Landline number

[AnneR1947]

I want to keep the existing landline and number at my mother’s house whilst upgrading to superfast broadband. But EE says that’s not possible and are giving me conflicting and muffled information about transferring my contract to BT who says they can. Could someone give me some clarity? Anne R

[XRaySpeX · Accepted solution]

Keeping a landline in future is consequent on 2 major developments:

1. When switching to FTTP/H (Fibre To The Premises/Home) BB, by which I presume you refer to as "superfast broadband", there is no longer any copper landline to carry the analogue voice signal to your home. There are a no. of ways to replace this.
   1. Take out a separate home phone only contract with a landline provider, principally I am only aware that BT Retail is such now.
   2. Take out a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), a digital form of voice carried over your BB,  contract with a VoIP provider & port your existing landline no. to it. This should work over any BB but you may need new handsets or adapters.
   3. Some ISPs provide VoIP with their FTTP BB. EE doesn't at the mo'. BT Retail has their proprietary version of it called DV (Digital Voice) which is tied into their specific Smart Hub 2 router. Other ISPs, like Voda, may provide VoIP in a more non-proprietary way.
2. However come 2025 BT/OR intends to switch off the traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) for good (or bad?) meaning that copper analogue voice landlines become a thing of the past. See The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 . Thereafter option 1.a above becomes a no-goer, altho' I'm hoping BT Retail will switch its home phone only users to a simplified variant of DV.

[tinies]

Piggybacking to this query...

I am currently with vodafone who provide me with FTTP and VOIP. I am moving the fibre to EE and I want an app based telephony provider to pick up the phone number.

Vodafone have said that if I move the number first, that will cancel the contract and then it will take EE 10 days to reconnect

EE have said they will take over the fibre first, then I should go to the app based provider to pick up the number as I have 30 days to claim this.

Im panicky about losing the landline number altogether so does this all sound correct?

[Mustrum]

@tinies  You would really need to speak with your new VoIP provider to see if they can gain the number after it has been ceased.

It is something that can be done with traditional PSTN by ISP's, but not sure if it can be done with VOIP.