topic EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice in Broadband & Landline

EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

campbela — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 08:26:10 GMT

I am switching from BT to EE. The switchover date is a couple of weeks away.

I have just connected my new EE Smart Hub Plus and home phone using the digital adapter. This is the same setup that I had with the BT router. After a slight delay, the phone is working OK (I know that this is all still on the BT system).

I then switched off WIFI on the EE hub as I have my own mesh network. After I did this, the phone stopped working. I turned it back on and, again, after a delay of several hours, the phone started working again.

Is the EE setup dependent on having WIFI on the hub switched on?

With the BT hub, I could switch WIFI off and the phone still worked.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

Mustrum — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 13:36:19 GMT

@campbela just wondering why you are changing routers before you go live?

I know the new EE network is based on the BT one, but there may be some subtle differences in settings somewhere that mean things don't work exactly the same way.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

juiceof2limes — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 14:12:47 GMT

I have the WIFI switched off on the EE Smart Hub Plus (I also have own mesh network) and phone is still working fine. Like you, there was an initial delay when switching router over from BT to EE for the phone to register but has been fine since.

You could try a router reset maybe? No idea if that would help but it's an option.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

campbela — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 14:38:44 GMT

Initially I was just curious to see if it would work. I hooked it up to a laptop to have a look at the interface and saw that it was using the same BT username so thought I would give it a go.

It also means that I can take advantage of the hybrid connect straight away (not that my fiber link is bad).

When it all worked, I thought there was no point disconnecting it if everything seems to be OK.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

campbela — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 14:40:02 GMT

Thanks, good to know. Maybe I was just not being patient enough! I'll leave things as they are for the time being and once everything is ported over to EE, give it another go with the hubs WIFI switched off.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

bobpullen — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 18:03:16 GMT

@juiceof2limes wrote:
I have the WIFI switched off on the EE Smart Hub Plus (I also have own mesh network) and phone is still working fine.

@juiceof2limes - was this using a digital adapter though? Correct me if I'm wrong @campbela but are you using a separate adapter that plugs into a power outlet some distance from the hub and accepts a wired connection from a traditional handset? I'm wondering if it's the same thing you're both comparing? 🤔

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

campbela — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 18:20:49 GMT

Yes, I am using the adapter that plugs into a power socket and then you plug the RJ11? plug from the phone into it.

It has a WPS button on the side which is used to "sync" it with the hub. It "seems" like its using the hubs WIFI (based on the fact that it uses WPS) but I was able to switch WIFI off on the BT hub and it still worked.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

juiceof2limes — Mon, 27 Nov 2023 18:31:33 GMT

I missed where you said adapter, sorry for that. My phones base station is plugged directly in the hub, so there is a difference here which could explain why I have no issue then. That said, I didn't think the adapter worked over WI-FI but used DECT. Unless there is something different in the EE implementation.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

Storm500 — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:25:31 GMT

@campbela You said that you don’t change for a couple of weeks so you’re still with BT.

Do you currently have Digital Voice with BT? If not then Digital Voice won’t be available until you change over. As you found you can use the new router for broadband but you leave your phones plugged into the existing phone sockets until you’re notified that your phone has switched to Digital Voice.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

campbela — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:34:15 GMT

Yes, my switchover is a couple of weeks away and I am still with BT.

Yes, I have digital voice with BT.

Broadband and voice are currently working with my new EE Smart Hub Plus. EE sent me a new digital voice adapter (which I am using) but said that the old one would work.

I was just wondering if anyone knew how the digital voice adapter connected to the hub.

With the BT hub, I switched off wireless after everything was setup but when I tried that with the EE hub the phone stopped working.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

XRaySpeX — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:01:36 GMT

The Home Phone Adaptor has a WPS button. Therefore it connects by WiFi. Therefore switching off WiFi at the router disables the Home Phone Adaptor (as you discovered).

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

Storm500 — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:13:23 GMT

The WPS button is dual function it connects WiFi devices to the router’s WiFi but with the phone adapter it is used to connect to the DECT base station in the EE or BT router. There are a number of post on the BT community about this.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

XRaySpeX — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:16:12 GMT

@Storm500 : But it would seem to not be behaving like that for the OP.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

Storm500 — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:40:35 GMT

@XRaySpeX That’s how it works with BT broadband and Digital Voice and as new customers since the rebranding to “New EE” are using the current BT broadband, not the old EE broadband they took on from Orange, and Digital Voice I would expect it to work the same.

It would be good to hear from other EE broadband/Digital Voice users who also use the phone adaptor if they can turn off the router’s WiFi and report what happens to their phone.

Re: EE Smart Hub Plus and digital voice

campbela — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 10:46:12 GMT

Just tried it again (3rd time) and so far its working.

The hub had WIFI switched on and the phone (via the digital voice adapter) has been connected and working for the past couple of days.

I switched off the hubs WIFI about 10 mins ago and the hub is still reporting that it is connected via the adapter and there is still a dial tone.

Maybe it was just bad timing on the previous attempts!