No phones compatible with our VM Hub

It's a shame there is no way of changing the title. The advice that you would not be migrated if you have no mobile signal seems to have been removed from the website.

Update as of today.

So still no mobile signal in the house and no landline as that is still where Virgin put it ie in the roof of the house. I think we have had 5 hubs and 3 EBULs but Virgin have said we need another 'engineer' to come out and look at what solution can be provided do guess another hub and EBUL. The complaint has been closed multiple times without our direct simple questions being answered. Can we have a phone in the house and not the roof connected to the EBUL....... etc

Certainly one of the more interesting and unusual accounts related on here. I imagine the exact details of everything are more involved than as they appear in this topic. I'm not aware of any particular general topic on here regarding switchover issues and OFCOM.

If VM has provided you with a deadlock letter, you have 12 months in which to take that to the ombudsman. But the ombudsman can't compel VM to install a landline for you nor go back to a conventional landline arrangement AFAIK. The ombudsman could assess the compensation offered if that is unsatisfactory to you.

VM's offer above seems to have covered the options that I am aware of (including an option to cancel services and a technical option to rewire). There is a clause in the compensation scheme which may limit compensation if the customer 'prevents the service issue from being resolved'. I imagine VM may possibly cite the offer to rewire the connection as part of that if it seeks to limit compensation.

If you move to another provider though it is highly unlikely you will get a conventional landline installed. It will very likely be some variation of a phone-via-router connection in some form or other.

The fact this has dragged on for so long seems very unusual.

Has VM ever managed to provide a working landline connection via the VM hub (even if the hub is not in a suitable location)?

VM's rewiring options generally seem to involve moving the hub as a first choice but they should also offer reconnecting existing telephone extension sockets in the home so the hub did not have to move if the hub location is a sticking point. That, however, also might involve some rewiring of the extension sockets.

You should probably contact OFCOM in regards to what extent VM has to go to in order to provide an emergency connection. The EBUL phone is their default offering but, if it does not work in your home, then it won't be much use. I wonder if there is some means of connecting an external aerial to the EBUL unit to place the aerial outside, via an aerial extension cable, and the EBUL inside in an accessible location or some kind of mobile signal booster. An alternative battery backup for the VM hub may be of limited use when a power cut extends to a wider area as the connection may still not work.

You should perhaps speak to OFCOM to establish what the limits of the provider's obligations are for emergency backup when the local mobile signal is poor.

Just to update anyone else who has been cut-off by the transition to internet/hub connected phones. We are still waiting for a solution. Looks like there is only the EBULv3 available even if you have an unreliable phone signal. So our landline has been stuck in the roof where we can't get to it for over a year. Anyone else going through this?

Just to update the community

We still have no landline and have been cut off for over a year. Now they are saying it is too late to get our landline repaired as they have removed the equipment. Anybody else stuck in this loss of phoneline mess. We are still being charged for a line that does not work for over a year. Copy and paste below is our last response.

A few hints to try...

1) Login to the Hub menu at http://192.168.0.1/  Check Telephone is ( Enabled )

2) Make sure the RJ11 to BT Socket adaptor is connected to Hub port TEL 1   ( no other port will work )

3) Only use a BT style of telephone with the original factory supplied cables.


The connection to TEL 1 looks like this :

Thanks Sabrina,

I have replied but this was more to update others with similar problems as I keep being sort this on private chats and might be useful to others.

Also a reach out to the community to see if anyone else had managed to get similar problems solved since Ofcom got involved and the rollout was halted but now restarted. Or do we each need to go to Ofcom.

Still looking at the VM information on landline switch and it still says we should not have been switched if there was no mobile signal. We still have our non working landline stuck in the roof of the house. It used to be in the house. Below is VM info.

Will the Emergency Backup Line work in my home?

When making calls to emergency services, the Emergency Backup Line connects to any available mobile network, which means the device will work wherever there’s mobile coverage.

However, in areas where there’s no mobile coverage, our Emergency Backup Line won’t work. We want to make sure that you’re always safe and can contact emergency services which is why we won’t offer our fibre phone line to customers who live in areas without mobile coverage.

Thanks for speaking with us today Ginger1 on the forums. 👋🏼

I'm glad we have made arrangements to try and get this issue sorted with the telephone line.
As advised - let us know how it goes with the new equipment and whether or not it works on the delivery day.

If you need anything else - we'll be here to assist.

Kind regards,
Ilyas.

FYI.

Broadband in this area is very intermittent and can sometimes be off for an hour in the middle of the day. This is a long standing problem and they used to come out to try and fix it. Looking at the hub logs it is full of critical errors.

Hi, The VM supplied phone is Motorola FW500. The others were "Binatone B100", "Greemarc CL100V" and BT Duet 210. None of which get a dial tone. The hub has been rebooted many times since we were cut-off a few weeks ago. The Technician this morning went through all off this again and did a factory reset. The phone light comes on red then changes to green.

I was told this morning we may get a call back but we have no phone! The VM website is clear that if we have no mobile signal we should not be migrated.