Just spent about 5 hours on this

3hrs on a monkey chat line call centre
2hrs on a monkey voice call centre

Managed to order their 75mbps fibre plan for home.

They can retain the landline number (essential). This took hours to
sort out, via some chinese-speaking call centre, one clueless moron
after another.

They say they can't (probably) retain my fixed IP (not life or death;
I can reconfig a load of stuff)

They can't say how it will terminate. I want a box with an RJ45 for
the WAN and a BT socket for an analog phone. I have one of these
already at work with Andrews & Arnold but A&A are expensive for home
fibre (actually we have VOIP via A&A, not POTS, and the A&A VOIP was
extremely painful to get working so I am not doing that again).

They say we will get a Voda router. I said I use my own router
(Draytek 2955, FYI) and just need the login credentials for that. The
RJ45 cable goes straight from the BT box to the router WAN socket.
This is standard stuff. In fact with A&A the router config was same
from copper to fibre. But Voda are clueless.

If the Openreach guy turns up and I cannot get my own router set up, I
will cancel the installation but hopefully the ADSL+analog will be
retained.

At the end of this I was ready to top myself.

Can anyone offer any suggestions here to retain my sanity? :)

Postman Pat wrote:
> Just spent about 5 hours on this

[snip tale of woe]

Use Zen Internet. Order FTTP at £35 per month. Comes with static IP.
You will get an ONT with an RJ45 connector, installed by Openreach or
their subcontractor - so no analog phone capability. But you can use
your own router.

Zen will send you one of their Fritzboxes for free - but you don't have
to use it - if you need the facilities of the Draytek 2955 the Fritzbox
is a waste of time.

Wait until it is installed and working.

Use Voipfone for your voice calls. Create an account. Port your
existing landline number into Voipfone. This will automatically cancel
any existing FTTC service.

I did this: it was very straightforward. Voipfone are easy to use and
communicate with. You will need either a VoIP phone or an ATA to work
with their service.

If you are anywhere near Thetford in Norfolk I can help you set this up.

--
Graham J

Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote

>Use Zen Internet. Order FTTP at £35 per month. Comes with static IP.
>You will get an ONT with an RJ45 connector, installed by Openreach or
>their subcontractor - so no analog phone capability. But you can use
>your own router.

I would rather die than to do that.

I don't want VOIP. I have a 3-8 PBX at home which just works and keeps
working.

One Q is whether anybody knows whether the BT guy will be able to give
me the login creds for the router PPPOE interface. They *should* be
the same as the existing Voda service over copper. Voda are doing this
as an UPGRADE now NEW, to preserve the landline number. Keeping the
existing router is key, for VPNs etc.

Voda is £25/m for 75mbps.

A&A is about 40/m and we went to them at work only because they did a
3G backup (lots of losses of connectivity out in the sticks) and while
that works it has become misconfigured and the IPs no longer get
transferred to it, so it works only for outgoing connections (they
can't fix it).

Voda sent this in:

****

Your Vodafone broadband service comes with a Digital Voice Landline -
our next-generation technology.

If you use your Landline to make or receive calls, or for equipment
such as alarms or medical devices, please read this information
carefully as this change may affect how you use these services.

What is Digital Voice?

Digital Voice uses your broadband connection to make and receive calls
instead of using the older telephone network.
This means, instead of plugging into your home's phone socket, you'll
need to plug it into your wi-fi hub.

Why am I moving to Digital Voice?

Openreach have announced that they're shutting down the traditional
telephone network and all customers will be using digital voice
technology by 2025.

To prepare our customers for this change all our broadband plans now
come with Digital Voice services as standard.

How do I get set up?

On the day your new service goes live, simply connect your existing
home phone into one of the telephone ports on the back of your
Vodafone WiFi Hub. Depending on your plan, you may need an adaptor.
This will be supplied with your equipment if required.

