VOIP changeover

[lthlth]

Hi, I've just had a white connector type thing arrived through my letterbox this morning with all sorts of instructions. I am technophobic (and old) so this has scared me. I am also very worried. I am an emergency carer 24/7 for someone with what could be a life threatening illness. If the internet goes down for whatever reason, how is my patient going to contact me? I have four minutes to get to him if he makes an emergency call. At the moment he does this by pressing '3' on his landline and it connects straight to me. Recently, when his analogue landline broke (also with VM) because he is listed as vulnerable, VM were amazing. By tea time that day, they'd connected his VOIP and supplied him with a phone that would work regardless of the internet and set it up so that by pressing '3' he would connect to me. That's fantastic from his end, but if my home phone goes down (and my internet does drop out) how is he going to get through to me? If he makes an emergency call, he's quite often unconscious by the time I get there, so he's unaware if his call has connected or not. I don't need a phone connected so that I can call 999 in an emergency, I need a landline that will still receive calls regardless of the internet working or not. Can it be arranged that an engineer will come and sort this VOIP plug in out for me please and install the same white traditional phone with an 8 hour back up that they installed for my patient as a back up. 

[Zach_R]

Hi @lthlth,

Thank you for your post and welcome back to our community forums. We're here to help.

I'm sorry to hear that you're a little confused with the switchover. If you've been contacted about the switchover and been provided with an adapter then it means your area will be switched over in its entirety soon and the copper network your landline service is currently operating on will be disconnected. I'm afraid that this isn't something we can stop or make an exception of, and this switchover to provide landline services via a router is something that all providers are implementing over the next few years.

You can find more information regarding the switchover here, however, if you wish to discuss options off the back of this then please contact the team on 0345 454 1111 (or 150 from a Virgin Media landline) who can assist you further.

Thanks,
 

[lthlth]

Thank you for your reply. I will try calling 150 and see if they can arrange an engineer to do the switchover part for me. I'm afraid bad eyesight and fear of touching anything technical will prevent me from doing this myself. Hopefully they will also come up with a back up solution that will cope with those times when the internet doesn't work. It is essential that I have use of the landline to receive incoming calls 24/7 but thank you for your help.

[Zach_R]

Hi @lthlth,

Please keep us posted with things, and if you need any further help with anything you know where we are.

Thanks,
 

[jem101 · Accepted solution]

@lthlth reading through the thread here, I can’t help but think that something has gotten lost in translation. As I understand it the ‘emergency backup line’ as it is often referred to as, is only available if the customer is registered as being ‘vulnerable’. So your patient would have been given one and this should allow them to make outgoing emergency calls (999, 111 etc.) over the 4G mobile network in the event of a power failure or internet outage. But I believe it is strictly limited to making outbound calls only and then only to a limited set of ‘emergency numbers’ so in the event of them having an internet outage, then I don’t believe they would be able to call your number anyway!

Also in your case, even if you were eligible for a backup line, I don’t believe that it allows for incoming calls anyway so in the event of you having an internet outage then you wouldn’t receive a call anyway. If as you say you only have four minutes to get to them, then I assume that you are physically very close, in which case there is a high chance that a power failure or outage is likely to effect both of you!

Now I am the first to admit that as I am not a VM telephony user, I am not entirely au-fait with the details of how it all works, but I have the bad feeling that you and your patient may have to rethink the arrangements once the 21CV migration happens to you both.

Is it possible that you can test it? ie if you were to go round to their house, leaving someone at yours and turned off their hub (hence simulating a power failure), can they still make an emergency call to you number and does it ring? If so, can the person at your house call them? If the answers to either of these are ‘no’ then I really think you both need to give this some considerable thought.

John

[lthlth]

Firstly, thank you so much for your reply John. Much appreciated.  The emergency phone that was fitted at the same time as the analogue line was changed to VOIP will work for 8 hours if no power/internet. There is a SIM card in the emergency phone  that works through the landline telephone number. It was tested by the engineer at the time and yes, connects to my landline. I must say though, that's a good idea to turn off his router and see what happens my end. Could be a bit difficult to explain that to my patient though as I can't be in two places at once. i.e. I can't physically disconnect his end and be back in my home at the same time and he isn't capable of doing that himself. Yes, the four minute 'window' I have to get there is crucial in case it's the start of a brain haemorrhage....  and I can make it there in three minutes.  My concern is, that if I lose my internet, which happens too frequently, even when the router's updating... that Graham will not realise he hasn't connected to me. Sadly, as soon as he realises something's about to happen...he presses his '3' button...and then will become unconscious before he's even spoken to me and I would never even know he'd tried to phone. Hence my initial question would VM be happy to provide me with the same sort of set up as Graham so I know that his calls will come through. By the sounds of the replies, this sounds unlikely. I'm also very concerned about having to set this new VOIP myself, so hoping VM will be able to arrange for someone to come and do it as I'm bound to do something wrong. Once again, thank you for your reply.

[Ilyas_Y]

Hi @lthlth, thank you for the post.

Sorry to hear about the confusion regarding the new VOIP line. I competently understand where you're coming from and your concerns too.

Regarding the line, the way it it works is - the telephone line is connected via an adapter to the Virgin Media router, should the broadband go down for whichever reason, be it a fault or outage then the emergency back up line (EBUL) kicks in, which has a SIM card embedded inside of it to make emergency line calls during an emergency.

I'm going to send you a private message - watch out for the purple envelope 🙂

Kind regards.