land line telephone and virginmedia connection help requested

[Spectric]

If it is full fibre to the home then you will not have an analogue line anymore, it will be VOIP. You can get an adaptor which would translate an analogue phone signal into a digital data packet

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=analog...6_2133870&tag=mh0a9-21&ref=pd_sl_3zccrzciw4_e
but you might be better off just getting voip phones.

 

[Dibs-h]

I do not understand all the replies, the sales people that supplied and constructed my present windows 10 set up I think will now have to be approached and assistance requested.
Thanks for your informations and support, I will report back asap. John Devonwoody.

@devonwoody - mate, can you post up some pictures of the back of the router? And where\what the answering machine\phone\alarm plug into? Even a little doodle showing the layout will be good.

If it is full fibre to the home then you will not have an analogue line anymore, it will be VOIP. You can get an adaptor which would translate an analogue phone signal into a digital data packet

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=analog...6_2133870&tag=mh0a9-21&ref=pd_sl_3zccrzciw4_e
but you might be better off just getting voip phones.

He won't need a VOIP adapter - the Virgin routers have one built in.

 

[Spectric]

Thats good that someone is thinking ahead when BT culls the analogue network, we wont be seeing virgin full fibre for at least another three years though and BT has us on a list to be done sometime so not holding my breath.

 

[devonwoody]

should be simple.

assuming you have one of the following hubs - Virgin Media Hub 3, Hub 4 & Hub 5 | Hub Swaps & Upgrades

There is a port on the back of the router - it may have an adaptor so you can plug a phone into. The adaptor allows you plug a standard phone into it. You can plug a telephone extension cable into this to get it to a different location

Thanks, I get the idea and suggestion of your thoughts you mention above and will have to locate someone to set up the cable to connect to our living room via going across our hallway to connect via the two rooms. The four panasonic telephones we have should cope OK.

 

[devonwoody]

Thanks again to all for replies and advice.

 

[Johnwa]

I too am connected to Virgin and have also been put onto telephone over the internet as is their policy when a landline developes a fault. My phone just plugs in to a socket on the router via a small inline adaptor. As has already been said, you do not need a computer for your phone and if your telephone allows it you can add extensions I think via their own wifi.(Not too sure how this works, havent looked). Try turning off your computer and see if your phone still works then you will know if you do need a computer connected for your phone.

 

[NewbieRaf]

Bring an ex voip engineer I highly recommend Home - onsim. Small company that will take your landline and put it on a SIM card. A but like sip 2 sim by Andrew’s and Arnold but all UK calls and texts are included. Their data plans are nor great but they are coming out with new ones. Support is still a small team but they are working overtime to help customers. Hope this helps.

 

[stuart little]

Have Virgin media two weeks ago landline was dead. An hour's wait before mobile was answered and then 2 days before engineer called. Explained that no copper wire systems were being repaired,now to be replaced by fibre. Changed set top box and fitted new cables.
Now waiting for 3rd engineers visit, main TV not working .
Am close to telling virgin to stick it. But are Sky or BT any better?
Both over 80 so not too tech savvy.

I have BT inc BT TV & get a very good service from them, far better than Sky in my experience. When I had both, BT for phone & internet, Sky for TV, later BT TV as well as Sky I was constantly having issues, Sky would blame BT & 'vikky-verky'. I eventually had enough & cancelled Sky. I'm now on BT Halo 2 no problems now.

 

[nickds1]

If it is full fibre to the home then you will not have an analogue line anymore, it will be VOIP. You can get an adaptor which would translate an analogue phone signal into a digital data packet

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=analog...6_2133870&tag=mh0a9-21&ref=pd_sl_3zccrzciw4_e
but you might be better off just getting voip phones.

Not 100% so with BT at least...

We have FTTP and managed to keep our analogue (POTS) service by moving from BT Residential, who cannot unbundle your landline from fibre (they only have Digital Voice if you buy FTTP from them) to BT Business who CAN unbundle the landline and supply just FTTP. I don't believe you have to be a business to do this.

BT Business were cheaper than BT Residential and 3x faster on download - we get 30/120 as measured pretty much all day with speedtest.net.

We can't go Digital Voice as with BT they insist you have a BT Smarthub (Digital Voice needs that to work) and we can't have a Smarthub due to the complex (industrial rather than domestic) networking setup here (I run a digital publishing business from some of the outbuildings) - we use all Ubiquiti kit here, including the router, and the Smarthub is a really dumb bit of kit that doesn't do what we need. OpenReach did install a special cable that has fibre AND a copper pair in the same cable. I asked about this unusual configuration and apparently it's especially made for BT.

