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[#1]

Whilst TECNICALLY there are certain similarities between ADSL and FTTC, they are, from a sales and marketing perspective, two distinct products.

So whilst TECHNICALLY it would be *relatively* straightforward to change from ADSL to FTTC, from a product sales perspective you are changing your product. Your "existing product" is "ADSL with a phone". The "new product" you want is "FTTC WITHOUT a phone"! 

It's a bit like saying "my current car has a satnav built in", and you want to upgrade to a new car, and unfortunately, the new one comes WITHOUT a satnav. If you keep your current car, you can keep the satnav, but if you upgrade, you'll lose it. That's simply because the spec of the new one is different.

Upgrading from ADSL to FTTC is the similar: the current FTTC offering does NOT come with a phone service. (Nor does FTTP for that matter.)

[#2]

The problem is that the OR broadband and PSTN land-line are coupled - you can no longer have just broadband and a different land-line contract.

So, when you change a broadband connection (e.g. ADSL to FTTC, or even FTTC to a faster FTTC) the whole package of broadband + land-line has to be re-ordered. Since last year OR no longer accept any orders that involve a PSTN land-line. You can still place a broadband order, but the PSTN land-line goes away.

If you renew your existing Plusnet contract there is no order sent to OR as nothing changes from their perspective, so you can keep a land-line. But any change that needs an OR order will result in the land-line being discontinued. 

This approach is OR's way of encouraging migration away from PSTN and to VoIP. Unfortunately Plusnet don't offer VoIP, so you have the choice of no land-line, moving to another ISP that does broadband and VoIP, staying with Plusnet for broadband and using another provider for VoIP, or not changing your Plusnet package and keeping an existing land-line (for now).

[#3]

Thanks for explanations.

So the 'issue' is whether OR is involved in the order or not.

One final point of clarification - if I changed from my current 40/10 FTTC to 80/20 FTTC (not thinking of doing this), would I lose my landline? Where is this 40/80 restriction applied? Or rather, who applies it? Would OR be involved? TIA.

[#4]

@pvmb  if I changed from my current 40/10 FTTC to 80/20 FTTC (not thinking of doing this), would I lose my landline?

Yes!. The change involves a regrade order to Openreach and they will ONLY accept a SoGEA order

[#5]

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@markhawkin wrote:

@oliverab 

If I was in your position I would get a new full fibre service (FTTP) witout touching the existing ADSL service.

You may need to speak to someone (whoever you order from) rather than making it an online order to avoid the order being interpreted as a migration. It might be simpler to order from a supplier other than a BT Group company as it will help to keep the accounts seperate.

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 Thanks for the advice, though I do seem to be between a rock and a hard place as it looks as if:

If I transfer the phone number to a VoIP provider this could trigger an ADSL cease but

If I change broadband service this will trigger a phone cease.

Other than that I quite like the idea of moving the phone number to a VoIP service. I gather A&A appear popular?

[#6]

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@MisterW wrote:

one other thought. I note you have a Draytek 2830Vn.

The cheapest  FTTP service would be fine as you have been managing with ADSL

The 2830 won't handle anything faster than the FF74 service. I used to use one (in fact I've still got it and a spare lying around) when I was on ADSL and later FTTC (with a separate modem). When I moved to FTTP  the 2830 maxed out at around 120Mb NAT throughput, and no it wasn't a cat5 cable problem!.

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Thanks for the tip, I've had experience with an underpowered router before and it wasn't fun. On the other hand at the time I chose the Draytek I was operating a IPsec bridge between two LANs, I no longer have need of that.

It might be time to look for a new router.