Home Alarm

[Asim123o]

I have just moved  to VM and I have a home alarm system which notifies me if the alarm is triggered. However, VM is now providing phone line via the router which wasn't made clear to me even though I transferred my number to VM. In order for my alarm notification to work I need a traditional phone line. Otherwise, my alarm system is not optimal. I can't get any proper guidance from anyone at VM as I am been given conflicting information such as you can't have a traditional line, the alarm will work with the DOCSIS line or call Gadget Rescue who might charge you. I feel cheated and unsupported as a new customer. Any guidance or help will be appreciate. 

Kind regards

Asim

[Zakko]

Asim,

How did you overcome the issue when the old phone line has been cut off ? 

Thanks 

[Martin_N]

I am sorry you feel that is the way we're dealing with this. As we haven't provided you with the equipment you would need to contact the company who did. 

^Martin

[Zakko]

Martin,

Thats an absolute cop out, VM made the changes and left customers high and dry to resolve any issues they encounter at their cost. And I’m sure there are many in my position.

Zak 

[Roger_Gooner]

Openreach and VM plan to migrate from PSTN by the end of 2025, and this is supported by Ofcom which said: "We recognise that the migration to VoIP is necessary to ensure the continued provision of reliable landline telephone services given that the PSTN can no longer be sustained in the long term."

Ofcom also had this to say: "Several other bodies will have a role to play in ensuring the migration is completed successfully. Most notably, these include downstream service providers that offer services such as telecare and burglar alarms, payment terminals and monitoring systems, that rely on some of the technical characteristics of the PSTN. These service providers will need to test their equipment to see if it will continue to function over IP and then replace, upgrade or reconfigure it as appropriate. They also need to make sure that their customers (which range from residential users to large commercial and public sector entities) are aware of the issue and take any necessary steps to maintain their service(s)."

My own migration is to get my security provider to replace my landline with mobile, and I believe that this will be an option in many cases. Any provider which has no migration path should be dumped.

[Zakko]

Thanks for the information and progress is good, however which ever way you look at this it is still a case of the individual having to foot the bill as no third party service provider (alarm) is going to upgrade for nothing. In some cases major overhauls. VM can afford to make the switch as there probably being incentivized as well, and I’m probably right in saying many of the other third party providers are not in this position. So it’s all well and good VM passing the buck, but how many small service providers have the time to go to all their current or prior customers and tell them sorry, if you want to maintain a particular alarm function .. sorry it’s going to now cost you. 

[Lee_R]

I am really sorry you feel the way that you do @Zakko

I can pass on your feedback on your behalf.

Regards

Lee_R

[Zakko]

Feedback is not going to change the situation !! The horse has bolted 

[goslow]

If you don't wish to modify your alarm to mobile communication, then do you presumably need to re-enable the old internal telephone sockets in your home by linking them to the 21CV phone connection on the hub?

VM's published information advises they will reconnect extensions at no cost but this is not reliable in practice based on past topics on here. The customer normally has to fight to get it done if not done at the time. IMO the customer should not be left in any worse a situation than they were before the switchover, which seems to have happened in your case.

There have been past descriptions on the forum on how to connect extensions to the hub phone socket which were linked below on a similar topic last week

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Home-Phone/Another-Alarm-Extension-Issue/m-p/4838897#M157947

Worth noting though that, even if you do re-establish the wired connection to the alarm, the phone line via the hub is not guaranteed to work during power outages nor if the hub is offline so, under those circumstances, the alarm may not dial out anyway even when wired in to the hub phone line. Hence the reason many are choosing to go with a mobile connection for the alarm.

Third party add-on equipment exists which allows the alarm to use the landline by default but switch over to a mobile connection if the landline goes down for any reason.

I can't dispute the fact that VM's processes for doing these switchovers are not consistent for all customers and it is often left to the individual technician to decide what work gets done. AIUI, the individual technicians are working against tight allocated time slots for each job so it is probably not too surprising if they exit without doing more than the basics that are required if they are running out of time.

[Zakko]

Thanks for the information really useful and informative.

I did request the old line reinstalled, however was told this would not be possible as the old line is dead and disconnected. Are you saying you can run another connector back from the hub to the old phone line. Fundamentally though we don’t use the phone that much only for the purpose of the alarm, and completely understand power outages would disable communication and the alarm, however that’s a very very rare occurrence.

When you say AIUI technicians are these VM technicians coming out to resolve the issues? 

I’ll look into this in more detail snd see what can be done. Thanks for the advice 

[goslow]

A few bits of info are getting muddled here. AIUI = 'as I understand it', rather than a type of technician!

Refer below to the link on what VM say 'should' happen during the switchover. Note the sections on connecting equipment and existing phone extension sockets.

https://www.virginmedia.com/help/home-phone/virginphone

The likelihood of these things actually happening seems greatest when the customer has an old phone socket right next to the VM hub. There the technician can use a short linking cable to 'back-feed' from the hub into the old extension sockets (link below).

If the hub and the nearest phone socket are miles from each other, via a difficult cable route, then it would not be unreasonable for VM to decline to do the work and flag this up as a problem to the customer and maybe incur a charge.

Your description suggests that you did not have an offer of help to try to re-enable your phone extensions nor consider any other equipment that might be affected by the phone switchover. So, in my opinion this is not an incompatibility issue with your third-party equipment, it is an issue that VM disconnected working equipment from the line and then abandoned the job without too much explanation to you from what you have described.

I don't think VM can go around doing these conversions and leaving the customer in a worse-off state than they were before without providing further options or solutions. In past topics like this, VM have gone around about the houses for a time before eventually agreeing to send back a technician to link the phone connection from the hub into customer's internal extension sockets. I don't know all of the details in your case but it sounds like this is probably what needs to happen for you so as to reinstate your alarm connection.

In doing this, it is important not to inadvertently connect the new phone connection from the hub into any old phone cabling from the house back into the old phone network in the street so the VM tech would disconnect the old incoming phone cable from street to house (either on the outside wall box or behind the master socket). With that disconnected, the old sockets inside the house are still linked to each other but not to the outside world via the old incoming phone cable.

After that, VM's method seems to be to use a cable from the hub to an adjacent phone socket to 'back-feed' the phone connection from the hub into the old phone sockets and connect them to the new line via the hub.

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Home-Phone/HUB3-to-Master-socket-adaptor/m-p/4507007#M143805

The process of VM actually doing this seems to fall down if the hub and an existing phone socket location are not near to each other and significant extra work would be required to bring a socket near to the hub, which is fair enough.

In the other topic linked from @iamSteve

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Home-Phone/Connecting-Hub-3-to-Extensions/m-p/4797693

followed the same approach but hardwired a connection from the hub into the internal home phone socket wiring.

You could also look at getting a local independent telecoms technician to do the task for you and then consider when your VM contract is up for renewal whether VM merits your future custom.

In any event, I think VM have left you at a disadvantage here, and without too much explanation as to why, and would hope the VM forum team could review it and rearrange a technician visit to get the phone connection to the alarm working again. Hope you can get it sorted.