Telephone handset

[ALARA]

As a new customer is a telephone handset provided? We have a BT digital (via broadband) handset at the moment. Thanks.

[redchiz1]

Nobody provides handsets any more. Your existing one will carry on working just fine.  🙂

[Jayach]

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@redchiz1 wrote:

Nobody provides handsets any more. Your existing one will carry on working just fine.  🙂

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Not if it's digital voice it won't.

[redchiz1]

How not? Any modern handset will work on any service. 

[Jayach · Accepted solution]

Not the BT digital handsets, they connect to the BT router (via DECT), without the BT router they will be useless. (unless they can be paired with another DECT base station, which I doubt)

[gavs82008]

@ALARA 
See the post from @redchiz1 As far as I can recall this is something that NOW has never offered.

[Jayach]

I'm not entirely sure what a BT digital handset is, but it appears to be a DECT phone that connects to a DECT base built into their router, and as such won't work with another router.

Edit: however it could be an actual VoIP handset.

If I'm wrong and anyone has more information, please let us know.

Is it this one? What is Digital Voice and how can I get it? | BT Help

[Jayach]

This seems to confirm they are DECT. 

BT Digital Voice: What Is It? Advanced VS Essential Digital Home Phone (kenstechtips.com)

[chilli2]

@ALARA 

 What package are you on with BT?

 What equipment do you have in the property?

 It sounds like you could be on FTTP and have a BT smart hub2 ( or similar) that is connected to a white "openreach" box with some green lights on (typically labelled as  power, los, pon, lan) and you have a phone that connects to the smart hub, or plugs into the back of it.

 Does that describe your set up?

[RoyB]

@ALARA @chilli2 @Jayach @redchiz1 @gavs82008 

Here’s an interminable thread from the BT Community on this topic:-

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/Digital-Voice-with-different-Router/td-p/20...

Those with more motivation than me might want to read the whole thing, but up to the end of page 2 the consensus seems to be that a BT Digital phone won’t work without the Smart Hub 2.

So even if DECT is in use here, the phone can’t be paired with any other DECT hub. (Or maybe it can - but at the very least, to use it with something else, that something else will have to be a physical or virtual DECT hub somewhere).

We have FTTP, but wanted to keep our existing snazzy designer phones (Panasonic KX-TGK220s) on both aesthetic and cost grounds. So BT gave us a Digital Voice Adapter, which you plug the telephone connection cable from the master Panny into, and this then chats wirelessly to whatever is supporting VOIP in the BT Hub. So no option for the DECT Panny to link up directly with the DECT(?) in the Hub.

Dropping from BT FTTP will certainly save you some money, but here is something else I think you will have to forego, besides speed, reliability, and resilience.

[ALARA]

Thanks for all the info.  We have signed up with BT at the new house as it just about matched the price of its competitors. So we keep the handset and get a newer modem.

[chilli2]

@ALARAthere are lots of things sold as "Digital" just as there are lots of broadband packages out there , using various technologies for internet access and voice services.

 If you are going by price alone , and you are unaware of the differences between ADSL, VDSL, FTT, FTTC , VoIP, POTS, and so on then its easy to make a mistake and end up with an unsuitable product/service .

 Thats the reason behind the What package are you on, and and what equipment do you have question

 The whole thing is a confusing mess of different technologies marketed as different things and multiple products out there - and thats even if you have a rough idea of how things work and what they mean.

 And when they retire the old voice system,  the confusion is only going to get worse - expect lots of badly written ill informed news paper stories about how people will have their vital phone line switched off