Phones going Digital

[Mups]

I don't really know what this means,  except its something to do  with not using old copper wiring anymore.  

However, some time back,  perhaps 12-18 months,  a Virgin engineer came to fiddle with my phone wires and it was made fibre optic.

He was then trying to insist my kitchen phone  (which is my main one),  was now plugged into my computer  modem,  but I didn't want that.   He kept insisting,  but I refused.
I didn't want it because I knew I wouldn't hear it ringing unless I was in my 'office',   but in the kitchen I can hear it wherever I am, even out in the garden.
Apart from that,  while I am paying the bills,  I will have the damn phone where I want it and can use it better,  not where he wants it!

Eventually he gave in,  but apparently it meant he had to put a wire from the kitchen around the outside of the house to the internet box on my front wall.    I suppose that's why he tried not to do it.

Now I have explained what happened to you,  does anyone know whether this fibre optic wiring mean I am now officially 'Digital'  with my phone,  or not?

I looked it up on their website just now,  but didn't know what they were talking about - something about a green light on the router showing,  and it will say on my bills too.
I have a yellow light on the router,  and can't see anything about it on my last bill!  

[klondike]

They are in the process of converting all house phones to be digital and it sounds like yours has been. It will make no difference to you at all other than the connection should be more reliable. It will need power though and I don't know how that is being arranged. If the digital to analogue box your phone plugs into is mains powered it won't work if there is a power cut. Did they say anything about that?

If I still had a landline it would be VOIP and plug into the ISP supplied router as I am full fibre but I don't use a landline and to be honest can't remember if there is one provided with my current internet setup. I use my own router not theirs anyway and that wouldn't support their phone even if the service is available.

[Vlad]

They are in the process of converting all house phones to be digital and it sounds like yours has been. It will make no difference to you at all other than the connection should be more reliable. It will need power though and I don't know how that is being arranged. If the digital to analogue box your phone plugs into is mains powered it won't work if there is a power cut. Did they say anything about that?

If I still had a landline it would be VOIP and plug into the ISP supplied router as I am full fibre but I don't use a landline and to be honest can't remember if there is one provided with my current internet setup. I use my own router not theirs anyway and that wouldn't support their phone even if the service is available.

Our house is now plugged into the router, incoming calls are distorted and crap 

[Mups]

They are in the process of converting all house phones to be digital and it sounds like yours has been. It will make no difference to you at all other than the connection should be more reliable. It will need power though and I don't know how that is being arranged. If the digital to analogue box your phone plugs into is mains powered it won't work if there is a power cut. Did they say anything about that?

If I still had a landline it would be VOIP and plug into the ISP supplied router as I am full fibre but I don't use a landline and to be honest can't remember if there is one provided with my current internet setup. I use my own router not theirs anyway and that wouldn't support their phone even if the service is available.

I don't understand that bit, Klondike?  What box is that?  Is it indoors or outside?
As far as I know, my landline just plugs into a little socket on the kitchen worktop,  not  a box anywhere.

And I don't remember him saying anything about anything packing up in a power cut either.

[Mups]

Our house is now plugged into the router, incoming calls are distorted and crap

So do you have your landline plugged into the back of your computer modem/router, then?
That would have meant I couldn't have my phone in the room where I needed it most though. 

[Dextrous63]

Mups, from your op description it sounds like you're digital.

We use wireless landlines and so when we changed to digital, it simply involved putting the main base unit near to the virgin box and plug it into it and power it with a mains supply.

If you've got a phone that doesn't need 240V, which sounds likely, then presumably the virgin media box supplies sufficient power to run it, just like the old telephone wires will have done.



September 25, 2025, 10:11:21 PM

So do you have your landline plugged into the back of your computer modem/router, then?
That would have meant I couldn't have my phone in the room where I needed it most though.

Correct.  Hence why your fella had to run the extension lead around the house.

[klondike]

I don't understand that bit, Klondike?  What box is that?  Is it indoors or outside?
As far as I know, my landline just plugs into a little socket on the kitchen worktop,  not  a box anywhere.

And I don't remember him saying anything about anything packing up in a power cut either.

It was this box I meant

He was then trying to insist my kitchen phone  (which is my main one),  was now plugged into my computer modem,

As I said I'm not sure exactly what was done...

it meant he had to put a wire from the kitchen around the outside of the house to the internet box on my front wall

I know with my fibre installation the fibre terminates in the house to a little mains powered box called an ONT (optical network terminator) that converts the flashing light stuff that comes through the fibre into standard wired network output which plugs into the router and any phone plugs into a socket on that router.

If yours is done in any way similar to that then the phone won't work if the mains power goes off. They should have either told you that or left a leaflet which will tell you that.




September 25, 2025, 10:29:53 PM

Our house is now plugged into the router, incoming calls are distorted and crap

I used a VOIP setup years ago and it was actually better (and considerable cheaper) than my landline at the time. By the time I went fibre I'd stopped using landlines anyway. If yours is crap complain about it but as you are on the move it's not going to be worth it.