This step is really important - once your new service goes live, the
phone socket(s) in your house will no longer work. If you have
multiple handsets, you'll need to plug all phones into the back of the
router or use wireless phones that work with Digital Voice.

****

This sounds useless; I need a box on the wall with a POTS socket; I
don't want to plug my POTS phone into the back of a Voda router
because I won't be using that router.

Peter wrote:
>
> Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote
>
>> Use Zen Internet. Order FTTP at £35 per month. Comes with static IP.
>> You will get an ONT with an RJ45 connector, installed by Openreach or
>> their subcontractor - so no analog phone capability. But you can use
>> your own router.
>
> I would rather die than to do that.
>
> I don't want VOIP. I have a 3-8 PBX at home which just works and keeps
> working.

[snip]

You difficulty is that I don't think there is any such thing as an ONT
with an analog phone socket any more. Everybody who supplies "Digital
Voice" does so using their own proprietary router - e.g. the Fritzbox
from Zen. Or as explained in the email from Vodafone that you quoted.

If you port your phone number to Voipfone and use an ATA you can connect
that to your PBX.

If your PBX handles multiple simultaneous incoming and outgoing calls
then you need to re-think everything. If your PBX has a VoIP input then
use it.

--
Graham J

Postman Pat <at@the-post-office-not.com> wrote:
> They can't say how it will terminate. I want a box with an RJ45 for
> the WAN and a BT socket for an analog phone. I have one of these
> already at work with Andrews & Arnold but A&A are expensive for home
> fibre (actually we have VOIP via A&A, not POTS, and the A&A VOIP was
> extremely painful to get working so I am not doing that again).

If this is Openreach FTTP, not Cityfibre, you should get an ONT box on the
wall. That presents Ethernet and uses PPPoE. You plugin a router to that.

Most ISPs don't let you use your own ATA so you lose voice service if you
switch out their router, but it sounds like VF allow that:
https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Other-broadband-queries/VOIP-SIP-Settings/td-p/2730610
https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Landline/Landline-phone-with-own-router-on-FTTP/m-p/2709457#M1354
https://github.com/clayface/VF-UK-Asterisk-config

People are saying it only works with Grandstream devices. I think I would
read the whole of the second thread (all 25 pages) to be clear of the
current situation.

> They say we will get a Voda router. I said I use my own router
> (Draytek 2955, FYI) and just need the login credentials for that. The
> RJ45 cable goes straight from the BT box to the router WAN socket.
> This is standard stuff. In fact with A&A the router config was same
> from copper to fibre. But Voda are clueless.

Since there's an existence proof of somebody doing it, I suggest reading
that forum to find out how to set up your own router.

> If the Openreach guy turns up and I cannot get my own router set up, I
> will cancel the installation but hopefully the ADSL+analog will be
> retained.

I expect it to take potentially more fiddling than the OR guy has time for,
and to even begin fiddling your installation will be complete. So not
convinced you will be able to reject it at that stage.

It is a good idea to run them in parallel for a bit, so if there's an issue
you still have DSL to fall back to. I don't know if VF are set up to allow
that.

> Can anyone offer any suggestions here to retain my sanity? :)

Read the VF forum to understand the current situation, since they have
direct experience of it.

Theo

Peter <occassionally-confused@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote
>
> >Use Zen Internet. Order FTTP at £35 per month. Comes with static IP.
> >You will get an ONT with an RJ45 connector, installed by Openreach or
> >their subcontractor - so no analog phone capability. But you can use
> >your own router.
>
> I would rather die than to do that.
>
> I don't want VOIP. I have a 3-8 PBX at home which just works and keeps
> working.

So what do you want phone-wise? There is/will be no analogue voice any
more. You either use VF's VOIP service or you use a third party VOIP
service, but you can't avoid VOIP if you care about phone service.

If VF won't give you analogue phone (highly likely, since you aren't paying
copper 'line rental' any more) then it's VOIP or nothing.

