Will plusnet provide a voip landline service?

[#1]

There have been lots of comments about what Plusnet should do or might or might not do. The only thing that is certain is that whatever they do it will be for their benefit not yours or mine.

My local Sainsburys is a smallish branch ( not a Sainsburys Local ) and quite often some items disappear from the shelves, upon enquiring of staff where can I find xyz the answer ‘sorry we don’t stock that at this branch anymore!' If you ask why they say I don’t know you’ll have to ask at customer services. The point being that each square foot of shelving has to be used to maximise profit i.e. customer benefit is secondary.

Clearly Plusnet are [or have been] duplicating services which BT also provide albeit at a higher price. I suspect it’s the profit margin per product / service which is the determining factor for Plusnet services. Plusnet have had excellent customer service e.g. call centres in Yorkshire – not somewhere where English is not the first language. That I guess is expensive compared with the overseas option.

A few years ago I was told that BT business customers had UK call centres and domestic customers overseas ones – true or not I couldn’t say but it illustrates the point that you gets what you pay for. My guess is that in couple of years or less Plusnet will either be fully absorbed into BT or will be just a broadband only ‘social’ no frills at all supplier.

[#2]

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@RealAleMadrid wrote:

@markhawkin  Just to check this out I logged in to the Member Centre and I am offered an upgrade to  "Fibre" which is indeed FTTC with no phone service. It isn't a great offer because it's the same price as my existing "Standard Fibre" FTTC and Phone.🙄

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Just because when you log into the Member centre you are offered an upgrade to a service that you don't like, it doesn't mean that it's the only option available to you.

I consider 'account offers' as similar to a supermarket's this week's promotion. In my experience you can get a deal for a different product that better suits your requirements for a competitive price, simply by ringing COTS on 0800 013 2632 and talking to an agent.

We must accept that SOGEA is the future but until the plug is pulled I will hang on to my landline. We had a powercut during thunderstorms this week, Fine, I hear people say, use mobile. My mobile is on 3, no signal, mast obviously out. Wife on Lebara (Voda), nope the same. Friend on EE, yep, you guessed it!

[#3]

@Batfrog, for someone to launch a VOIP service at this scale it would be quite a lot different to your Sainsburys scenario.  It would require a fairly large investment in infrastructure, recruitment (or a lot of retraining) of suitable staff to manage and support the new technologies, peering arrangements with telephony providers. development work to integrate it all into the existing systems and processes.  This would all be to enter a market where there is a fair bit of competition already, and a decreasing demand for.

Basically it's a not quick, easy and cheap service to set up.  There are risks that the management will have to weigh up (risk of loosing money on the solution vs loss of customers if they don't have a solution).  What they have discussed, what decisions have been made, what is still on the table to be decided isn't something that is publicly known, as there hasn't been any announcement as to what they will or will not be doing,

What we do know is that the amount of calls on land line phones has massively decreased over the last decade, and there are quite a few a lot of people on these forums that say they don't have a phone when asked to do a Quiet Line Test when they are posting about faults.

I wouldn't like to guess how many customers/potential customers really need a non-mobile phone option who wouldn't move their phone to a different provider than their broadband.  I'm sure that will be all part of the modelling that will have been done/is being done that is helping to form any decisions that have been/are being made.

[#4]

@Baldrick1  I had no intention of changing my contract to SOGEA, as I said paying the same and losing the landline is not a tempting deal. I was just checking if the forum rumours were correct.🤔

[#5]

Yip, I can’t disagree with any of that really. I think we’re in agreement when you say “ There are risks that the management will have to weigh up (risk of loosing money on the solution vs loss of customers if they don't have a solution).”

So the point remains are Plusnet likely to provide a voice service or not? I’m sure you are correct about the number of landline calls diminishing, which, I suspect is a generational attitude. Both my [adult] children and at least six other people I can think of off hand only have mobiles.

Even if the reception on mobiles was better than it is I would still like to have a landline. If you call someone on a [their] landline and they answer you know they are at home, on the other hand I’ve very often called mobiles only to find communication is poor because they are in the supermarket, driving, in the pub etc ect, not only is there often excessive background noise but the reception [dropouts etc] varies dramatically. BT promote their ‘Digital Voice’ on having crystal clear sound – something particularly important to older people – back to the generational point!

Nowadays many GP consultations take place over the phone when a good and clear line is essential and anyway I don’t want to have such a discussion other than at home! Once again a generational thing.

At the end of the day it’s the men in suits [the bean counters] that will decide, as it ever was.

[#6]

@RealAleMadrid 

Sorry if you misunderstood me. I was simply making the point that offers showing on your account aren't the only option. Ringing in might well result in you being offered the same FTTC service at the same price with a landline.

