Renewal - "unlimited fibre" (with phone line) or "fibre" (without phone line)

[#1]

Hi, I'm at renewal now and have these two options. I'm currently on unlimited fibre, with the router plugged into the phone line. "Full fibre" (ans in FTTP) isn't available in my area yet, but the other renewal options I'm shown is "Fibre" and it explains this no longer uses a phone line.

I don't use a landline phone at all so happy to get rid, but if I opted for the latter, would an engineer need to attend to install a new socket that replaces the old phone line socket? I've checked the FAQs but it's really not clear what happens to the physical phone line socket in this case. It does say "easy to upgrade and no engineer needed", however it's still not clear to me where the router would plug into instead of my old copper phone socket if an engineer didn't come?

Thanks!

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@dazpiece  Don't worry it isn't "fibre" but Openreach SOGEA which still uses the copper line but there is no voice (phone) service on it. No change needed at the phone socket.

[#3]

@dazpiece 

There is no change at all to your router, master socket or incoming copper line. All that happens is you are moved onto an OpenReach product called SOGEA which is a digital line only

Brian

[#4]

There is no engineer visit because all that is done is that your telephone number becomes disassociated from your connection at the exchange, even the wires at the exchange are physically untouched.

In your home, your router remains connected as it is now,

and because your telephone handset no longer works you can simply unplug it.

[#5]

Thanks for clarifying, everyone. I've gone with "Fibre" upgrade now as it was also slightly cheaper than my existing package but with comparable speeds.

I'm still anxiously waiting for proper FTTP to my property in the meantime!

[#6]

If you have any telephone extension wiring in your home, it might be a good opportunity to disconnect those internal wires from the Master Socket,  as that might improve your VDSL line noise and increase your modem sync speed.

I didn't have any telephone extension wiring, but just switching from FTTC to SoGEA increased my download sync speed from 71Mbps to 79Mbps, and the upload speed improved by about 1Mbps.

If you really wanted to be a perfectionist, you could remove the filtered faceplate from the Master Socket, and fit a standard unfiltered BT431A telephone faceplate,  and then connect your router via a RJ11 to BT431A cable.  The existing DSL filter was only present to stop interference from cheaply made telephones messing up the broadband signals, but as the telephone is now removed you don't need the filter, and that could make a marginal improvement on your modem upload speed.