You can present that VOIP to an analogue phone socket if you want, but it's
still VOIP.

> One Q is whether anybody knows whether the BT guy will be able to give
> me the login creds for the router PPPOE interface.

That's not how it works. Openreach provide the hardware, OR route VF's PPP
connection to your ONT, your router logs into that PPPoE session. All the
login side of things is VF, not OR. OR are just a subcontractor to VF here,
so they aren't providing you with an internet connection, VF are.

> They *should* be the same as the existing Voda service over copper. Voda
> are doing this as an UPGRADE now NEW, to preserve the landline number.
> Keeping the existing router is key, for VPNs etc.

Effectivelly all you're changing from OR delivering a PPPoA (ADSL) or PPPoE
(VDSL) session to the phone socket on your wall, to delivering it on the
ethernet port of your ONT. Everything else from here on up is VF's
territory.

Whether VF choose to just switch your route from your DSL line to your FTTP
line, and keep the rest the same, or have more provisioning changes, is up
to them.

Theo

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote

>So what do you want phone-wise? There is/will be no analogue voice any
>more. You either use VF's VOIP service or you use a third party VOIP
>service, but you can't avoid VOIP if you care about phone service.

My simple analog PBX (8 lines) plugs into a 1-line BT POTS phone
socket.

So I need something which provides that BT POTS socket.

I am aware that VOIP needs a "VOIP ISP" (a VOIP server) but I need to
retain my landline number which won't happen with some other VOIP
server. Currently VF own that number. It can be moved to another VOIP
provider I am sure but that is yet more work.

It looks like the only way I will get a POTS socket is via that
VF-supplied router, but then I lose my remote working options (various
VPNs etc).

That VF router will just have 4 x RJ45 LAN sockets; the usual thing.
And NAT, as usual. Useless to me.

>Effectivelly all you're changing from OR delivering a PPPoA (ADSL) or PPPoE
>(VDSL) session to the phone socket on your wall, to delivering it on the
>ethernet port of your ONT. Everything else from here on up is VF's
>territory.

When I moved from A&P copper to A&P fibre, I just moved the router's
WAN cable from the ADSL modem (Draytek 120) to the RJ45 on the BT box.
The router PPPOE login did not change.

Looks like I best cancel this whole deal and return to it when BT
*forces* a change to fibre, a few years from now. Maybe go with an ISP
one can talk to (for an extra £20/month for ever ;)).

What else can I do, specifically to

1) get a POTS socket with my existing landline #
2) get a WAN RJ45 to my router's WAN socket?

Item 2) was done trivially with A&A at work but there we have no POTS;
we have a VOIP setup (with SNOM phones) which was a nightmare to get
working.

I understand this stuff to a fair degree (do embedded hardware &
software for my day job, arm32, C, asm, etc) but dealing with these
morons does my head in.

I also see it is quite possible that the BT OR guy won't be able to
give me the router PPPOE login creds. And the script morons at Voda
certainly won't.

Maybe an option is to get an internet-POTS adaptor, from some VOIP
provider, and transfer my landline # to them, as a separate (and
prior) exercise to the main job. But then I will be paying money all
the time, whereas Voda have that number already for no extra cost.
Maybe I misunderstand...

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote

>If this is Openreach FTTP, not Cityfibre, you should get an ONT box on the
>wall. That presents Ethernet and uses PPPoE. You plugin a router to that.

It is just OR (Brighton area, out in the sticks).

The Q is where do I get the PPPOE credentials.

Presumably one can login into the Voda-supplied shitty router,
192.168.1.1 etc, and read them out of there?

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote

>I think I would
>read the whole of the second thread (all 25 pages) to be clear of the
>current situation.

I have read most of it and no way am I going to be able to get that to
work.

