Landline Porting Process

[#1]

Thank you everyone for your responses. Very helpful. All I need to do now is decide on a CityFibre ISP.

Sadly, A&A are quite expensive broadband providers. TOOB seems to be the cheapest in our area. A&A have something on their website about teaming up with TOOB but this doesn't appear to have actually happened.

Thanks again.

[#2]

@bigfish 

Going with one ISP for both is the easiest option but not necessarily the cheapest.

A&A VOIP seems to be reasonably priced by all accounts.

Is Zen Internet available on CityFibre? Not the cheapest but have a good reputation.

Brian

[#3]

@bmc And Zen have their own VoIP setup.

[#4]

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@bmc wrote:

Is Zen Internet available on CityFibre?

This page says Zen can provide CityFibre  -  https://cityfibre.com/homes/broadband-providers 

From that list, also worth considering  iDNET

[#5]

Zen probably works out a lot cheaper, as they will presumably supply their standard Fritzbox router which will support either DECT or analogue phone connection. Idnet seem to charge extra for an ATA

[#6]

AFAIK, @MisterW , Zen only use Fritzboxes, anyway.

[#7]

I have a spreadsheet on the go and sadly both Zen and iDNET work out quite pricy if you add in the elements that I also need (domain name hosting, 5 email mailboxes, min 1GB of mailbox space, a VOIP phone system and FTTP broadband). We may have to consider a limited number of companies to get the cheapest total.

Currently, for 900Mbps FFTP (which is probably excessive for us), and the other bits, ZEN work out to be £54/month plus a domain renewal fee of £15/year. However, if I mix together TOOB for broadband, A&A for VOIP and One.com for the mail and hosting, this totals £35/month. 

[#8]

@bigfish domain name hosting, 5 email mailboxes, min 1GB of mailbox space,

Unless you really, really want only one monthly bill then I'd look elsewhere for those.

For instance Mythic beasts https://www.mythic-beasts.com/hosting will do unlimited mailboxes , 2Gb storage for £20/yr (paid annually) with a £7.20 annual domain renewal

[#9]

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@bigfish wrote:

Sadly, A&A are quite expensive broadband providers.

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Sadly they are, but I am coming around to the view that it may very well be worth paying more in order to get both good service and, more importantly in many respects, only having to deal with a single provider.

Clearly it's cheaper to use Plusnet for broadband (in my case via SOGEA) and A&A for VOIP, but A&A have really exceptionally good customer service and in my limited experience so far seem to be far, far easier to deal with.

When my Plusnet contract expires in a few months I am very seriously thinking of just having a single contract with A&A covering everything, and to hell with the extra cost.  I'm not getting any younger and have to consider how my wife may be able to deal with all this mess and confusion if I can no longer look after it, so having a single supplier for everything has a fair degree of merit.  Hard to put a cash value on peace of mind, but I can say with absolute certainty that I can't see an easy way to stay with Plusnet, even though I've not had any major issues in many year with them.

[#10]

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@JSHarris wrote:

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When my Plusnet contract expires in a few months I am very seriously thinking of just having a single contract with A&A covering everything, and to hell with the extra cost.

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Another aspect of A&A is the short minimum term.

In November 2023 I moved both landline and internet to A&A so I could guarantee keeping my landline number and no break in internet service.  There was a break in landline of a few hours but zero downtime for the internet connection.

My A&A contract has a minimum term of 6 months, a 1 month min term is available but with an upfront cost.

The A&A VOIP service is excellent in every aspect.
The A&A internet is undeniably expensive and also metered though reasonably high at 1,000GB. I download about 300GB per month which is easily within their limit but I still keep checking my usage and it's a little annoying.
A&A support is excellent, they answer the phone in 1 ring, but I don't need support so I may move the internet back to PN after the min term.

As @bigfish is moving to CityFibre then he has more options.  The situation is much trickier for us staying on FTTC if we want to retain our landline number.

[#11]

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@MisterW wrote:

@bigfish in your case its simple. When your Plusnet contract is almost up, you order FTTP through one of the City Fibre ISP's, that will not affect your existing Plusnet service. Once its up and running, you select a voip provider and port your Plusnet phone number to voip, that will cease your landline and Plusnet service.

