OT Fibre connection

Not necessarily. One of our sons migrated from BT FTTP to Sky FTTP last year. With BT the phone port was on his (2017 vintage) ONT, with Sky it's on the back of their supplied Router. I was amazed that the phone number transferred across. (Not that he uses it  anyway, so purely accademic)

First world problems. It's been drifting that way anyway with landline calling

Erm, I take it that by "exchange code", you are referring to what seems these days to be called the area code, or STD code as it was originally?

(just checking, not having a go).

Indeed, which is what FTTP is. There is also an openreach product called SOGEA (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access) which is basically is a POTS line with FTTC on it, but no traditional voice service connected.

(Nice idea, and you would hope it to be priced similar to that of a broadband service but without the lions share of the landline component of the cost, but so far that does not seem to be the case! Quite often only saving a small amount).

Yup. So it pays to pay careful attention to what you order, and what the implications are on your existing services.

We had a couple of maildrops actually from BT promoting FTTP - but on investigation was before it had even been installed and they could not offer a service (or even a suggestion of when it might be available)

After it had been installed, and later made "live" and available to order, there was little if any promotion from the normal suspects. However once it showed as available to order on the various databases, I contacted my ISPs and was able to order it from one of them.

I have FTTP fibre and I have a POTS port on the back of the router.

I no longer have to pay landline rental charges that BT and Virginmedia applied for the copper wired line I had before.

so its a simple monthly fee for the broadband service and any call charges on top.

We actually only use the POTS port for incoming calls and we use our inclusive minutes on our smartphones for outgoing calls.

So our new monthly bill on Vodafone is half of what we used to pay virginmedia and we have a much faster internet.

You keep asserting this, but I'm not sure we have enough evidence to show that it's a cast iron truth. Sure EE don't care about landlines, but they're a mobile network so it's not too surprising. I'm not sure we know whether that would happen with ISPs that already have a VOIP platform, eg Sky and TalkTalk(*).

It may just be that some ISPs are still working on their VOIP platform and so don't have any means to offer landline service on FTTP yet.

Every altnet I've seen says 'you can keep your number', so it's not rocket science.

I think the solution is simply to not 'transfer' your FTTC, but to start a new FTTP contract and keep the FTTC going for a bit, then port over your number later (which may cease your FTTC, but you don't care at that point).

It would be a good idea to move your landline to a proper VOIP provider (Sipgate, Andrews & Arnold, Voipfone, Vonage the recommendations) so you aren't stuck with the terrible offerings of your broadband provider.

But I suppose that's 'too complicated' for people who still think phone and broadband should come from the same people.

Theo

(*) Seems Talktalk's digital voice product is in trial - interestingly they give you a separate ATA rather than merged with your router, which is nice if you want to use your own router.

or port the number to a cloud based VoIP provider (preferably with SIP access as well) in advance, then you don't care so much what the ISPs offerings are.

No you don't :-)

You have FTTP broadband connection, and a VoIP gateway built into the router, which in turn presents a analogue port that looks (electrically and physically) like a traditional phone master socket.

That is VoIP not POTS, which implies a copper pair carrying analogue voice routed back to the local exchange (possibly via intermediate street cabinets)

That is because you no longer have the POTS (aka copper) line like you had before

Yes. So that there are no short form 6 digit local numbers. PITA

I remember most of our local numbers as just their last 3 digits.

I wouldn't touch TalkTalk with a barge pole! They have a reputation round here for leaving customers without any working phone line for months at a time and their compensation was derisory. No other ISP has such a terrible customer service - cheap but they really are the pits.

Their former CEO did much the same QOS trick for Covid Test&Trace.

I don't think you can do that without ceasing your FTTC?

(unless you're porting to a VOIP service at your FTTC ISP for which OR have a special renumbering process, or they put you on 'digital voice' and can port it out from there without ceasing your [now SOGEA] line)

How does a 'cloud based VOIP provider' differ from a 'VOIP provider'? Surely they're all remote as far as your concerned, and whether their boxes live in their datacentre or somebody else's is neither here nor there?

Theo

Mind you don't use Zen, Andrews and Arnold, Cuckoo, or Shell Broadband then, because they all use to one extent or another TalkTalk's infrastructure for some of their services

A&A sometimes give you a choice. The TalkTalk backhaul used to be cheaper, but they are the same price as the BT backhaul now (my price hasn't increased).

And the TalkTalk wholesale that A&A use is very different.

I hear generally 'good' noise regarding TalkTalk's wholesale/corporate arm ?

On 08/06/2022 12:10, Mark Carver wrote: <snip>

I've done a bit of digging for family number and it seems number porting is still v much work in progress - both for porting between providers and for porting to FTTP. I do not understand most of what was reported here

but the overall picture seems clear: there's an awful lot yet to be decided, let alone implemented, before consumers can count on doing what might have been thought the bleeding obvious. (OTOH much the same used to be said about stuff for which I was once responsible so I try to remember that things ain't always as simple as they seem.)

If you are lucky after a few months a snail mail postcard will arrive addressed to "the householder" saying that full fibre is now available.

One arrived at my home about 3 months after I had had it installed. Use a postcode checker to see what BT/whoever think they can offer you.

ZEN say you can port your existing number to their Digital Voice

I see many examples of poles with the yellow "fibre on pole" warning, where there are lots of what look like coils of fibre optic cable using special pre-made plastic coil support thingys, nailed to the top of the pole.