Sky Talk - Compatible internet phones

[GD1]

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@Brian+slade wrote:

That's what I'm so annoyed about. My cousin is deaf and we bought 4 phones suitable for the deaf that are corded as he could not get on with the cordless type now they are all useless. Nearly £300 to throw away. Sky should have had something in place. No wonder people are doing away with landlines altogether and just having mobiles. 

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What would you suggest an ISP do when the old infrastructure is not longer there?   It's already been explained this isn't Sky driving the change but Openreach.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Brian+slade wrote:

Sky are changing to fibre optic

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That's just not correct: Sky does not lay network infrastructure.  Nationally there's a push for fibre to replace copper, running alongside the deadline to switch off PSTN in 2025.

https://business.bt.com/why-choose-bt/insights/digital-transformation/uk-pstn-switch-off/ 

https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/the-all-ip-programme/stopsell-updates 

[deakmann70]

I kept my phone/broadband with BT in the end as they at least provide mobile adapters so you can use your dect base station away from your router.

However having been told I was being changed to digital voice and having bought the adapter the line never changed over. I rang them and they said no order was in place and they most likely wouldn't force me to change until full fibre was available in my street/or more likely once I ordered it. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@deakmann70 wrote:

However having been told I was being changed to digital voice and having bought the adapter the line never changed over.

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BT suspended their Digital Voice rollout for nearly a year after the storms of spring 2022.

https://newsroom.bt.com/were-pausing-our-digital-voice-plans-for-consumers-while-we-work-on-a-more-r... 

They gave an update at the end of the year

https://newsroom.bt.com/getting-digital-voice-right-for-our-customers/  

And it's resuming 'trial' rollout this month.

https://newsroom.bt.com/were-expanding-our-trials-of-digital-voice-for-customers/ 

[cymru123]

It would be good if Sky would offer at least a engineer visit (e.g what virgin offer when migrating to their VoIP service) to do voice reinjection or to wire up extension phone sockets connected to the back of the sky routers ATA port if Sky have decided not to do what BT have done and offer (be that locked to specific provider) adaptors that wirelessly (DECT) communicate with their router.

Saying that a local telecom engineer from the yellow pages will be able to help do voice reinjection to extension phone sockets.

[TimmyBGood]

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@cymru123 wrote:

It would be good if Sky would offer at least a engineer visit (e.g what virgin offer when migrating to their VoIP service) to do voice reinjection or to wire up extension phone sockets connected to the back of the sky routers ATA port

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That would, in most cases, be an Openreach task, and is available with, for example an Openreach 'premium' FTTP installation.  However I'm not aware of any ISP which actually offers this option to subscribers.

https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/fibre-broadband/installation-options 

For our premium installation, our engineers will:

• connect an optical network terminator (ONT) within 1m of the nearest 13amp power socket and – if needed - more than 10m and up to 30m from where the fibre enters the building.
• Run more than 15m of external cable to reach the customer’s preferred fibre entry point.
• connect your customer’s router next to the ONT
• connect up to three devices – a set-top box, PC, laptop or smartphone. They won’t connect games consoles, Wi-Fi extenders or mesh network devices, dongles or any other devices which are specific to a communications provider. And they must have been connected to the customers’ network previously.
• carry out Voice Re-injection Installation (VRI), which uses existing internal wiring to make use of traditional telephones.
• map Wi-Fi to help customers find the strongest signal
• upgrade a master socket to the latest NTE5c design if needed

[TimmyBGood]

@cymru123 

There's even a master socket faceplate supposedly in Openreach inventory designed for this task.

[IHateSteps]

I'm new to Sky (actually waiting two more days for my fttp install) but I'm quite well-read on this subject because of my own (accessibility) needs.  You mention that you have purchased four phones which use wired connections.

I would presume that these are 'traditional' analogue phones which connect to the once standard BT extension sockets?  If this the case there should be no harm in shifting the connection to your extension sockets from the old 'master socket' to the back of your router/hub?  There's nothing to say you cannot connect multiple phones in this way (they act and ring as one extension).

In tradition VOIP scenarious connecting an analogue phone to an FXS adapter, it was quite permitted to connect multiple phones in this way - being aware obviously that all the phones were considered as part of the same extension/number,.

[Brian+slade]

Engineer said this would not work. One router = 0ne phone 

[TimmyBGood]

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@IHateSteps wrote:

If this the case there should be no harm in shifting the connection to your extension sockets from the old 'master socket' to the back of your router/hub?  There's nothing to say you cannot connect multiple phones in this way (they act and ring as one extension).

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As long as the ATA does a good job of emulating what was once master socket PSTN service, it should work.  There have been posts here where users have successfully split the socket on the rear of a Sky Broadband Hub with a very basic multiway phone adapter.

However, DIY Voice Re-Injection isn't without risks, because Openreach are likely to get very upset with users who inadvertently inject current back into external phone cabling.  That's what the dedicated VRI socket above prevents.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Brian+slade wrote:

Engineer said this would not work. One router = 0ne phone 

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They weren't correct, although that may be what they are obliged to say.

[IHateSteps]

Oh how I wish for the more simple things of decades past where the only technical matter you had to be aware of was not exceeding the REN value of your line which was 'Ring Equivalent Number'.  Each phone had an REN, to you added these together, and if your REN exceeded somewhere around 4.5 to 6.0 you rang the risk of the phones not rining and potentially causing a minor whoopsie in the nearby green cabinet.

When implementing a new service with new technology, the onus is on the developers to implement a solution which can be managed by the level one service desks directly with the customer.  This invariably means that most simple implementation of the technology.  For the rest of us, who know quite well that more is possible, we end up being frustrated.

However, I quickly came to learn when I move into tier 2/3 support with my employters that our worst nightmares were customers who thought they new best!

[Mark39]

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@IHateSteps wrote:

However, I quickly came to learn when I move into tier 2/3 support with my employters that our worst nightmares were customers who thought they new best!

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I've no doubt you're right about that! 😁 I've experienced it too, in the past.

[TimmyBGood]

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@IHateSteps wrote:

When implementing a new service with new technology, the onus is on the developers to implement a solution which can be managed by the level one service desks directly with the customer.  This invariably means that most simple implementation of the technology. 

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Yes: that's exactly why the 'solution' to the end of PSTN is ' plug  the handset into the back of the router ' rather than Voice Re-Injection, 'real' VOIP over Wifi / ethernet, telephony direct to an ONT or other possibilities.

[gracie1948]

The engineer who fitted my fibre om Monday didn't know I wanted to use my landline too. He plugged everything in and left. Phone won't work just a dialtone , Sky are looking into it.