Vodafone not interested in helping customers using landline phone sockets mandatory move to VoIP

[ojos]

I am a Vodafone broadband customer which includes a landline phone service. I have had landline service for many years originally provided by BT. This includes a incoming Master Socket with cabling extending from it all around my property. This interior cabling connects numerous individual traditional phone sockets all around. When I moved over to Vodafone broadband a couple of years ago, they arranged for Openreach to fit a new Master Socket suitable for the new router. Openreach told me the new Master Socket would be compatible with full fibre when that became available in my area. At the same time Openreach checked and renewed all my interior landline phone cabling to ensure that all the existing phone sockets connected to the new Master Socket.

The Vodafone router supplied to me then was model THG3000. Vodafone have now informed me that in the next couple of years or so all landline phone service will be connected through VoIP via a new type of router and that my current router does not support this.  I asked what about all my current interior cable connected phone sockets which are crucial to my use of the landline service. They responded saying "tough luck, all your phone sockets will become defunct and you will then only be able to plug a landline phone in through a single socket on the new router". I explained that this is totally useless to me, as I need landline access through sockets all around my property. They weren't interested and had not the slightest idea as to customers wishing to continue to use their multiple phone sockets. I asked if they could arrange for Openreach to investigate and do whatever necessary to save my phone sockets. Vodafone flatly refused saying "go away" and it is up to me to either solve this problem or just lose full access to my current landline phones.

I suspect I am not the only person (many of them not broadband users) in this country who has multiple landline phone sockets. Why is Vodafone apparently proposing to wreck my landline phone connections and telling me "tough luck, we're not interested in helping you solve your problem"?

[Jayach]

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@ojos wrote:
 Prior to my joining Vodafone I was with Virgin Media cable service, which is totally independent of the BT originated phone system. I had high-speed broadband via new cabling from the street. However the service included new VM landline phone sockets laid throughout my property totally independent of my BT sockets (now used by Vodafone). So would I be able to return to VM and continue to use my VM installed phone sockets? Or is there a national directive saying that all traditional phone sockets must be disabled and it is mandatory for all Virgin Media customers to in future only connect a landline telephone through a VM router?

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What Virgin media do is up to them, best to ask on a Virgin media forum.

Traditional phone sockets are not being disabled, the PSTN is.

You can use the physical sockets in your home, but they will need to be connected via an ATA (analogue telephone adapter) such as the one built into the Vodafone router.

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@ojos wrote::
I wasn't talking about people who cannot receive broadband, I was referring to people who don't want broadband but still want a traditional landline phone system.

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So was I: Re: Vodafone not interested in helping customers u... - Community home

[ojos]

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@Jayach wrote:

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@ojos wrote:
 Prior to my joining Vodafone I was with Virgin Media cable service, which is totally independent of the BT originated phone system. I had high-speed broadband via new cabling from the street. However the service included new VM landline phone sockets laid throughout my property totally independent of my BT sockets (now used by Vodafone). So would I be able to return to VM and continue to use my VM installed phone sockets? Or is there a national directive saying that all traditional phone sockets must be disabled and it is mandatory for all Virgin Media customers to in future only connect a landline telephone through a VM router?

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What Virgin media do is up to them, best to ask on a Virgin media forum.

Traditional phone sockets are not being disabled, the PSTN is.

You can use the physical sockets in your home, but they will need to be connected via an ATA (analogue telephone adapter) such as the one built into the Vodafone router.

Vodafone support claim to have no knowledge of the ATA you refer to. When I asked the for information about this, they said words to the effect: "We're not interested and know nothing about any device which will enable your phone sockets to work through our routers. It's up to you to solve the problem and we are not prepared to give you any help".

Please supply details of this built in ATA which I can pass on to Vodafone.

[Jayach]

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@ojos wrote:

Vodafone support claim to have no knowledge of the ATA you refer to. When I asked the for information about this, they said words to the effect: "We're not interested and know nothing about any device which will enable your phone sockets to work through our routers. It's up to you to solve the problem and we are not prepared to give you any help".

Please supply details of this built in ATA which I can pass on to Vodafone.

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That's because they are not technical and have no knowledge of the devices they supply.

Any device that connects to broadband and has an analogue telephone output connection on it is/contains an ATA.

They may not call it that (refer back to the "not technical") probably just say it has telephone ports, but the ATA is what is providing them.

Unfortunately, as technology moves on, things have to change. Servicing the copper telephone lines is a costly business, and all they are really good for is voice communication. The industry is going over to fibre (even Virgin) and change will occur. It's called progress.

[Jayach]

Also, if you are thinking of going back to Virgin, just check if their phone lines will work in a power cut, as I suspect they may not.

How to upgrade your virgin media home phone | Virgin Media Help

[ojos]

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@Jayach wrote:

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@ojos wrote:

Vodafone support claim to have no knowledge of the ATA you refer to. When I asked the for information about this, they said words to the effect: "We're not interested and know nothing about any device which will enable your phone sockets to work through our routers. It's up to you to solve the problem and we are not prepared to give you any help".

Please supply details of this built in ATA which I can pass on to Vodafone.

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That's because they are not technical and have no knowledge of the devices they supply.

Any device that connects to broadband and has an analogue telephone output connection on it is/contains an ATA.

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So the Vodafone "Tech Team" described here is a fiction:

https://www.vodafone.co.uk/help-and-information/tech-team

and Vodafone customers have no one who is able or willing to help them continue to use existing phone sockets?

When I spoke to a man in Vodafone customer service the other day and explained my problem, he contacted their so called "Tech Team" who gave him the same useless "not interested" response as they gave me. He was appalled at their unhelpfulness and told me he was planning to raise the matter with senior management.

[Jayach]

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@ojos wrote:

So the Vodafone "Tech Team" described here is a fiction:

https://www.vodafone.co.uk/help-and-information/tech-team

and Vodafone customers have no one who is able or willing to help them continue to use existing phone sockets?

You have spoken to them, what do you think?

[CrimsonLiar]

In a roundabout way, I thought I'd made it clear that it will still be possible to have just a phone if that's what you want, but it'll be provided using a device that connects to the VDSL2 or Fibre networks - there will be no requirement to take broadband.

As for Virgin media, before moving to my current address I used to be a Coventry Cable > NTL > Virgin Media customer.  And when the power went off, so did the phone line!

FIN!

[Jayach]

@CrimsonLiar 

Not quite sure which post you are replying to.

Yes, a phone only service will always be available for the foreseeable future. It just won't be the phone only service we have grown used to.

[ojos]

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@Jayach wrote:

@CrimsonLiar 

Not quite sure which post you are replying to.

Yes, a phone only service will always be available for the foreseeable future. It just won't be the phone only service we have grown used to.

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However, my question remains:

- will a useful landline phone service be available that will allow customers to plug in telephones to live sockets located anywhere in their premises? or

- will customers be forced to have just a single socket in their entire premises and be told "tough luck, you can't have more than one active landline socket"?

[Jayach]

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@ojos wrote:
However, my question remains:

- will a useful landline phone service be available that will allow customers to plug in telephones to live sockets located anywhere in their premises? or

- will customers be forced to have just a single socket in their entire premises and be told "tough luck, you can't have more than one active landline socket"?

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If you read all the replies, you will find either of those options are available to you.

The easy one is to just to connect to the Vodafone router with a single phone or DECT base station.

The other needs a slight adaptation to your connection, but Vodafone offer no help in achieving that.