Forum Discussion

TraceyJane1's avatar
TraceyJane1
Joining in
29 days ago

Inaccessible home phone

Hello. My parents are aged 89 and 85 respectively and each have serious health issues. My dad can no longer walk. They have a land line and broadband via Virgin Media. When they recently removed the tv package, engineers came to their house to do whatever they needed to do, but also moved the location of their home phone. This was not requested by my parents. So, the phone is now in their lounge. But my parents very rarely use that room, preferring to use smaller living area. When their phone rings, dad's immobility means he cannot answer it, and mom cannot get to the phone in time. Living 180 miles away, I'm often in a state of panic when I cannot contact them. Should the engineers have moved the phone without consultation?

3 Replies

  • japitts's avatar
    japitts
    Very Insightful Person
    29 days ago

    VM, in common with all landline operators, are moving from the legacy copper network to an IP-based landline. In practice, this means the old wall-sockets are being closed down, and VM landlines are now being fed from from the telephone socket on the back of the broadband hub.

    Is this what's happened in your parents' case? If so, I'm not sure on the "doing without checking first" angle, but it's certainly going to happen sooner or later. In which case, a cordless phone may be the best solution now.

  • David_Bn's avatar
    David_Bn
    Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
    28 days ago

    Thanks for reaching out to us TraceyJane1, and a very warm welcome to our Community Forums!

    We're sorry to hear of the relocation of the landline phone, without consent or discussion - this shouldn't really happen, as we'd need to work to resolve the best needs for a customer.

    This sounds very much like their landline service is now operating via their router, rather than the formally utilised master socket.

    Let's take a closer look into this for you and we can either seek to have the router relocated or cabling running from the router to the handset to ensure this can operate in their living room, whilst remaining connected to the hub.

    Check out the envelope in the top right hand corner for a private message from me.

    Thanks,

    David_Bn