So, there are ways with BT at least to get FTTP and keep your POTS line.

 

[Richard_C]

So, there are ways with BT at least to get FTTP and keep your POTS line.

I'm sure you can, and it seems a good solution in your situation, but it is at best a temporary fix because my understanding is that POTS is due for total switch off at the end of 2025, only 3 years now.

I'm not planning any changes right now from my FTTC/POTS set up but any changes I do make will be future proof, VOIP with a small power back up for the router perhaps.

(I wonder if the postmaster general will pull a big red lever in Parliament, a bit like a ceremonial Christmas light switch on but this time it's switch off)

 

[Dabop]

This is a common issue in Australia as we started rolling out fiber everywhere a while back- one downside was when (not if) cyclones hit in the northern parts, your 'phone' stops dead too when the power goes off...
Sadly this is considered 'your problem' these days, but many use a UPS (backup battery) on the router- this can still fail if you are 'fiber to the node' and there are mains powered nodes between you and the exchange, in which case a router that has both a 'power backup' UPS or inbuilt battery and a 'sim card' option (allowing it to connect to the mobile phone network as a backup) is the preferred option for those with 'medilert bracelets' and the elderly....
Sadly maintaining communications no matter what is no longer a priority for our modern 'communications companies'- their biggest priority is worshiping the almighty $$$ at all costs- and if a few old or sick people have to die to maintain their profit margins- 'not their problem'
:-(

 

[nickds1]

I'm sure you can, and it seems a good solution in your situation, but it is at best a temporary fix because my understanding is that POTS is due for total switch off at the end of 2025, only 3 years now.

Absolutely, but the BT Business package is soooo much better plus I now have time to gracefully move the landline to VoIP (keeping the number) in my own time and with my own router.

Apart from anything else, the BT Smarthub does not allow you to change the DNS server and many other privacy settings - I have a bee-in-my-bonnet about unnecessary monitoring, and right up there is ISPs forcing you to use their DNS... I can understand why BT Residential do this - it make remote debugging of customer issues a bit simpler as the DNS server as a variable is removed from the equation, but BT log all your DNS transactions in the interim. This is just one of many issues I have with privacy, other include the lack of decent VPN support, no router pass-through mode, no DoH or DNSSEC support, plus their ability to hop onto your domestic network whenever they wish.

Not on my watch, they don't! Anyway, apart for all the Libertarian issues and general dislike about being presented with a fait accomplis, there's a bunch of stuff that we need that you just can't do on a Smarthub, not least integrated network management.

(*) It may seem I'm making a bit thing out of wanting to change the DNS server - the reasons are simple - just one example being I run something called Pi-hole as the local DNS within the network - this blocks about 200,000 (and can be up to about 1,000,000) known advertising and monitoring sites at source. i.e. anything connected to our network gets NO ADVERTS during normal usage - access to the known logging/advert sites are blocked so the lookup returns "non-existant" and web pages are smaller & simpler as a result. My TV and all the other internet connected stuff cannot call home and elsewhere all the time in the background (you'd be amazed how much of that goes on) - about 50% of all internet lookups are to monitoring/logging & advert sites - most folk never see all this as it happens silently, but it's there.... your TV, internet radio, router, PC, Mac, phones etc. are all happily chatting back to base in the background and it's very difficult to stop with the "privacy" setting on devices.

With Pi-hole running (and using an anonymizing upstream DNS such as Cloudflare) you just don't have to worry about 90% of the privacy stuff as the house network just takes care of that .

(**) This general "the ISP monitors everything you do" is true for all the ISPs, including Virgin etc., that I'm aware of.

 

[Dabop]

Absolutely, but the BT Business package is soooo much better plus I now have time to gracefully move the landline to VoIP (keeping the number) in my own time and with my own router.

Apart from anything else, the BT Smarthub does not allow you to change the DNS server and many other privacy settings - I have a bee-in-my-bonnet about unnecessary monitoring, and right up there is ISPs forcing you to use their DNS... I can understand why BT Residential do this - it make remote debugging of customer issues a bit simpler as the DNS server as a variable is removed from the equation, but BT log all your DNS transactions in the interim. This is just one of many issues I have with privacy, other include the lack of decent VPN support, no router pass-through mode, no DoH or DNSSEC support, plus their ability to hop onto your domestic network whenever they wish.

Not on my watch, they don't! Anyway, apart for all the Libertarian issues and general dislike about being presented with a fait accomplis, there's a bunch of stuff that we need that you just can't do on a Smarthub, not least integrated network management.

