Switching to VOIP, questions

tichtich

Hi. I'm about to renew my broadband & home phone contract with PlusNet. They want me to switch the home phone to VOIP, though it still seems to be possible to stay with the landline phone for the time being. Any way, I have a few questions. 

1. They will send me a new router with a telephone socket to plug my existing phone into. I read somewhere that older phones might not work with VOIP. Is this a real thing, and if so how can I tell whether my phone will be OK?

2. I don't really want my phone to be near the router, so I've been looking for a wireless VOIP adaptor. I could only find one for BT Digital Voice (would that work with the PlusNet router?) and one on Amazon that had poor reviews. Are there any good options?

3. I was thinking of replacing my old home phones anyway. (I have three: the base one and two satellites.) If I do so, is there anything I should look out for in terms of talking advantage of VOIP?

Thanks for any help.

iniltous

Have you misunderstood what they have said  ? Plusnet website still says they don’t offer telephony to new customers 

 AFAIK, Plusnet will no longer offer telephony to existing customers they are going to be broadband only , if a PN customer wants to keep  telephony they recommend moving to BT for that , so moving to BT for Digital voice telephone and BT broadband ( this is the simplest option and safeguards the phone  number ) Plusnet and BT are sister companies .

If that’s not acceptable, because you don’t ’like’ BT , and you can’t  have  telephony out of the PN router ,  you can join a third party VoIP provider of your choice like Sipgate for example ,  but caution required as porting your  phone number to them ( if your existing phone number is important  and you want to keep it rather than getting a number allocated by them ) , may well cease your PN broadband so you potentially have a break in broadband service ( PN broadband and phone ceased and then  re-provided  as standalone broadband )

If you use a third party VoIP provider like this  , you need an ATA ( analogue telephone adapter ) or a phone with a ATA built in , that’s between you and the VoIP provider.

I suspect you have confused ISP’s like BT , that have  a proprietary version of IP telephony in BT case called  BT Digital Voice , they  use a type of VoIP that is accessed via the ISP supplied router , ‘regular’ VoIP isn’t like ISP VoIP 

tichtich

Hi. They said they would arrange it with BT. But I assumed I would still be a PN customer, paying through PN. But maybe not. I'll ring up and clarify that with them. Either way, I suppose that means I'll have a BT router, and I'll be able to use the BT Digital Voice adaptor if I want to. So that probably answers my question #2. Thanks. I'll post here again to confirm when I've got it sorted out.

iniltous

Yes , if they are going to swap you to BT , the BT router has a phone socket built in , you simply connect your phone to it
…..BT will supply you  ( if you request one ) with  a ‘digital voice adapter’ basically this is a mains powered phone socket , so if you want a phone sited remotely from the router,  this adapter plugs into the mains , your phone plugs into the adapter,  and the adapter connects to the router via the router built in DECT base station , so it’s like cordless phone technology, some think it’s WiFi but it’s not its DECT .

brewerdave

tichtich said:

Hi. They said they would arrange it with BT. But I assumed I would still be a PN customer, paying through PN. But maybe not. I'll ring up and clarify that with them. Either way, I suppose that means I'll have a BT router, and I'll be able to use the BT Digital Voice adaptor if I want to. So that probably answers my question #2. Thanks. I'll post here again to confirm when I've got it sorted out.

Past experience of others suggests that the "deal" with BT will be more expensive than any deal with PN. So care needed !

tichtich

brewerdave said:

tichticht said:

Hi. They said they would arrange it with BT. But I assumed I would still be a PN customer, paying through PN. But maybe not. I'll ring up and clarify that with them. Either way, I suppose that means I'll have a BT router, and I'll be able to use the BT Digital Voice adaptor if I want to. So that probably answers my question #2. Thanks. I'll post here again to confirm when I've got it sorted out.

Past experience of others suggests that the "deal" with BT will be more expensive than any deal with PN. So care needed !