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In my case, I need a domain/ email hosting service in order to continue to use the domain name in my emails. Would the order of things therefore be: 1. move the hosting of the domain away from PN to a new company and do whatever I need to do to change DNS records etc (no idea!), 2. Order a new FTTP service and get this up and running, (presumably my PN fibre connection is still operational at this stage), and 3. order a VOIP service (unless I can get it bundled with the domain hosting people or FTTP people - whatever is more cost effective or least faffy).

Sadly, I have just found out that A&A are not yet able to provide FTTP broadband with the City Fibre network. They hope to agree terms with City Fibre soon, but that might not be quick enough for us.

[#12]

Would the order of things therefore be: 1. move the hosting of the domain away from PN to a new company and do whatever I need to do to change DNS records etc (no idea!), 2. Order a new FTTP service and get this up and running, (presumably my PN fibre connection is still operational at this stage), and 3. order a VOIP service (unless I can get it bundled with the domain hosting people or FTTP people - whatever is more cost effective or least faffy).

@bigfish that's about the gist of it , yes.

1) involves a few steps in the correct order to avoid/minimise any email down time.

As to the digital voice/separate voip account well:-

If you're a complete technophobe, then go digital voice, if you're a technophile then go separate voip.

In the middle, if you would confident to be able to setup & configure a third party router i.e not Plusnet supplied , then you'd be able to setup voip equipment.

Separate voip in general has lower monthly charges & call costs , although DV often comes with inbuilt call plans.

Separate voip is more flexible, for instance you could connect via a smart phone when away from home. Moving house or ISP is simple, your phone service isn't affected!. For instance I moved house about three years ago, I was able to retain my existing number from an area 50 miles away, and also get an additional local number.

[#13]

Amazing knowledge - thank you.

Just had a long call with PN who were quite helpful.

Our options are: 1. to commence a new 12 month contract including fibre and phone, with PN at the end of Feb 2024 which delays the decision on VOIP, DP etc. as "who knows" what is going to be on offer at the end of 2025. or 2. to be transferred to BT and be offered fibre ad digital phone with them. Or 3. leave and find a life somewhere else.

Apparently, PN are offered a 'special deal' with BT at £37.99/month; I'm assuming this is a FTTC contract - this seems to provide a lower estimated speed than we currently get. Can't say we're too keen to go to BT.

The PN 12 month contract will be £38.46 and provide us with the same ingredients as we currently get. This is about £7/mth less than we're paying at the moment.

So we have a decision to make, do we hold fire and start a new contract with PN and wait to see what happens with the landline switch-off, or leap now and set up new services with one or more companies?! My wife is minded to hold off, whereas I am concerned that if we leave it until the end of 2025, there could be hoards of people trying to change contracts when they finally realise that their traditional phone lines are ceasing. 

I continue to be amazed how any mortal human being is able to navigate all of this and to understand the acronyms and abbreviations associated with the technology. I can't imagine that I alone in wondering how people are going to cope in 2025, particularly where PN offer very little information or support on the options available to their customers. The PN representative seemed resigned to her company losing thousands of loyal customers because they can't provide a full service as they have done for years. Rant over!

[#14]

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@bigfish wrote:

I continue to be amazed how any mortal human being is able to navigate all of this and to understand the acronyms and abbreviations associated with the technology. I can't imagine that I alone in wondering how people are going to cope in 2025, particularly where PN offer very little information or support on the options available to their customers. The PN representative seemed resigned to her company losing thousands of loyal customers because they can't provide a full service as they have done for years. Rant over!

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I wholeheartedly agree.  I've spent way more time than should have been needed in order to try and sort out how we are going to be able to retain a phone connection after the PSTN switch off.  There has been a deafening silence from Plusnet, or the government come to that, regarding all this complex detail we need to get to grips with if we aren't to be left without any phone connectivity in a year's time.

It's frankly appalling, and I cannot understand why there isn't more publicity about what is clearly turning into a complete fiasco.

[#15]

JSHarris, I could hug you!