Peter wrote:

[snip]

>
> Maybe an option is to get an internet-POTS adaptor, from some VOIP
> provider, and transfer my landline # to them, as a separate (and
> prior) exercise to the main job. But then I will be paying money all
> the time, whereas Voda have that number already for no extra cost.
> Maybe I misunderstand...
>

I suggest - as per my earlier post - that you get FTTP from a reputable
supplier FIRST.

Then set up an account with Voipfone.

Then port your existing landline number to Voipfone, which will cancel
your existing internet connection with Voda.

Costs:

= FTTP @ £35 / month from Zen - may be more than Voda but you know it
makes sense.

= Landline port into Voipfone £24 one off, plus £3.60 per month rental.

= Call charges nominally 1p/minute.

= ATA for connection to your PBX about £60. Voipfone will configure it
for you.

My experience with Voipfone is with the SNOM 300 phones - and these have
been very easy to set up. Not sure why A&A made it so difficult for you.

--
Graham J

Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote

>I suggest - as per my earlier post - that you get FTTP from a reputable
>supplier FIRST.
>
>Then set up an account with Voipfone.
>
>Then port your existing landline number to Voipfone, which will cancel
>your existing internet connection with Voda.

OK but if you propose decoupling the ISP from the VOIP server, why not
use VF for the internet (I "just" need to get the PPPOE login)?

I was with ZEN for many years and left them because they moved to
script monkey call centres. VF use these anyway but the difference is
that with VF one never needed support.

On 23/08/2023 18:23, Peter wrote:
>
> Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote
>
>> Use Zen Internet. Order FTTP at £35 per month. Comes with static IP.
>> You will get an ONT with an RJ45 connector, installed by Openreach or
>> their subcontractor - so no analog phone capability. But you can use
>> your own router.
>
> I would rather die than to do that.
>

I am pretty sure that is what you have ordered.

https://support.vodafone.co.uk/Broadband/Set-up-getting-started-Home-Broadband-/1829588002/How-to-set-up-my-home-phone.htm

If you want to retain a POTS line you need to cancel the fibre install
and migration but soon you have no choice, well unless you actually die
first.

> I don't want VOIP. I have a 3-8 PBX at home which just works and keeps
> working.
>

They expect you to use their router, which has a BT socket, into which
you plug the PBX

> One Q is whether anybody knows whether the BT guy will be able to give
> me the login creds for the router PPPOE interface. They *should* be
> the same as the existing Voda service over copper. Voda are doing this
> as an UPGRADE now NEW, to preserve the landline number. Keeping the
> existing router is key, for VPNs etc.
>

They can give you those credentials BUT not the VOIP credentials. If you
don't use their router you won't get a phone service.

https://forum.vodafone.co.uk/t5/Landline/Landline-phone-with-own-router-on-FTTP/td-p/2709457

> Voda is £25/m for 75mbps.

sometimes you get what you pay for.

>
> A&A is about 40/m and we went to them at work only because they did a
> 3G backup (lots of losses of connectivity out in the sticks) and while
> that works it has become misconfigured and the IPs no longer get
> transferred to it, so it works only for outgoing connections (they
> can't fix it).

Thats your choice, but you won't get you want from vodafone.

I took out a new FTTP service with ZEN so my voice and FTTC service
remained in place. The ZEN router was set to forward all packets to my
Draytek router. After updating the DNS to the new IP the VPNs that
connect in still work.

I then ported my phone number to voipfone. This cancelled my old FTTC
service. The ZEN router is open enough to let me configure the voipfone
connection in that. I then plugged my phone system into the ZEN router
via the supplied BT socket that goes into the RJ11 on the router...

I did a lot of research on here BEFORE ordering. I wonder why you didn't
any only asked after you had placed the order..

