Virgin Media Digital Voice

[Confused52]

I need to do some research and I wonder if anyone on here has been changed over from the old wired voice service to the new one which is delivered from the Set Top box or Cable Modem? I am very interested if the connexion has also been made over Fibre to the Home too. I want to know what restrictions there are on what you can do such as using your own router or getting a voice service other than from Virgin. I would like to hear from anyone with actual experience of this.

[Evil Sid]

Not happened to me as yet but they will no doubt start to tout for business before long.

Mind you my current contract does not expire for another 12 months yet they will be trying their best not to get me to downgrade.

just had a goggle on virgin media  digital voice and ended up on the home phones page and they have a pdf file that you can access but it is the usual virgin media bumpf. lots of information but of little help.

you need to check what zone you are in to see what features will be available. I am apparently in the yellow zone. you will need to keep your hub on 24/7 or you won't be able too make calls from your home phone. This also means that if you have a power cut you can't call anybody up to find out why there is a power cut unlike at present.

I do wonder if the standing charge for the landline will still be applied?

[Bill]

My Virgin router has a couple of rj45 sockets marked Tel and they provided a little adapter to make it look like a conventional wall socket so a normal phone could be plugged in. There’s only the fibre connection used these days and the secondary copper connection now goes nowhere. I suppose in the event of a power cut the line would go dead but as we never use the landline that’s not an issue for us but for others it could be awkward.

I suppose there could be a small internal battery to cover this but somehow I doubt it.

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

6 hours ago, Evil Sid said:

Not happened to me as yet but they will no doubt start to tout for business before long.

Mind you my current contract does not expire for another 12 months yet they will be trying their best not to get me to downgrade.

just had a goggle on virgin media  digital voice and ended up on the home phones page and they have a pdf file that you can access but it is the usual virgin media bumpf. lots of information but of little help.

you need to check what zone you are in to see what features will be available. I am apparently in the yellow zone. you will need to keep your hub on 24/7 or you won't be able too make calls from your home phone. This also means that if you have a power cut you can't call anybody up to find out why there is a power cut unlike at present.

I do wonder if the standing charge for the landline will still be applied?

Sid,

Thanks for the info. I could not have got the yellow zone info. I do not have VM but for a paper I am writing I needed to find out how the new phone service is to work.

4 hours ago, Bill said:

My Virgin router has a couple of rj45 sockets marked Tel and they provided a little adapter to make it look like a conventional wall socket so a normal phone could be plugged in. There’s only the fibre connection used these days and the secondary copper connection now goes nowhere. I suppose in the event of a power cut the line would go dead but as we never use the landline that’s not an issue for us but for others it could be awkward.

I suppose there could be a small internal battery to cover this but somehow I doubt it.

 

Bill 😊

Thanks Bill, so I take it you have a superhub3. I wonder if you got a new installation or as I suspect just changing the router and moving the phone over and disconnecting the siamese twin cable from the coax? Am I right in thinking the old F connector went into the new hub and the only other work was on the telephony NTE?

Now you are likely to be able to help me with the next layer of information. I expect you were asked if you had a mobile phone to make emergency calls but were you told about the emergency call attachment so you could get one if you need it later? Were you told how many REN the phone port supports? Did they connect the old extensions wiring up if there is any?

Did they explain that older phones would not work, if you said you had one did they tell you that you make the bell work by using an ADSL filter ?

Did they tell you that the supplementary services were not the same as the old network  and that you were now in the purple zone?

I have other questions about the features on the router such as VPN and static routing or are the features on the router minimal. Most importantly can you connect your own router behind it and get full network features via IPv4 and IPv6?

[Bill]

Not sure of the router model, there’s no markings on it but I got it about 18 months ago as a “new” installation having dropped my old Virgin setup for a 12-month spell on Sky. But just before that, I had Virgin out to redo the external wiring as originally, they had just thrown the twin cable over the roof to the back of the house and as I was building an extension it had to be replaced. They arranged for the telephone to be redone with on a normal BT style socket at the front of the house and the fibre going to the side upstairs. At this point the router was still the same one I’d had for several years.

Just as my Sky contract was ending, Virgin contacted me and offered me a contract for the same price that I was paying to Sky. I told them I wasn’t interested in their TV package and ideally only wanted a broadband connection, but the salesman said it was cheaper to have the full package that just broadband, so I went with that. Unfortunately, they managed to screw up the porting process and I ended up losing the house number I’d had forever. As a result, we don’t even have a phone plugged in anywhere these days although we still must pay for the landline. The new kit arrived all in one box with a set of DIY instructions. There could have been info regarding the Ren and or warnings about power cuts in this but in my case it was academic. I think I may still have the paperwork but would have to hunt the attic for it.

I did have a Draytek router behind it for a while but since I retired there was no need for it so that’s also gone. The lads at work would definitely be able to answer all your questions because they’re doing this sort of thing every day and I could give you a number or call in to see them.

