Phone downstairs, Hub upstairs

[El-n-Hils]

Our main phone connection is downstairs near to the original location of our hub. We moved the hub upstairs to obtain better coverage but this means it is nowhere near the base unit for our phone.

Will we have to move the base unit of the phone to be nearer to the hub or is there some other solution? We do not want to move the hub as it is in the optimal position for wi-fi coverage in our house.

[PaulH2011]

Reference?  I can't find anything that indicates the Virgin phone service uses BT lines, only the opposite.

Have you been given a date for the changeover?  Do your Virgin bills show charges for phone usage, i.e. calls not just rental?

If you can't find wiring either outside the property where the external cable connects, or inside the property where the hub connects to a wall socket, then it's difficult to see how it has been done.  What wiring is at the phone socket - surface wiring or inside the wall?  If surface where does that go?  That socket may not have been the original and there may be an original elsewhere, extended to where the phone is plugged in, that Virgin wiring has been connected to.

[Lee_R]

Hi GeoffTownley thanks for getting back to us.

With the imminent migration to 21CV, your phone/handset is going to be required to be plugged into your hub.  That being the case, if you're looking to have multiple handsets, I would recommend looking into having a trio set of the cordless phones.

Regards

Lee_R

[GeoffTownley]

I know that I have a virgin phone service, obviously the virgin system has a connection to my internal phone line, I just can't find where it is.

Virgin operate 2 services, one using their own fibre optical network, which has limited coverage, fir outside if this network they use the  Openreach, which is supposedly independent, but is owned by BT, so no conflict of interest there😉😡

[Lee_R]

Hi GeoffTownley,

Did you see my post?  When the migration takes place, any sockets on your wall will become (for want of a better word) redundant.

Regards

Lee_R

[yehudi]

Can we take a raincheck on this? Virgin are expecting their valued customers to spend more money buying DECT phones to overcome a situation that has been forced upon them!! Come on Virgin - help these people out with free engineer's visit to sort this out!!

[PaulH2011]

How do you know your phone service isn't still on Openreach?  Did you have the phone service from Virgin before cable was available in your area or after?  If before then maybe it was never changed over.  What's happening in areas where cable isn't available?  Either the analogue system must be continuing or Virgin must be supplying a 'hub' that can be plugged into the phone socket and is capable of receiving digital signals over the telephone pair.

But it doesn't matter how the connection has been made, if you have been given a date it will stop working then and you will have to plug a phone into the hub with the supplied adapter to have a working telephone.

As said probably the easiest way to retain three phones is to use a wireless system and plug the base station into the hub, which is what I've had to do, moving it from downstairs to upstairs.  Because the phone works exactly the same on the hub as it did in the wall socket the hub must be fully replicating the conditions the phone expects to make and receive calls.  That being the case it's almost certainly possible that a connection could be made between the adapter and your existing master socket, but I doubt anyone will be willing to do it or tell you how it can be done!  Even though it's only two wires.

[PaulH2011]

Virgin help out?  You jest!  You should be grateful they allow you to be a customer.

[GeoffTownley]

Paul you'll have to trust me.tgat I do know that I'm no longer using the open reach network, we've had virgin cable in this area from about 1993.

Virgin do use openteach in areas where they  don't have their own cable infrastructure and yes I could buy a DECT system and put the base unit in the cupboard with the router, do you know how much a good quality 3 handset system is?

Openreach will become digital landlines for phones, not sure when/ if that will happen,  HMG say by 2025, but after the DAB fiasco it may not happen until 2050.

I think I may change to BT broadband as Virgin Cable seems to be jumping the gun.

[GeoffTownley]

😯😉🤣To be fair they are better than my last supplier, Plusnet, mind you it would be hard to be worse than Plusnet.

[PaulH2011]

If you are as positive as you say that your Virgin telephone service is via the broadband cable then it's even less relevant how the connection was made to your Openreach telephone socket.  The Virgin broadband telephone sockets that have been used until now are defunct and have no relevance to how the service will be provided in the future.  This thread is about how to cope with that change.

If the Virgin service IS using your Openreach socket that's likely to impact on how easy it will be to get a service from BT or any other provider that uses BT lines.