Migrating from BT to other internet and phone providers - FTTP (full fibre)

IAmCharliemouse

(Sorry if this is a well trodden path, but I have searched for a quite a while, and nothing quite covers my questions.)

I am currently on a BT telephone and internet service, and have been for many years.  I was recently (2 weeks ago) migrated onto FTTP by Openreach, although the old copper line is still there (and still has a dial tone).  BT have now started hassling me to use their hub to connect their voice service, something I am unwilling to do as I have a better quality router already in place, which works perfectly well with the fibre line.

So, I am looking to migrate away from BT, probably splitting the phone and internet provider.

My primary goals are:

1. Upgrade the speed of the internet connection.  BT is uncompetitive.  I am currently considering Fibrely, although Vodafone is also there as the cheapest option.

2. Keep my existing phone number and move to a VOIP service, e.g. Voipfone.  The priority here is to keep the existing number, although we hardly ever use it for outgoing calls, we do occasionally receive incoming.

What should my next actions be?  I read horror stories of people losing their internet when they migrate the phone line, and vice versa.  And people losing their existing telephone number because the migration failed.

Any advice welcome.

400ixl

Andrews and Arnold (https://www.aa.net.uk/) are the common proposal for VOIP services and can transfer your number.

You are then free to choose where you get your broadband from. Personally you couldn't pay me to go with Vodafone, just look at the customer satisfaction reports and Ofcom's complaints per 100k customers to see why.

Fiberly don't look cheaper than others and their upload speeds are pretty poor compared to many.

littleboo

I don't know though what happens if you port out the landline when it's part of bundled service on FTTP. With xDSL, the broadband is associated with the landline so you can't port out without triggering a cease of the bb.
Are you in a minimum term contract?

400ixl

Even with FTTC if the exchange is upgraded to SOGEA then you can have broadband without a landline. FTTP can be had without a landline, being in contract could be an issue.

IAmCharliemouse

littleboo said:

I don't know though what happens if you port out the landline when it's part of bundled service on FTTP. With xDSL, the broadband is associated with the landline so you can't port out without triggering a cease of the bb.
Are you in a minimum term contract?

No.  I am completely free to move.

The 'bundling' is my question really.  I know DSL was, by default, tied together.  Although you could separate them.  But now I have FTTP, it doesn't seem to be.  Although it's not clear.

Since I want to move both, really I'm asking is there a recommended order of doing things, that avoids the landmines?

IAmCharliemouse

400ixl said:

Andrews and Arnold are the common proposal for VOIP services and can transfer your number.

You are then free to choose where you get your broadband from. Personally you couldn't pay me to go with Vodafone, just look at the customer satisfaction reports and Ofcom's complaints per 100k customers to see why.

Fiberly don't look cheaper than others and their upload speeds are pretty poor compared to many.

Will look at AA thanks.

Yes, Vodafone has many horror stories, and I was resisting them for this reason.  Although there are many such nightmares for every provider.  Reading forums like this is like judging the health of the nation by standing in A&E.

Fiberly have good download speeds, and seem to have good support.  They aren't cheaper than others.  Also, I don't really care about upload speed anywhere near as much as download.

Do you have a personal recommendation of an ISP for me to consider?

iniltous

Your choice of ISP( Fibrely ) don’t seem particularly less expensive than BT , but your choice , because they also appear to use Openreach and don’t seem to offer a bundled telephone service ( and you seem to want a third party VoIP service ) need to decide what’s preferable losing broadband for a while , or telephony for a while , unless you chose a single company for you new telephony and broadband service, a break in service ( on one or the other ) is inevitable.

Assuming telephony is less important, you migrate your broadband to the new ISP , this cancels both BT broadband and telephone , and the new ISP delivers your new broadband ( this should be relatively seemless ) and you should have 30 days where your phone number is available to port , you approach the third party VoIP provider and purchase a ‘plan’ ( none are ‘free’ you will pay for this service ) you also need to buy an ATA or telephone instrument with inbuilt ATA ..the reference for price comparison is BT telephone on a PAYG basis is £3 ….although the price per minute isn’t cheap , it depends on how many outgoing calls you make, but hopefully you don’t think VoIP is free .

the alternative is you port your phone number first , this automatically ceases your broadband, you then arrange for Fibrely to take over your now ceased broadband ‘line’ , you should budget at least a few days possibly a week without service, but depending on the way the VoIP provider offers their the phone number may be accessible before the new broadband is activated ( via a mobile app for example )

IAmCharliemouse

iniltous said:

Your choice of ISP( Fibrely ) don’t seem particularly less expensive than BT , but your choice , because they also appear to use Openreach and don’t seem to offer a bundled telephone service ( and you seem to want a third party VoIP service ) need to decide what’s preferable losing broadband for a while , or telephony for a while , unless you chose a single company for you new telephony and broadband service, a break in service ( on one or the other ) is inevitable.