If the rumour to which you are referring is whether Plusnet are now offering SOGEA on copper circuits then the answer is yes.

[#7]

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@Batfrog wrote:

...Even if the reception on mobiles was better than it is I would still like to have a landline.

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Unfortunately the die is cast. By the end of 2025 all telephone exchanges will in effect be shut down. There will be no more 'landline', only mobile and VoIP. This has already started in some areas.

Even sooner, from September the option to rent a new landline will disappear.

None of this is under the control of Plusnet. It is the planned retirement of the national PSTN by BT.

[#8]

If you call someone on a [their] landline and they answer you know they are at home

That's no longer true if the landline number is on a voip service. For instance I can connect to my voip account from anywhere and answer calls. So I may not be at home, in fact I may not even be in the country!

[#9]

@Batfrog, I totally get where you are coming from.  One thing for certain though is that a landline will not be an option.  One of the "advantages" of VOIP is that it isn't tied to a physical line or internet connection.  I've been using VOIP in some form or another for around 15 years.  Whilst I've got a desk phone right in front of me now, which has 4 different accounts on it, any of those could also be set up on a soft phone (smart phone app) and calls be taken/made from anywhere, just like a call mobile number.

With many mobiles now you can do wifi calling, so often you can get good quality calls at home even where the mobile signal is poor.  Funnily enough that is one thing that Plusnet Mobile didn't support, which probably had at least a small part in the decision to get rid of it.

Personally I don't think there is a technical need for this at Plusnet.  For their customer base I think there are better and more cost effective ways around.  For that though there needs to be a shift in many peoples thinking of it, which is always the harder parts to change.  Given that then, and Plusnets target market as "budget", it's probably not in Plusnets to be driving that change.  Equally the budget side pushes towards the basic connection without the phone side.

Edit: Sorry a combination of slow typing and multitasking others have made some of the same comments!

[#10]

@pjmarsh 

" for someone to launch a VOIP service at this scale it would be quite a lot different to your Sainsburys scenario.  It would require a fairly large investment in infrastructure, recruitment (or a lot of retraining) of suitable staff to manage and support the new technologies, peering arrangements with telephony providers. development work to integrate it all into the existing systems and processes."

"Basically it's a not quick, easy and cheap service to set up."

Could a lot of this be avoided, or made worthwhile, by piggybacking on BT's existing Digital Voice service?

I think that Plusnet share BT's Wholesale network links etc, (as do EE?), so I don't know if that makes a difference?

[#11]

Possibly, though we don't know how that is all set up.  My understanding the "Digital Voice" is part of BT Consumer, not part of Wholesale.  I've not seen anywhere that has been shared.  As far as I'm aware EE don't have a Digital Voice/VOIP offering either.

That may or may not be part of the considerations on what Plusnet will or won't be offering.  I don't know anything on it that isn't in the public domain.

[#12]

@Baldrick1  There is no misunderstanding, In my original post #53 I was trying to point out to @markhawkin that although the portal only showed the SOGEA service it may not be the only option and that FTTC and Landline Phone should also be available, for the time being until PSTN withdrawal, obviously.😁

[#13]

@pjmarsh 

"Personally I don't think there is a technical need for this at Plusnet"

...what there is a technical need for at Plusnet is a graceful and dependable way of porting an existing "landline" number to a VoIP provider.  If not one of the user's choice then to one Plusnet has chosen to partner with.

The reason I suggest a chosen partner is that the reason given for not offering the methods which do exist for this purpose is that consequence of transfer failure.  We have seen much of this in the current transfers of mobile numbers between providers, where there are very clear and established methods.

The industry needs to fix the opportunities for failure rather than runaway from the opportunities to deliver what users need.

[#14]

It does look as if landlines are deprecated, and SOGEA is being offered.

I am account holder for my sister's broadband and phone service. The contract has just ended, so the 3Mbps ADSL and phone package is now costing £52.86 per month. She is eligible for a social broadband contract, but Plusnet don't offer one, and until now we couldn't move without paying ETCs as the Plusnet contract is in my name.

The available options from Plusnet are to recontract for £23.99 per month on the same package (including phone line), or "upgrade" to a 44Mbps FTTC connection without phone (SOGEA).

Neither are acceptable. My sister is waiting for a place in sheltered housing, so an 18 month contract isn't attractive (it could be 17 months ETC!). She has a CareLine alarm, so no PSTN phone line isn't an option. 

The bottom line is that Plusnet can no longer offer any product that is appropriate.

[#15]

Following up on my previous post (I missed the edit window...) the £23.99 ADSL price doesn't include the calls package, so the price is £35.74, and the SOGEA FTTC price is £27.99 which of course doesn't include any calls.