[klondike]

We use wireless landlines and so when we changed to digital, it simply involved putting the main base unit near to the virgin box and plug it into it and power it with a mains supply.

If you are on VM then your internet comes through coax not fibre and the phone will still be wires I imagine as all the houses are connected to their street cabinet with a figure 8 cable made up up coax and phone line.

I'm not sure where VM convert from digital to analogue for the phone. It may be at one of their big optical cabinets that serve a sizeable area and convert from fibre to coax which goes to their smaller street level cabinets or it could be done at each of the street cabinets.

Unless VM are moving all their coax network over to proper fibre.

Ah now

the internet box on my front wall.

That makes more sense now -  Mups did say a VM engineer. I didn't know they were doing anything special with their phones. I know all the OpenReach ones are dumping the copper and missed the mention of VM engineer.

The VM box outside is where the coax and their phone wires terminate and are then fed into the house. There must have been a phone cable round to the kitchen already though so what was being done is a mystery to me.

[Dextrous63]

I'm kinda struggling with that external wire terminating inside the external box.  Presumably there must be power running through it, which having it run from the VM modem (or whatever it's poncy many is) would make it possible.  But surely not to connect to the coax directly as that's not being used to power anything????  Am happy to be corrected on that.

I can't see VM nor anyone else replacing coax with fibre between a house and their street cabinets.  The cost would be bonkers!!

[klondike]

The outside box is just a junction box. They run more coax and phone wire from it to where they are needed in the house.

The jobs are done by different teams. The street team runs the double cable from the local  street cabinet to a box on the house wall if it has never been done before and move on.

The home installer looks after cabling from the box into the house. The house installer has to check the signal level when the install is done and play around either at the box to move the cable to a junction point in the box with more signal or if it's too high they'll add an attenuator indoors. They do that again after one of them has buggered your connection up while adding somebody else. Sometimes several times.

My house still has VM cabling to the street cabinet and an internal Phone/coax box inside. I had VM for a while. I got sick of them just letting it get oversold until it was almost unusable and taking months to fix so I ditched them and went over to fibre to the cabinet from somebody or other until proper fibre was available then I moved to that.

First I had it from Vodafone using City Fibre who were first in my area. Then when they wouldn't match new customer pricing when the contract ran out I moved to BT using Openreach getting a special deal they were offering at the time along with a nice big healthly load of cashback via TopCashBack which I mentioned recently in a different thread. When that contract ran out I switched back to Vodafone on a special deal from them and have just received, after a load of effort chasing it, a nice £85 Amazon voucher for taking their lower priced offer.

I now have a VM cable, Openreach fibre, City Fibre and the old BT phone line guying up my house against any hurricane that comes along. With cashback and a lower price than the renewal from every move. It doesn;t pay to be a cash cow loyal customer.

I can't see VM nor anyone else replacing coax with fibre between a house and their street cabinets.  The cost would be bonkers!!

Nor can I which is why I can't figure out what Mups had done. Especially the extra wire as there must have been something already. All the old phone lines have power on them for working the old ringers. The power for that is isolated from the audio in the master socket and all the extensions run from that.

[Dextrous63]

I suspect that I(/we?) are assuming that Mups has full fibre and thus the coax is being utilised whereas in reality its fibre via the telephone wire.  Although I'm still struggling to understand why the VM fella had to run a new external lead anywhere.🤷🏻�♂️

[klondike]

So far as I know VM only do the coax variety. As the whole country is being kitted out with optical fibre at the local level it is possible that they are making use of that in areas where they have not got a coax network installed. I think at one time they did offer a product based on the OpenReach phone/FTTC network but thought they canned that years ago.

I doubt they will be expanding their network which was built by taking over failed cable TV companies and had huge debts last time I took any interest in them.

I checked and Mups is on VM
 

[Dextrous63]

Ta.

Somehow, I suspect we'll never fully know.

However, our landline was changed to digital last year with instructions and equipment (one of those phone/rj45 splitter/adaptor box thingies if needed, which we didn't ) provided by VM as they had a mandatory change over date.  I'd imagine this has been rolled out across their network.

[JBR]

I can't remember...  It's true.  My memory is not what it once was... er

I can't remember whether I mentioned this before in this thread, but both Marge and I use only our mobile phones.  We haven't had a landline, be it cable or internet, for years now.  They can connect to t'Internet or wirelessly to any mobile transmitters in range, and are very reliable.

Why not do that?  It simplifies things.

[klondike]

I didn't even know than VM were included. Their local network is entirely their own. I assume OpenReach are doing theirs because it's cheaper and more reliable but they are switching over to fibre at the local level. The VM coax DOCSYS  system has been in place for years alongside their copper cable phones. Maybe the pickies have started on their network now. I thought they were keeping up with the times and had moved over to EV charger leads.

September 26, 2025, 10:39:25 AM
JBR is right landlines are becoming a thing of the past. Haven't had one here in years now. At one time they were bundled with internet but I never had a call package even then.