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Being forced to change to VOIP?

Andaho
Tuning in

I'm being told by virgin staff on the phone that we have to change to the VOIP service, or we will no longer have a phone line.

This is massively inconvenient as I have my virgin hub (which I only use as a modem) at one end of the house, and the phone line, where the phone belongs, at the other side of the house.

I also want to continue using my own router.

I also have concerns about audio quality when the internet connection is bad, and not having a working phone in the event of a power cut or when the internet goes down.

Is it correct that VOIP is being forced upon customers that don't want to change?

75 REPLIES 75

DJ_Shadow1966
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Hello

Changing to VOIP will not affect the usage of your own router as the circuit is separate, if you look at the hub there are 2 RJ11 ports at the top, these are the VOIP ports the hub has already made them compatible with a standard phone just need an adapter.

Do you have a phone port near to where you router is, if so the engineer will connect the port on the router to than and that should feed any other sockets.

The other questions you will need to wait until a VM staff member picks up the post.

Mike

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Thanks for the reply,

No, I don't have a phone port anywhere near the hub... and I don't want an engineer crudely clipping cables around my walls.

I had a look at the virgin router, but I must have an old one, a "superhub".

But this is one of the minor issues, as I could run some new cables myself (but I don't want to have to, and it would be hours of work to do it neatly)...

My main concern is about audio quality when the internet connection is bad, and not having a working phone in the event of a power cut or when the internet goes down.

The main advantage of a landline is that it's proven 100% reliable (in my experience). My internet has outages as often as several times a year (and those are only outages that inconvenience me - there are probably more that I don't notice, when I would notice if it stopped my landline working).

DJ_Shadow1966
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Hello

If you have the older superhub then you cannot get VOIP on that one only the hub 3.0 support VOIP, I do know that Virginmedia are in the process of replacing all older hubs to the latest 3.0.

Regards Mike

 

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all new installs are afaik VOIP but i am not aware there is a policy of forcing existing users to have VOIP

@ModTeam - can someone confirm if the statement that the user must convert to VOIP is correct

VM do a battery backup system for power cuts - its not a standard issue thing but is certainly available - again @ModTeam can someone add detail

as said you need a hub3 so if you are on an earlier model have they offered you a hub3 - if not this sounds like offshore BS to me but lets wait for VM for clarity

____________________

Tony.
Sacked VIP

DJ_Shadow1966
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Hello

You can find the info regarding the backup line in the following PDF, it is only for 999 calls. See page 34.

Mike

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photo of letterphoto of letter

Just FYI, this is the letter they sent out last month, and then when they called last week, and I said I didn't want it, they said I didn't have a choice, and if I didn't have it done, my phone would stop working in December.

(EDIT: I don't know why the photo failed to display the first time, re-uploaded to try again... still didn't work... here's a screen grab of it: https://gyazo.com/597fb6163462f19d8d49f6ccf4da368d )

DJ_Shadow1966
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Hello

Interesting as looks like there is no choice by reading that letter, I think best to wait until a VM staff member picks up the post.

I have had a look at the FAQ from the link, what you have been told is true end of this year your line will no longer work.

Mike

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Hi Andaho,

 

Thank you for reaching out to us in our community, I am sorry that you didn't want to change to our twenty century voice.

 

We are updating the network this is part of the upgrade, I appreciate the frustration as I understand the set up you have however this is something that will be changing, you could look at relocating your router to where the phone line is or alternatively having another phone point put in the place the router is.

 

Regards

 

Paul.

wares1t
On our wavelength

Excuse me for posting on a slightly older thread but,.......

When I re-contracted back in Feb this year (2020) I was told that to continue getting the telephone service I also would need to switch over to the new service and connect my telephones via my HUB 3.0. I was assured that everything would work just as well as they did now and possibly with an added benefit of better audio quality (no noise or hissing issues, which I regularly got back in the days of 'NThellL').

Due to recent internet activity spikes, I have had ongoing issues with the new service and in my opinion, it is not fit for service unless a backup system is installed alongside this 'new 21st-century service.' (In my mind, this is just marketing slang for a service that although is indeed cutting edge, it will most likely fail when you actually will have a need to use it.) as in my case; In my use case, I work from home and very often find myself using the phone for up to 3 hours at a time (incoming calls), but after 45 mins or so, the quality really takes a nosedive and the call quite often prematurely ends with an error message 'please try again'.

I have enquired about having a copper-based line re-instated no less than ten times, however, Virgin Media's agents have ben are best, less than helpful or knowledgeable to the fact there were any quality issues, trying to assure my that their VoIP network is far superior to 'skype' based calls and that it would never drop out!!

Well, how do they account for my issues then?!

 

So, I'm now in a position that I am documenting all technical issues and will be claiming compensation. I honestly feel like dropping virgin altogether, but since I have recently committed to staying for another year, this could be very costly. But I will persevere, I am ever the optimist that someone, somewhere in 'customer relations' will finally admit there is a fault!

Wish me luck!