other phone providers agreed to Open Reach’s plan to get rid of old copper wire landlines but BT used to own OpenReach and as the major provider of landlines if they had been against it I don’t think the switch could have been implemented.  Typical big company arrogance - don’t ask the customer if they want it, just tell them that they’re getting it and don’t even give them the option to cancel their contract either.  It’s a disgrace.  I’m even more angry as I only signed up for BT phone/internet/TV package in June 2021 - specifically because I wanted a traditional landline that would work in a power cut and was independent of mobile phone signals or internet connections - when the powers that be at BT apparently knew the switch was coming!  One member of staff at BT even assumed that I had been told !!! I’m now tied in until June 2023.  No doubt BT checked with their lawyers about the legality of forcing  the change upon customers without giving us the option to cancel our contracts but I’m not sure there isn’t a legal case to be made.?? What do other BT customers think bearing in mind that the plan is to switch EVERY traditional telephone line to an internet line by 2025?  Finally, if you’re interested i suggest you look on the internet for a very well written article by the comedian  David Mitchell in The Guardian in November 2021 entitled “It’s Good to talk unless you’re a BT Customer” which explains the whole farce much better than I ever could - only thing is he doesn’t think it’s very funny either. 🙁 I would have attached the link but I’m a new member so not permitted to do that yet .

flaneurs_lobster

SallyTrickett said:

 I would have attached the link but I’m a new member so not permitted to do that yet .

Here you go 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/14/its-good-to-talk-unless-youre-a-bt-customer

Not that I agree necessarily with your contention. Ending copper landline service is much like ending delivery of coal gas or analogue television signals, necessary for the general improvement of the service.

littleboo

I like David Mitchell, but he's clueless about this subject. The fact is that the UK is moving more slowly than some other European countries, Switzerland and Germany have already completed their migrations, to what is an inevitable shift in technology. Given that there is a drive to full fibre broadband, you just cant expect a copper network and the telephone exchanges which form the PSTN to be kept going in parallelly. No new providers are deploying copper, or analogue services, so anyone taking a full fibre service from the many non-Openreach providers have already lost the traditional landline The telephones exchanges dates from the 80's, 40 year old technology. Why people think that Openreach should keep the legacy technology in parallel to the new, like some benevolent old Aunt, is bizarre.

brewerdave

flaneurs_lobster said:

SallyTrickett said:

 I would have attached the link but I’m a new member so not permitted to do that yet .

Here you go 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/14/its-good-to-talk-unless-youre-a-bt-customer

Not that I agree necessarily with your contention. Ending copper landline service is much like ending delivery of coal gas or analogue television signals, necessary for the general improvement of the service.

In general ,I agree with you re progress BUT I believe that Openreach should have ensured that all areas being switched to Digital Voice had full coverage by at least one mobile network as an alternative.
I have a relation very poorly served by mobiles ie unusable, who has been told that he will be switched to DV later this year.

littleboo

If there were to be such a pre-requisite, it would be the job of the regulator to stipulate it. However, the regulator also wants to accelerate full fibre deployment and so cant be delaying copper retirement as well.

iniltous

If someone suffers from frequent power outages that’s the power company’s problem to address , anyone can always get themselves a UPS to provide a solution to short term outages….if someone lives in an area where power outages are frequent and lengthy , and they ‘need’ to be able to make emergency calls , and there isn’t a mobile signal ..then respectfully they should be living elsewhere…what do these folks do if their traditional,  plain old telephony line developed a fault that stopped them making a call ?, PSTN  landlines can fail, but the risk presumably of this happening isn’t sufficient for the resident to consider moving, so they accept an element of risk ( medical emergency while the landline isn’t working )  …if anything DV will be more reliable not less .

wild666

What about the systems connected by phone to report a problem to them so they can phone a family member, if they have one, or emergency services? If the internet goes down then that service will not be able to monitor the system they have and phoning to ask why it isn't working will be unanswered. I was without such a service and they called my daughter who then called them to explain that my internet was down, even though the phone was still copper wire it was also down, and the connection wasn't expected to be working again for another 7 days. 
BT haven't thought about that and the elderly who don't want a mobile phone. 

QrizB

wild666 said:

What about the systems connected by phone to report a problem to them so they can phone a family member, if they have one, or emergency services?

Well, they'll:

• Work over digital voice, or
• Move to a data connection, or
• Move to a cellular connection, or
• Stop working.

A bit like buggy whip manufacturers.