I am also a ADSL / VDSL customer, and they have just installed Fibre on my estate.
It has been a total shambles and confusion with both BT and Plusnet.
I currently had: (two accounts)
Line 1: 1 x 32mb ADSL + Phone Line (Copper)
Line 2: 1 x 32mb ADSL + Phone Line (Copper - but not using the phone)
This was giving me 64mb as my bandwidth for the cameras on my property need the extra megs.
When I contract PlusNet, they put me down for 900mb Full Fibre, but told me they cant do the digital phone yet as they dont offer any phone (or TV), to contact BT.
Moving to Plusnet TV (if avail) would be good as I can then cancel my Virgin TV (2 boxes) which next year go back from £56 to £73 as I have a £17 discount on the account due to moaning about their price increase, if Plusnet are not offering TV, I may move to Sky Streaming or even Sky Q. (who can do it with 2 boxes and 2tb desktop box for about the price I am paying now!)
I contacted BT, who put in an order in for just the Phone, but were also trying to charge me £70 for the transfer.
Speaking to BT later, they told me I should not be charged the £70 and removed the £70, then told me it would be copper.
Referring back PlusNet, they advised if I transferred the phone line (even to copper) with BT I would lose one account - Line 1 - as they are migrating the other - Line 2, however my email is linked to 100's of online retailers and also in other places too, I am not bother about Line 2, as it was only ever used for the camera HD., so i cant afford to lose Line 1 currently.
BT and Plusnet advised I cant have 2 x ONT boxes as its limited to ONE per house, and Plusnet advised me to cancel the order with BT for the number transfer to retain my email and phone number on Line 1 which is the primary account. Luckily BT had not even started on the order so it was cancelled with no loss of money or payments.
Plusnet advise me to stay on Line 1 (32mb + phone) and hopefully by 2025 they would be offering digital phone - which it seems is already rumours (even with their own teams as a possibility)
OpenReach arrived on Tuesday and did the outside cabling for the Full Fibre on Line 2. - Connection 22/09/2023.
I chatted to Plusnet and they advised so as to keep costs low (Line 1 = £40 + Line 2 = £30 = £70) , to change from 900mb to 500mb (which is still way higher than 64mb combined), so this was done (again at no cost to me), it also changed my connection to 27/09/2023. - New Cost : Line 1: £40 + Line 2: £35 = £75.
Yesterday (Wednesday) OpenReach arrived again to do the Fibre Install, and found it was already done, the change from 900mb to 500mb had triggered a new order so another team had arrived. After chatting to OpenReach, they told me that when they installed the Fibre, it automaticaly has Digital phone and its silly for PlusNet to not offer the service when fibre already has Digital Connection access so they have no idea why they are not offering it!
Openreach also told me they have no issues with 2 x Full Fibre ONT lines, however did agree it wouldnt be worth it, but did say they have done other installs to private homes for 2 x ONT, one for Cable TV and one for Broadband!
Once they cancelled the duplicate order, my install date reverted back to the 22nd September 2023.
I got my PlusNet Hub yesterday and it has the same connections on the back as my own router which has both ADSL/VDSL and also Cable/Fibre and I checked my manual for my own router and it is full ADSL/VDSL and Cable/Fibre, it just doesnt have the Digital Phone socket like the PlusNet Hub.
However BT do an adaptor for normal phones (BT plug) to connect to a Digital ONT socket, and my cordless phones are BT and only 1 year old .
Whilst I understand nowadays that a lot of people use Mobiles for home phone use, but I do like my Landline and its also useful for work (as I work from home 24/7 and my mobile is NOT a company one)
Expecting users to give up landlines is also being frowned upon in the media as some users are saying if my mobile is flat and there is a power cut, it makes it awkward to charge the mobile and I have no other way to make a call. (I realise you can get power packs to charge from), additionally from what i understand from the migration, if a customer has a landline and wishes to retain the number (analogue into Digital ONT or via Digital phone) then this has to be honoured.
Plusnet have advised me to keep on copper until 2025 and hopefully they will be offering Digital phone service, however BT which are their "partners" are already offering this so does seem that it makes sense they should offer it considering the Fibre Broadband is installed and by default offers Digital phone (even OpenReach agree!)
I spent most of the 3 days - Tuesday to Thursday chasing BT and Plusnet to untangle it all!