Dave

On 23/08/2023 17:47, Postman Pat wrote:
> Just spent about 5 hours on this
>
> 3hrs on a monkey chat line call centre
> 2hrs on a monkey voice call centre
>
> Managed to order their 75mbps fibre plan for home.
>
> They can retain the landline number (essential). This took hours to
> sort out, via some chinese-speaking call centre, one clueless moron
> after another.
>
> They say they can't (probably) retain my fixed IP (not life or death;
> I can reconfig a load of stuff)
>
> They can't say how it will terminate. I want a box with an RJ45 for
> the WAN and a BT socket for an analog phone. I have one of these
> already at work with Andrews & Arnold but A&A are expensive for home
> fibre (actually we have VOIP via A&A, not POTS, and the A&A VOIP was
> extremely painful to get working so I am not doing that again).
>
> They say we will get a Voda router. I said I use my own router
> (Draytek 2955, FYI) and just need the login credentials for that. The
> RJ45 cable goes straight from the BT box to the router WAN socket.
> This is standard stuff. In fact with A&A the router config was same
> from copper to fibre. But Voda are clueless.
>
> If the Openreach guy turns up and I cannot get my own router set up, I
> will cancel the installation but hopefully the ADSL+analog will be
> retained.

you should be able to do this by using the VF router a setting up what
the usually call a DMZ

>
> At the end of this I was ready to top myself.
>
> Can anyone offer any suggestions here to retain my sanity? :)

Peter <occassionally-confused@nospam.co.uk> wrote:

> I was with ZEN for many years and left them because they moved to
> script monkey call centres. VF use these anyway but the difference is
> that with VF one never needed support.
>

Are you *sure* it was Zen? Your experience seems to be at complete odds
with most other folks’ experiences (including my own).

Virgin have been a disaster for my Daughter. Expensive and unreliable.
When we were with Virgin “customer support” consisted of them wasting as
much of my time as possible to talk me out of not leaving.

Tim
--
Please don't feed the trolls

On 23/08/2023 23:27, Tim+ wrote:
> Peter <occassionally-confused@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> I was with ZEN for many years and left them because they moved to
>> script monkey call centres. VF use these anyway but the difference is
>> that with VF one never needed support.
>>
>
> Are you *sure* it was Zen? Your experience seems to be at complete odds
> with most other folks’ experiences (including my own).
>
> Virgin have been a disaster for my Daughter. Expensive and unreliable.
> When we were with Virgin “customer support” consisted of them wasting as
> much of my time as possible to talk me out of not leaving.
>

I believe vf == VodaFone not virgin...

> Tim

Dave

David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> wrote

>you should be able to do this by using the VF router a setting up what
>the usually call a DMZ

If one can disable the NAT etc, that should work. Then I can just use
it as a box with a WAN socket and a phone socket.

Is that possible? Does anyone know the model?

David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> wrote

>They can give you those credentials BUT not the VOIP credentials. If you
>don't use their router you won't get a phone service.

Right, so I can get internet working, but no phone.

What stops me porting my number *now* to some VOIP service and running
it on my current ADSL?

>> Voda is £25/m for 75mbps.
>
>sometimes you get what you pay for.

Voda have been excellent. Zero downtime over 10 years. Customer
service (I have some phone SIMs, for which Voda is the very best for
European travel) is good.

>I did a lot of research on here BEFORE ordering. I wonder why you didn't
>any only asked after you had placed the order..

I didn't think it would be difficult, especially as Voda said they can
do the "box" with the WAN and POTS sockets on it.

I have such a box on the wall at work, A&A. The POTS socket is not
used but clearly the BT OR product exists.

David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> wrote

>> Virgin have been a disaster for my Daughter. Expensive and unreliable.
>> When we were with Virgin “customer support” consisted of them wasting as
>> much of my time as possible to talk me out of not leaving.
>>
>
>I believe vf == VodaFone not virgin...

Yes; Virgin are shit.

Tim+ <tim.downie@gmail.com> wrote

>Are you *sure* it was Zen? Your experience seems to be at complete odds
>with most other folks’ experiences (including my own).

100%. They were good in early years. I had BT Home Highway with them,
for years.