 

Bill 😊

[Evil Sid]

Bill it sounds like you have the hub 3.0 model.

I have waded through the bumpf again and they do do have a separate battery backup device for the purple zone areas only.

It will only make 999 calls though as far as i can make out.

confused this link will take you to the pdf that i was referring to, mind you it will probably make you more confused but that is virgin media for you.

http://www.virginmedia.com/phoneguide

hope it helps somewhat.

 

[Confused52]

9 hours ago, Bill said:

Not sure of the router model, there’s no markings on it but I got it about 18 months ago as a “new” installation having dropped my old Virgin setup for a 12-month spell on Sky. But just before that, I had Virgin out to redo the external wiring as originally, they had just thrown the twin cable over the roof to the back of the house and as I was building an extension it had to be replaced. They arranged for the telephone to be redone with on a normal BT style socket at the front of the house and the fibre going to the side upstairs. At this point the router was still the same one I’d had for several years.

Just as my Sky contract was ending, Virgin contacted me and offered me a contract for the same price that I was paying to Sky. I told them I wasn’t interested in their TV package and ideally only wanted a broadband connection, but the salesman said it was cheaper to have the full package that just broadband, so I went with that. Unfortunately, they managed to screw up the porting process and I ended up losing the house number I’d had forever. As a result, we don’t even have a phone plugged in anywhere these days although we still must pay for the landline. The new kit arrived all in one box with a set of DIY instructions. There could have been info regarding the Ren and or warnings about power cuts in this but in my case it was academic. I think I may still have the paperwork but would have to hunt the attic for it.

I did have a Draytek router behind it for a while but since I retired there was no need for it so that’s also gone. The lads at work would definitely be able to answer all your questions because they’re doing this sort of thing every day and I could give you a number or call in to see them.

 

Bill 😊

So was that to open a vpn tunnel to work from the Draytek, so a number of devices connected to work via the Draytek. Did you have to use the Modem mode to make that work? 

[Confused52]

1 hour ago, Evil Sid said:

Bill it sounds like you have the hub 3.0 model.

I have waded through the bumpf again and they do do have a separate battery backup device for the purple zone areas only.

It will only make 999 calls though as far as i can make out.

confused this link will take you to the pdf that i was referring to, mind you it will probably make you more confused but that is virgin media for you.

http://www.virginmedia.com/phoneguide

hope it helps somewhat.

 

Thanks Sid. They seem to be stingy with the back-up device which appears to be a mobile phone break out. Essentially if you don't have a mobile phone they give you one you can use in emergencies. The problem is that the mobile base station batteries run out in short order, in some places they will struggle to keep going for an hour, so the mobile networks do not offer a real alternative; it is just window dressing. Only making 999 calls makes sense because all networks will allow an emergency call without a SIM which means the device can make them on the strongest network left working.

[Confused52]

Given the impetus of both your pointers I have found the details of Modem-mode and details of the Superhub3/4. I now understand how the integration works and the voice service has different services because it is provided on a Huawei softswitch. The link up with O2 may allow a move to Ericsson in due course. BT use Ericsson but even that is not the same service set as you had in the Yellow zone, which I take to be ex Nynex Cable System X. The hub has a published FCC specification which tells us that the device has a REN of 5. The two Tel sockets are independent PacketCable2.0 phones so only Tel1 actually works and the total REN is therefore 5. 

I now have the information that I need to write my response to Ofcom which is actually about BT, but the point is that VM do at least obey the law which BT retail do not!

[Evil Sid]

glad to be of help.

[ninearches]

Is this digital voice similar to alexa or is it a device that will change channels & search for tv programmes using a spoken request ?

I am asking for a friend who might benefit as he is registered blind. Thank you.

[Bill]

I think the term digital voice may have mislead you there Davy. I think it was just a way of saying not the old analogue type of telephone line. Interestingly and slightly off topic, I made a little device last year to accept spoken commands rather like Alexa but done without using any internet connection and it worked quite well. I’m sure these days there’ll be something out there from China that would do the job for your friend, maybe you could ask Alexa. 😊

It is a hub3 btw Sid.

 

Bill 😊  

[Confused52]

Davy, Bill is quite right about digital voice is. It is voice carried over the Internet access so that everyone gets internet an connection and voice goes on top of it if you want it (and even if you only want voice). You can get newer versions of the Roku box that will accept Alexa voice commands. It entails streaming TV rather than watching over Freeview or Freesat.   How do I use Amazon Alexa to control my Roku® streaming device? | Official Roku Support

Alexa can already choose Internet streamed radio stations.

I am not aware of real TVs being controlled by TV but Bill is again right when he says you can get voice recognition stand alone on something like a raspberry pi and then there ought to be a way of generating infrared presses to match particular equipment. The technology is not the issue so much as the configuration because the exact equipment has to be designed in by someone and when equipment changes you have to come back and do it again. The Alexa route seems more wasteful but it is more practical.

[ninearches]

Thanks Chaps.