Going VOIP - losing the landline

[hellymedic]

After 3 calls, BT now say the old hub, seemingly identical to the new (David finally unboxed), will work. (First calls, techies said it wouldn't work.)
Still haven't been switched over.

Will have to wait, watch and see...

[Feanor]

I've been scratching my head a bit here, about what I should do.

Current config is normal BT landline, with DSL on it, which is now not used.
Internet is with AAISP, but connected via L2TP tunnel from my Firebrick through a Starlink connection.
The analog part of the landline lands on a TDM400 card in an Asterisk box, and hence to IP phones.

I wish to keep the landline number for now, for a few reasons.

My current plan is this:

-Port the number to AAISP VoIP service.
  Yes, they can maintain the ADSL service on the copper line if required, but I think I will just allow the entire line to cease that as it's now un-used.

-De-commission the Asterisk box, in favour of using the VoIP gateway functionality in my Firebrick.
  It has enough of the features of Asterisk that I need: it will accept registration of the phones, and will register with the AAISP gateway for external connectivity on my ported-in number.

-I will need to provision TFTP which is running on the Asterisk box elsewhere, because the Cisco IP phones pick up their config from it.  That can be moved to my Roundcube webmail server.

This needs to be thought through a bit more, but that's my general direction.

[hellymedic]

Excerpt from email, timestamped 20.01 today:

<<We're still working on your Digital Voice
Your broadband is now ready, but your Digital Voice service will start after . So, you should wait until then before setting up your Hub and digital home phones. >>

No time is specified before the  .

So I wait...

[jiberjaber]

Excerpt from email, timestamped 20.01 today:

<<We're still working on your Digital Voice
Your broadband is now ready, but your Digital Voice service will start after . So, you should wait until then before setting up your Hub and digital home phones. >>

No time is specified before the  .

So I wait...

Have they disconnected the landline yet?

Sent from my Pixel 8 Pro using Tapatalk

[hellymedic]

They have now.
Phone plugged into old hub does not work.

I seem to have had contradictory advice from BT and elsewhere.

Will battle on and maybe try new hub tomorrow.

[Feanor]

That's not a surprise.

Like I said before, although the old hub might have the hardware capability to do the phone thing, it was supplied to you before that stuff was relevant, and the necessary configs for your actual phone number etc will not have been pre-configured in it's config.

You are making things un-necessarily difficult for yourself.
Just use the provided, pre-configured hub.

If that requires some re-config on your LAN side, then you just need to eat that up, I think. Sorry.
The local configs can't have been *that* hard, because these hubs don't allow for much configuration.

[Feanor]

Right, so I've got the Firebrick configured as a VoIP Server.
And all the LAN SIP phones are now registering with it.
I can call from extension to extension.

Next step is to shift the PSTN number to AAISP, and configure the external trunk once I shift my number to AAISP.

In the meantime, I have an Olde Analog Phone on the PSTN.

[hellymedic]

Thanks!
We'll swap hubs tomorrow.
Our systems aren't simple though. I am immobile, David is unwell. It's cold & wet out.
David has much kit connected both by wire and by Wifi, 30 metres down the garden.

[hellymedic]

Currently without landline on old hub, new hub or old wiring.

Still awaiting Magick Email from BT stating Digital Voice is ready to use.

[hellymedic]

Huzzah!
We are connected via the new hub, following yet another call to BT.
'Alice' in Dundee was very helpful - on the phone to her over 15 minutes.

[Mrs Pingu]

Urg, Plusnet have been in touch, our phone + FTTC contract runs out in July, so we either take out another 18 month contract or I actually have to try and figure out how to do VOIP (Plusnet don't), or if we even need it.

[Feanor]

What's not clear to me is how BT intend to migrate their landline users to VoIP.

In the case that they also use BT as their ISP, they will just migrate it using their provided hub.

What's not clear is what happens if you are using an other ISP.
Will they migrate your number to their VoIP platform, and provide you with login details so you can log into it via your preferred ISP?
Or will they only offer voice service if you take a bundled ISP/VoIP service with them?
Will they really just ditch millions of users at the flip of a switch?

For my part, I've migrated my number to AAISP and have my SIP gateway logging into that.
The phones are all registering with the SIP gateway, no BT is involved anymore, so all is good.

[Feanor]

Urg, Plusnet have been in touch, our phone + FTTC contract runs out in July, so we either take out another 18 month contract or I actually have to try and figure out how to do VOIP (Plusnet don't), or if we even need it.

I have Plusnet in the flat in Edinburgh (as ISP, not landline, which is still with BT with no phone plugged in).
Don't think I'm in contract any more.
It just seems to roll along from month to month.

What happens if you don't do anything?

[Mrs Pingu]

As far as I can tell the free line rental stops being free so the cost goes from £29 to £59 a month.

[Feanor]

As far as I can tell the free line rental stops being free so the cost goes from £29 to £59 a month.

So it comes down to 'do you need to maintain the copper circuit at all', eg for the VDSL FTTC connection?
Do you have FTTP options available?

If you do need to maintain the existing copper line, then look around and decide. Least hassle is probably to just sign up again, but there may be better deals. But possibly with enhanced crapness.

If FTTP is available, then you can ditch the copper line and line rental totally.
If so, then I would go with that, with an ISP of your choice.

If maintaining a landline number is important (it was for me), then that's a separate thing and you would migrate your number to a VoIP provider, get an IP phone, and use that provider.
In my case, my VoIP provider is also my ISP, but there's no reason it needs to be.

If this is all a bit too much and making your brane hurt, then the path-of-lest-resistance would be to just sign up again...

[Mrs Pingu]

Probably the latter, but TBH the phone line almost never gets used...

[Feanor]

Probably the latter, but TBH the phone line almost never gets used...

Same here, but I have a couple of essential-use scenarios.

One is Mother Dear.

The other is that the mobile signal is so poor that voice calls often fail, so I have to ask people to call on the landline number.
I've had this issue with important calls recently, with the oncologist!

And if your ongoing deal continues to offer free line rental on ye olde aes cyprium line, then there's not much to loose, is there?

[Mrs Pingu]

Hmm, there's also the thought of someone else running their cable in a neat freak's home... Especially as we're about to get the decorator in.

[Jaded]

Probably the latter, but TBH the phone line almost never gets used...

Same here, but I have a couple of essential-use scenarios.

One is Mother Dear.

The other is that the mobile signal is so poor that voice calls often fail, so I have to ask people to call on the landline number.
I've had this issue with important calls recently, with the oncologist!

And if your ongoing deal continues to offer free line rental on ye olde aes cyprium line, then there's not much to loose, is there?

Can you make use of WiFi calling on your mobile? Now it seems to work quite well, I hardly notice if there's no mobile service, but I have WiFi.