On 24/08/2023 in message <uc6sb3$3bu8v$1@dont-email.me> Peter wrote:

>What stops me porting my number now to some VOIP service and running
>it on my current ADSL?

I'd be interested to know if that is practical. Fibre is being laid in my
village at the moment and will go live over the next few months but that
is Internet only. I looked at Andrews & Arnold for VOIP and they do it but
there is a monthly fee plus per call fees and it looks as if it would be
expensive.

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
There are 10 types of people in the world, those who do binary and those
who don't.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 21:35:12 +0100, Peter
<occassionally-confused@nospam.co.uk> wrote:

>I was with ZEN for many years and left them because they moved to
>script monkey call centres.

Really? That's not my experience at all. I've only very rarely needed
to contact their tech support but on every occasion I've encountered
agents who speak English and understand my descrption of the problem.

Rod.

On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 21:35:12 +0100, Peter
<occassionally-confused@nospam.co.uk> wrote:

>
>Graham J <nobody@nowhere.co.uk> wrote
>
>>I suggest - as per my earlier post - that you get FTTP from a reputable
>>supplier FIRST.
>>
>>Then set up an account with Voipfone.
>>
>>Then port your existing landline number to Voipfone, which will cancel
>>your existing internet connection with Voda.
>
>OK but if you propose decoupling the ISP from the VOIP server, why not
>use VF for the internet (I "just" need to get the PPPOE login)?
>
>I was with ZEN for many years and left them because they moved to
>script monkey call centres. VF use these anyway but the difference is
>that with VF one never needed support.

You sure about Zen? I place calls with Zen about once a month, and
always get a knowledgeable and helpful answer, no matter how obscure
my question.

On Thu, 24 Aug 2023 08:22:53 +0100, Roderick Stewart
<rjfs@escapetime.myzen.co.uk> wrote:

>On Wed, 23 Aug 2023 21:35:12 +0100, Peter
><occassionally-confused@nospam.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I was with ZEN for many years and left them because they moved to
>>script monkey call centres.
>
>Really? That's not my experience at all. I've only very rarely needed
>to contact their tech support but on every occasion I've encountered
>agents who speak English and understand my descrption of the problem.
>
More Rochdale than English, but perfectly comprehensible.
>Rod.

"Jeff Gaines" <jgnewsid@outlook.com> wrote

>On 24/08/2023 in message <uc6sb3$3bu8v$1@dont-email.me> Peter wrote:
>
>>What stops me porting my number now to some VOIP service and running
>>it on my current ADSL?
>
>I'd be interested to know if that is practical.

It should be. The gotcha is that for VOIP you have to open some ports
in your router. IIRC, up in the 5000 range (VOIP UDP ports etc) and I
don't like doing that because these get instantly port sniffed by the
chinks and they attack them. One fix is to firewall them to accept
traffic only from the VOIP provider, and hope he never changes them ;)

That's if you want incoming calls. If you just want outgoing calls
then you don't need to open any ports. I have been doing this for
years on my phone (Localtalk is one provider; a crap one but usable).

>Fibre is being laid in my
>village at the moment and will go live over the next few months but that
>is Internet only. I looked at Andrews & Arnold for VOIP and they do it but
>there is a monthly fee plus per call fees and it looks as if it would be
>expensive.

I am with A&A at work. We pay about £40/month for internet and VOIP.
We have 4 phones and each has its own IP (we have a subnet of 6 IPs,
IIRC. So A&A run the VOIP server (asterisk??) in-house. This is a
method which most don't recommend and indeed we had lots of problems
transferring calls! These were eventually fixed and now it seems to
work.

Come to think of it I have an A&A VOIP phone (an extension "at the
office") on my desk here at home! I can never remember the router
config but on a quick look I can see some port 5060 open ports for the
Snom phone. These are firewalled to accept traffic only from A&A.

I didn't go to A&A at home a) because they are pricey and b) because I
didn't want the same ISP at home and at work.