Digital voice changeover from copper

maudejuly

I have been with EE, formerly Freeserve then Orange, for over 35 years. Recently I got a series of emails saying landline (included in my broadband package) was chaning to digital voice and it would occur in August, no change of contract, no price increase, etc etc. I rang to request engineer's assistance because I am elderly and concerned that I not be left without landline if change went wrong at my hands. Variously over thelast week I have been told the "order" (which I did not place of course, being told this was happening) had inexplicably been "cancelled" and I would have to wait until the next set of emails came informing me of the new date (but they could not say when this would occur), and they could not explain other than "system error!" why this Cancellation had occurred. I am due to be away from home at the time they suggest this may occur (reiterating they do not know accurately when, just Nov/Dec) and am anxious I am coming back to no communication so not able to inform them I have no landline and need help. As I have been on the phone for a total of 6 hours this week trying to solve this, I have no faith contacting them via internet (presuming I have that service when I have no phone) will effect a solution or help. However, EE says I can have this now if I sign a new contract - clearly this is more than double the price of the one they offered and I accepted in Jan 2026. To say this is unethical, unsatisfactory and unnecessary is to understate my feelings. It is not logical that they cannot say what caused the cancellation, yet plan to go down the same route - thus repeating the actions yet expecting a different outcome - when my contract has 2 years left to run on the existing price, but can do it immediately at a new price. Madness and very very worrying. The problem is not of my making, the change is being thrust upon me with no accountability by the company and a rush to earn extra income for the same service which makes my life work and my home and duties work. Why? I still do not know if this will happen, if it will happen successfully, when it will happen.

flaneurs_lobster

While not addressing your concerns around the imposition of this change, this recent thread gives some detail around the hows/whys of Digital Voice.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6678956/are-speech-phone-lines-being-phased-out-or-not

Have to agree that the offered "easy" solution of renewing your contract for twice the price is just crass. I wonder if the actual solution being offered is a change from copper to fibre for your whole connection?

Can I ask if you are registered with EE as "vulnerable"? I ask because the change to Digital Voice from copper is normally a customer made change but does need you to be aware of router sockets, your type of phone and so on. Your request for assistance may have put an additional resource constraint on the changeover process thus the delay.

Vitor

If you are concerned because you rely on the landline, tell EE clearly that you consider yourself a vulnerable customer and need assistance with the migration. Ask them to record that on your account and confirm in writing what will happen, when it will happen, and what support they will provide.

Also, don't spend another six hours going round in circles on the phone. Make a formal complaint in writing. That gives you a record of what has happened and requires EE to deal with the actual issue rather than repeatedly starting again with whoever answers the phone.

iniltous

you do realise that requesting an engineer to attend, simply means when you get a visit , they take your existing phone cord from the socket on the wall , and plug that into the router phone socket , that’s it , if your current router is incompatible because it doesn’t have a phone socket , EE would have indicated you need a new one and send it out just before the date of the change to DV , the engineer may connect that new router (although it’s not clear if you then have to reconnect your wireless devices yourself with the new router SSID /password etc or the technician does this )

I’d hazard a guess that your call to request assistance has been interpreted as a cancellation of the change to DV , it can only be a temporary cancellation of the date of migration , not cancellation of the phone service entirely unless you specifically stated you were happy to remove PSTN telephony and not take DV , presumably you will need to wait to be recontacted with a new date , but clearly it can’t be after January 2027 .

Do you have a mobile ? , if you do you seem to be unnecessarily concerned .

Yorkie1

I had to travel down to my elderly mother to do just what you outline. @iniltous . I completely agree that it was straightforward, and I had a retired IT helpdesk friend lined up do to it for her, but that didn't stop my mother getting into a complete tailspin about it, no matter what I repeatedly reassured.

I have seen reportson here of EE hardware not working after a forced switch from PlusNet, and of them charging £75 to send out an engineer, to a customer who had far more vulnerability indicators than my mother.

The uncertainty of the change is real!!

iniltous

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82096698#Comment_82096698

I’d agree there is potentially more involved if the migration is from Plusnet to EE as well as PSTN to DV , this clearly involves a change of ISP and router swap , the OP is not changing provider, it’s EE PSTN to EE DV , the underlying broadband doesn’t change, so no reason to assume the change won’t be routine.

flaneurs_lobster

so no reason to assume the change won’t be routine

Even if the change is EE → EE, what might well be a routine change to one can be thoroughly daunting to another.

Recently helped a friend with a PSTN to DV swap (Vodafone) and it's the detail that gets you. They did supply a new router together with the documentation for a brand-new broadband install.

Only notification was by email saying on this date plug your phone into the router. Naturally the landline handset was plugged into an extension socket on the other side of the house.

My friend is a highly-intelligent, fully cogent retired University professor whose first question to me was "What's a router?".

iniltous

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82096896#Comment_82096896

Again , on the face of it not the same , if your friend needed a brand new installation, that also begs a question , given they can’t have had Vodafone PSTN as a standalone service, then what was replaced by this brand new installation, and if they already had broadband (which seems the logical assumption) then they must have already had a router so the question of ‘what’s a router’ seems weird if they already had one , what did they call the existing one , a internet magic box ? , if you mean VF incorrectly sent the wrong documentation indicating a new installation was needed when it wasn’t and it was simply the existing FTTC installation being used , and a change of router was necessary to allow their version of DV , that’s an individual VF error and it’s a little pessimistic to think it’s a common occurrence, if someone has a landline remote from where the router is , EE and BT both supply a DV adapter to enable that telephone to still be used , connecting via DECT not the extension wiring .

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82096950#Comment_82096950

Since you ask, they referred to the Internet Magic Box as 'the modem'.

Yes, bog-standard copper swap from PSTN to whatever Vodafone call their IP phone product, needing a new router, no mention anywhere of any kind of mitigation for the now non-functioning internal phone extensions.

Two minute job for someone who knows what a router looks like and what the sockets on the back are for, albeit that the handset is now three rooms from where it used to be.

And, of course, neither you nor I have mentioned SSID/password changes needed before anything will work.

iniltous

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82096983#Comment_82096983

SSID/password changing is no different to swapping ISP , so hardly an issue , and you can always change the new router to match the old router SSID/password changing, this isn’t something a specific to a PSTN to DV migration , what’s more in many cases the existing router doesn’t need changing anyway as it already has a phone port , and extension wiring is not your ISP problem and as stated EE provides the means to keep existing remote wired phones working anyway .

The point is there will be many that will claim to need assistance and when it’s provided it’s almost embarrassing for the end user when it takes literally a few seconds to move a phone cord from location A to location B something the customer could have done themselves, without waiting in for a morning or afternoon for it to be done for them .

flaneurs_lobster

The point is there will be many that will claim to need assistance and when it’s provided it’s almost embarrassing for the end user when it takes literally a few seconds to move a phone cord from location A to location B something the customer could have done themselves, without waiting in for a morning or afternoon for it to be done for them .

Your lack of empathy towards those whose technical aptitude may be considerably less than your own does you no credit.

I don't doubt that for most the simple procedures described above are trivial, to others you could be describing how to drive Concorde.

Overall we just need to be sure that the BB/telephony suppliers act with respect and don't assume knowledge or aptitude over that needed to be a simple consumer of their product.

And don't charge £80 for someone to swap a plug.