(*) It may seem I'm making a bit thing out of wanting to change the DNS server - the reasons are simple - just one example being I run something called Pi-hole as the local DNS within the network - this blocks about 200,000 (and can be up to about 1,000,000) known advertising and monitoring sites at source. i.e. anything connected to our network gets NO ADVERTS during normal usage - access to the known logging/advert sites are blocked so the lookup returns "non-existant" and web pages are smaller & simpler as a result. My TV and all the other internet connected stuff cannot call home and elsewhere all the time in the background (you'd be amazed how much of that goes on) - about 50% of all internet lookups are to monitoring/logging & advert sites - most folk never see all this as it happens silently, but it's there.... your TV, internet radio, router, PC, Mac, phones etc. are all happily chatting back to base in the background and it's very difficult to stop with the "privacy" setting on devices.

With Pi-hole running (and using an anonymizing upstream DNS such as Cloudflare) you just don't have to worry about 90% of the privacy stuff as the house network just takes care of that .

(**) This general "the ISP monitors everything you do" is true for all the ISPs, including Virgin etc., that I'm aware of.

Not only do they monitor your traffic (often both inside and outside your own 'private' ie local network, but most if not all of this traffic- you get to pay for!!!!
(and considering that a large proportion these days can include video streaming- that could be a large chunk of your data taken up- by something you both don't know exactly what it is, and you have to pay for...)

 

[Richard_C]

This was in the Guardian on Saturday. 2 probems got conflated but the copper/voip change is a big part of the issue. So its not just Virgin, BT as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/nov/14/bt-mother-landline-home-essentials-service
Interesting aside in the answer:

The mass rollout was paused in March after BT underestimated the disruption it would cause

I suspect we have a mix of poor communication with customers, poor training for customer service people and a huge project that never did the "....but what if..." bit of planning.

Also relevant to various earlier discussions (but not to the OP), I am with Zen, currently FTTC and POTS. The Zen supplied router is a Fritzbox which does have a physical phone port. Looking at the online manual you can pair up to 6 DECT phones and it has a built in answerphone and phone book. Shouldn't be too bad when the Un-POTS day arrives. User configurable DNS servers as well

 

[devonwoody]

I met a met a new problem for me yesterday, I went to download a novel for my Kindle reader and I got a signal informing me I had no WiFi.
The nice Virgin engineer never informed me or reminded me to use the new router password underneath the replaced router and at 85 that set up never kept up with my life changes.
We had a new engineering broadband company in the road outside my home and I told him of my problem, he stripped out of his gear came in and reset the system up for me and refused any financial payment. I shall most probably switch company when my present company contract expires.

 

[artie]

I shall most probably switch company when my present company contract expires.

I hear people debating all the time about which company is best, but the fact is, no matter what company you choose, it all comes over the same wires and if there is a problem, it's open reach that sorts it.

 

[XTiffy]

It might well be true about Openreach but my experience is that compannies other than BT seem to be able to get openreach out more quickly. I have used Vodafone and TalkTalk and they have responded quickly. My daughter with BT has just taken 28 days to fix a fault. The openreach engineer said he was being tasked to go through a list of those faults outstanding for 25+ days.

 

[Richard_C]

but the fact is, no matter what company you choose, it all comes over the same wires and if there is a problem, it's open reach that sorts it.

True if it's copper wire, but many FTTP providers own the whole lot including the fibre into your house.

 

[devonwoody]

@devonwoody . Hi John. My 85 yr old in laws had the same problem a few weeks ago with virgin.
Sounds to me like you are on full fibre.
Cant help with your fall alarm but maybe the providers of said alarm would be the first port of call for help. As for your landlines, what the virgin engineer did for them was take their main phone with built in answering machine and plugged it into the virgin hub using an adaptor. The other two handsets are radio phones which connect wirelessley with the main phone so they have a handset in the sitting room and one in the bedroom. These just plug in to your normal 240 v sockets, rechargeable things....he can also use any handset to listen to messages on the answering machine but we have not set that up...I don't know why you need to have a computer on the go all the time because my lot don't, everything works off a small adaptor plugged into the back of the hub. Don't know if this helps you in any ways. I know how hard it is to get any help from virgin customer service.
All the best to you.
Ps. Thier phones must be at least 10 years old....

Thanks, I will have to chase virgin again.

 

[devonwoody]

Is there a future problem of a fire risk from a computer caused by being left switched 24/7 one day????????????????