Telephone and ISDN lines on Stop Sell from 30th June 2023

What’s happening?

From June 30th 2023, BT will no longer take orders for ISDN and telephone lines.

This means that from that date, BT will not accept:

• New provide orders from new or existing customers.
• Move orders from existing customers.

   

  For the avoidance of doubt, these services will move to “Care and Maintain” through which we will continue to support our existing customers for requirements such as:

• Orders to add or change existing DDIs (telephone numbers) associated with an existing service.
• Orders to add or change existing Ancillary Services (e.g. hunt groups) or SLAs from existing customers.

Whilst these services will be moving to Stop Sell, BT continues to offer business voice services over SIP solutions.

What products are in scope?

BT has provided these services to domestic business customers over its Irish network (on-net) and via WLR (Wholesale Line Rental) from eircom (off-net). Both are in scope for Stop Sell.

Why are these services going on Stop Sell?

These services are becoming increasingly difficult to maintain and repair, as component manufacturers switch their attention to servicing the growing demand for IP- and cloud-based voice services.

These services will be phased out completely in the coming years as BT begins to retire its legacy copper networks. A Stop Sell at this time will ensure that this future migration challenge is more manageable for us and our customers.  

Are we withdrawing services to existing customers?

Existing customers can continue to use their existing telephony service as they always have.

“Stop Sell” simply means BT will not accept any orders for new telephone or ISDN lines from new or existing customers.

Any business voice requirement should be fulfilled by an alternative such as Global SIP (GSIP) or Domestic SIP (DSIP) – see details below.

What’s the alternative to telephony?

BT is well placed to serve our customer’s Business Voice needs with the following options:

(a)    Global SIP (GSIP) or

(b)   Domestic SIP (DSIP) which will be re-launched from May 2023

Global SIP (GSIP) is ideal for customers with multinational voice requirements. It enables the customer to use their data network in Ireland and overseas to make voice calls. It is an IP alternative to traditional voice infrastructure like PSTN/telephony and is delivered over an access solution like IP Connect or the internet. This ensures better global communication with their suppliers, customers, and employees.

For existing customers of domestic business voice services, and new customers with a requirement of at least 1 PRI equivalent (30 voice channels), and perhaps with legacy on-premises equipment, Domestic SIP (DSIP) enables the customer to avail of all the capabilities of GSIP but exclusively in Ireland over the BT Ireland network rather than the BT Global network. DSIP also offers the option of a managed gateway where the customer requires a PRI presentation into their equipment rather than SIP.

Whatever the requirement, our Voice Specialists will be able to advise on the best alternative for the customer’s specific needs.

What are the benefits of moving to IP-enabled voice with BT?

Benefits include:

1. Customers can avail of a Private IP access connection from BT to keep their voice traffic separate to their internet traffic.
2. Customers can get more than one access connection to provide service diversity and resilience in case of an issue with one connection.
3. A SIP Trunking service can be built in parallel with the customer’s existing telephony service and can be tested and brought live independently of it. In addition, a customer’s existing telephone numbers can be activated in the DSIP service for testing outbound calls before they’re transferred over to DSIP. So the customer controls the rate of migration from their existing service to their SIP service.
4. SIP Trunking offers several efficiencies over telephony, including:
   1. Customers only pay for the number of voice channels they need across all their sites (not on a site-by-site basis).
   2. Customers can share “blocks” of DDIs across sites in the same numbering area.
   3. Service is future-proofed against any planned closure of copper networks.
5. Domestic SIP is fully supported by BT employees and the BT network in Ireland, giving you assurance that your business voice service is in good hands.

What if our PBX isn’t yet IP-enabled?

No problem.

Our DSIP service can be delivered with an IP gateway that can provide PRI interfaces to your PBX. This will deliver a “hybrid” SIP Trunking service, where the voice service is delivered via SIP Trunking all the way to the customer’s premises, where the BT gateway then converts SIP traffic for presentation as PRIs to your PBX.

What if we are not ready to move to IP-enabled voice?

We understand you may feel some trepidation at the prospect of migrating their business voice service to a new technology – telephony has proven to be a reliable technology for the past 30 years, so the big question will be whether an alternative solution will be equally reliable.

To help overcome this trepidation, we can build our SIP service in parallel with your existing voice service. Depending on your PBX capabilities, we may even be able to test and bring live the SIP service entirely in parallel with the existing voice service. In this way, you can stay in control of the rate of migration from telephony to your new SIP service.

See “Benefits in moving from telephony to IP-enabled voice” for more information.

Will a migration to SIP Trunking involve downtime?

This depends on the capabilities of your PBX, but in general a new SIP Trunking service can be built in parallel with the your existing telephony service and can be tested independently. In addition, your existing telephone numbers can be activated in the SIP service for testing outbound calls before they’re transferred over to SIP.

I have more questions…

Please contact your account manager or our client services team with any queries.