Thanks. They've given me a price of £38, including unlimited calls, which is about the same as I'm paying now with PN. If I stayed with PN just for broadband, that would cost me £27.50, so effectively I'll be paying £10.50 for unlimited calls. From looking around, I could probably get the calls a bit cheaper from a separate VOIP provider, but I don't think that would save me much. I might just get BT for the 24 month contract, and then switch if they increase the price too much after that.

iniltous

TBH , that’s not a bad deal , I’m with BT but with PAYG calls , the official price for PAYG is £5 but I pay £3 , and with F2 broadband the total is £33 a month , you are paying £38 , (so £5 a month more than me but unlimited calls ) , but the official list price  is £18 for unlimited calls , the list price difference between PAYG and Unlimited is £13 , as you are only paying £5 more than me , proportionately yours is a better deal than mine  , obviously only if you make sufficient landline calls , FWIW I don’t make any outgoing calls and keep the phone primarily for incoming, so a inclusive calls package isn’t suitable for me , but IMHO , for someone who makes landline calls it’s a pretty decent deal ,for example  , if you make a 3 min call every day , that’s would cost about £20 a month on PAYG , so makes the price of unlimited calls look good value 

tichtich

iniltous said:

TBH , that’s not a bad deal , I’m with BT but with PAYG calls , the official price for PAYG is £5 but I pay £3 , and with F2 broadband the total is £33 a month , you are paying £38 , (so £5 a month more than me but unlimited calls ) , but the official list price  is £18 for unlimited calls , the list price difference between PAYG and Unlimited is £13 , as you are only paying £5 more than me , proportionately yours is a better deal than mine  , obviously only if you make sufficient landline calls , FWIW I don’t make any outgoing calls and keep the phone primarily for incoming, so a inclusive calls package isn’t suitable for me , but IMHO , for someone who makes landline calls it’s a pretty decent deal ,for example  , if you make a 3 min call every day , that’s would cost about £20 a month on PAYG , so makes the price of unlimited calls look good value 

I've just looked up BT's Unimited Anytime call plan, and it turns out that calls to mobiles are not included. You just get them at half price. If that's the same on Digital Voice, then I'm not impressed, especially now that more and more people are giving up their landline numbers. The rep from PN is supposed to be ringing me back this afternoon, and I'll have to ask him about that. If he confirms it, I won't be choosing that option.

iniltous

I’ve never heard that calls to mobiles are half price and not included ‘free’ on the Unlimited plan , the Unlimited calls plan always was no charge for calls to UK landlines  and UK mobiles .

 FWIW the BT T&C’s are almost unfathomable, I had a quick look and saw  no evidence at all of what you say ,  but I would call BT and check ( not PN as they are not that likely to know ) , if mobiles are not included then it’s hardly ‘Unlimited’ , it’s very much limited.

TBH , I would be surprised if that it were true and there has been no ‘chatter’ I’ve seen anywhere, and that’s on some quite ‘anti’ BT forums, so if it were true that calls that previously were completely free were no longer free , and the cost of the plan hasn’t reduced accordingly , I’m sure BT would be pilloried over it .

tichtich

iniltous said:

I’ve never heard that calls to mobiles are half price and not included ‘free’ on the Unlimited plan , the Unlimited calls plan always was no charge for calls to UK landlines  and UK mobiles l

 FWIW the BT T&C’s are almost unfathomable, I had a quick look and saw  no evidence at all of what you say ,  but I would call BT and check ( not PN as they are not that likely to know ) , if mobiles are not included then it’s hardly ‘Unlimited’ , it’s very much limited.

TBH , I would be surprised if that it were true and there has been no ‘chatter’ I’ve seen anywhere, and that’s on some quite ‘anti’ BT forums, so if it were true that calls that previously were completely free were no longer free , and the cost of the plan hasn’t reduced accordingly , I’m sure BT would be pilloried over it .

Ah, it looks like "Unlimited Anytime" is a legacy plan, and the current one is called "Unlimited Minutes". I got so frustrated with trying to find information about the unlimited plan by following the BT website that I did a direct Google search and ended up on a page that only mentioned "Unlimited Anytime", with no indication that it was out of date!