VoIP phone

[goldieboldie]

Can someone please explain to me why Virgin Media thought is was a good idea to remove customers from the landline to a voip phone. I run my business from home and also my partner works from home. We have broadband downtime at least once a week and daily sometimes we then also lose the phone line. Over the Christmas period I spent a few months renovating my lounge this included spending time rerouting the virgin phone line under the floor, concealing the cable in the walls and flush mounting the virgin telephone box into the wall. Only to be informed a few weeks later the phone line was to be disconnected. The disconnection of this also took out my phone lines in three other rooms and because my router is not in my lounge I now have my phone plugged into a room where I do not reside. It is very shortsighted of Virgin Media to assume that all customers keep their phone outlet box where their router is. 

[Kain_W]

Apologies for any issues faced goldieboldie,

Welcome back to the community.

With regards to 21CV, all providers will be required to swtich over to this within the coming years.

To clarify have you already been switched over?

Regards,

[nodrogd]

You have no option but to move to hub based lines.

Government decisions require that full fibre is installed to most households over the next few years. With this plus the age of current PSTN infrastructure it is not feasible to continue with the current phone network. As a result all providers will have to move to hub based phones by 2025.

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/future-of-landline-calls 

If you have extension phones, you can arrange a technician visit to link your hub up to your old master socket. The other alternative is to consider DECT cordless handsets.

[goldieboldie]

If you mean switched over, my phone line was disconnected and I was sent a little lead to plug my phone into the back of the router then yes. 

My issue is Virgin Media has made no attempt to keep my phone in a convenient place as it was before. My phone is now in a different room to where I spend most evenings. And to be honest I believe it makes a major system vulnerability by the fact you lose a working phone when the internet goes down. 

[Steven_L]

Thanks for coming back to us goldieboldie, we can arrange for your hub to relocated for you to a more suitable place, we can do that from here if you'd like and as this part of the changeover, we could do this free of charge, you should have been advised of this, when we contacted you about the migration over to the fibre network.

If you are a vulnerable customer, we can arrange for an emergency back up to make sure that you can still call the emergency services should your connection be lost.

Kind Regards,

Steven_L

[goldieboldie]

Won’t be able to relocate the hub now as I’ve laid wooden flooring. So I will have to keep the phone where it is now. As for the vulnerability aspect of this, surely aren’t all virgin media customers vulnerable if their phones become unusable because of frequent internet down time. Anyway things will have to stay as they are for now. 

[goldieboldie]

I’m pretty sure the cable running from the white box on the inside of my wall marked Eurobell to my hub isn’t fibre optic. To be honest I think the cable running up my garden isn’t fibre optic either. The only bit of fibre optic cabling is probably running down the Main Street. 

[nodrogd]

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@goldieboldie wrote:

Won’t be able to relocate the hub now as I’ve laid wooden flooring. So I will have to keep the phone where it is now. As for the vulnerability aspect of this, surely aren’t all virgin media customers vulnerable if their phones become unusable because of frequent internet down time. Anyway things will have to stay as they are for now. 

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Vulnerable customers can have an EBUL unit installed, which will allow them to make emergency calls & calls to family members via the mobile phone network. This is the “backup” system agreed by the regulator OFCOM as per the information I linked earlier. I also  ought to point out that current VM landlines only continue to work due to the area street cabinets having huge banks of lead/acid backup batteries & cooling fans. Not only are they expensive to run, they are extremely noisy, particularly in summer. Decommissioning of these plus the headend exchanges will massively reduce costs, & you will also likely say goodbye to paying monthly line rental. New outfits like Hey! Broadband only offer VoIP, for which you only pay for your call package.

[nodrogd]

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@goldieboldie wrote:

I’m pretty sure the cable running from the white box on the inside of my wall marked Eurobell to my hub isn’t fibre optic. To be honest I think the cable running up my garden isn’t fibre optic either. The only bit of fibre optic cabling is probably running down the Main Street. 

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95% of VMs network is HFC (Hybrid Fibre Coaxial). Fibre cabinets are usually placed every 500 to 800 metres, driving 10 to 15 coax cabinets. Even in full fibre areas there is a coax termination on your front wall. This is because Cable broadband is a radio based system (DOCSIS). 

Unlike copper telephone line based broadband, which is maxes out below 1Gb, DOCSIS over coax can run at up to 10Gb download speed. The drawback is the upload is restricted to 20% of the download. Therefore VM is also starting conversation to full fibre & moving away from DOCSIS over the next few years.

[jem101]

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@goldieboldie wrote:

Won’t be able to relocate the hub now as I’ve laid wooden flooring. So I will have to keep the phone where it is now. As for the vulnerability aspect of this, surely aren’t all virgin media customers vulnerable if their phones become unusable because of frequent internet down time. Anyway things will have to stay as they are for now. 

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What Steven did neglect to mention above, is that, rather than move it the hub, VM ‘should’ offer to run wires from the current hub location, to wherever you want your phone to be - now in your situation, that may not be desirable, as they certainly won’t be concealing it under the floor etc. You’re looking at cable tacked round door frames, round the skirting boards etc. Also it is more expensive for them to do so, not that would in any way factor into Steven’s neglect to mention it!😉

Now the question about ‘vulnerability’ has been raised on here more than once. The answer is that the phase out of the ‘legacy’ telephone system, absolutely IS going to happen by 2025, like it or not. Strictly speaking it’s never really been a ‘government mandate’, more a collective industry decision to move to a different way of operating, and this was backed by OFCOM, which, sort of gives it degree of governmental legitimacy! Whatever, it’s going to happen, regardless!

Now in the OFCOM discussions, the point about ‘vulnerable’ customers was addressed in the event of a power or internet failure. The approved method was to rely on the mobile networks - and if you happen to be in an area with absolutely no mobile service? Well sorry about that - have you thought of moving? And that might seem harsh, but that literally is the crux of it!

VM, like all other providers, have an arrangement to provide for an EML (emergency backup line) for vulnerable customers, although it’s not really a backup line, but in the event of a power or internet outage, a phone wired into it, will be able to make emergency calls via the mobile network. The assumption is that most people have a mobile phone anyway, so loss of the landline probably isn’t an issue! This assumption certainly won’t be true for absolutely everyone, but, if you do fall into this category, then technically and legally, ‘well sorry about that; sucks to be you’!

Which is harsh, yes, but actually is the reality of the situation!