Assuming telephony is less important, you migrate your broadband to the new ISP , this cancels both BT broadband and telephone , and the new ISP delivers your new broadband ( this should be relatively seemless ) and you should have 30 days where your phone number is available to port , you approach the third party VoIP provider and purchase a ‘plan’ ( none are ‘free’ you will pay for this service ) you also need to buy an ATA or telephone instrument with inbuilt ATA ..the reference for price comparison is BT telephone on a PAYG basis is £3 ….although the price per minute isn’t cheap , it depends on how many outgoing calls you make, but hopefully you don’t think VoIP is free .

the alternative is you port your phone number first , this automatically ceases your broadband, you then arrange for Fibrely to take over your now ceased broadband ‘line’ , you should budget at least a few days possibly a week without service, but depending on the way the VoIP provider offers their the phone number may be accessible before the new broadband is activated ( via a mobile app for example )

Thanks for the reply.  Lots to cover here:

• I haven't chosen Fibrely yet.  Still looking around.
• One big reason for moving from BT is that I have (to my mind) been ridiculously overcharged for months now.  I know I should confront BT about it before leaving, but I have been paying ~£100 per month for a 'normal' ADSL (80Mbps) and phone line.  Yes, I blame myself for not keeping an eye on every bill, but I've had a lot going on lately.  And I'm not great with conflict.  I really see no justification for this at all, and this leaves me very sour.  Even if I am on some 'obsolete' contract that I should have changed out of, it is ridiculous that was not communicated to me.
• I also do not want to use BTs router, and not only does that prevent me from using their VOIP service, but it also causes issues with their support, should I need it.  I understand this is not unique to BT though.
• Yes I know VOIP isn't free.
• Thanks for supporting my suspicions that a downtime is inevitable on one side or the other, and doing the ISP first makes sense to minimise that on the internet side.  That would certainly be my priority.
• Yes, telephony is secondary, and we (virtually) never call out.  The occasional incoming is the only reason we would like to keep the number.
• I do read of horror stories about people losing their long-term number because of some delay beyond their control when migrating the number.

iniltous

I’m not advocating BT BTW , but I’m with them , with 80/20 and PAYG telephony and pay around £34 ( and also get ‘free’ Discovery + TV via an app ) so even with a legacy product and outside a minimum term it’s hard to see how you can pay £100 a month , are you sure it’s like for like comparison, there have been examples where a quarterly BT bill is compared to a monthly bill from someone else , plus BT do advise customers that are approaching the end of contracted periods to advise the price will rise .

Obviously using the BT hub is only  necessary if taking BT DV ( Digital Voice ),  BT also sell broadband without telephony ( and it’s cheaper than both services taken together ) if that’s what the customer wants , they can then use any router they like , BT with or without DV doesn’t stop an ordinary VoIP provider being used .

There is no guarantee with porting phone numbers but the losing provider responds to requests from the new provider, they can’t arbitrarily refuse a porting request , even things like the account being delinquent or ‘in the red’ isn’t reason to not port , so if a port fails it’s almost certainly the new providers fault by not contacting the old  provider in the required way and within the necessary timescale , not the losing provider, something to have in mind should the number be ‘lost’ , the new company will invariably not accept responsibility, they will always blame others .

EssexExile

This probably isn't important but you say your copper line is still there and has a dial tone. I had the same but couldn't make any calls from it, receiving calls seemed to work though!

IAmCharliemouse

iniltous said:

... even with a legacy product and outside a minimum term it’s hard to see how you can pay £100 a month , are you sure it’s like for like comparison, there have been examples where a quarterly BT bill is compared to a monthly bill from someone else , plus BT do advise customers that are approaching the end of contracted periods to advise the price will rise .

That is the monthly price for "broadband and phone".  Here's my bill.  Ignore the features pack and voicemail.  That's small fry.  It's the £100.06 per month that's the problem.


It's because I am on a 'legacy' package "Fibre 2".  Search for this package on Google and it comes up as £32 per month moving in.  But it is listed as £100.06 on our account.


So, even renewing the same package is £30 cheaper.  But since we are FTTP now, BT could have moved me to a Full Fibre package at twice the speed for 30% of the cost (Full Fibre 150).  But they are happy to keep raking in the money.

Well, anyway, thanks for prompting me to spend some time looking into it.

Summary: Staying with BT is possible (on a different package), but these kind of shenanigans leave a very bitter taste.