Silly laws

InsideInsurance

Years ago I used to work for BT. Back in those days during the training they used to say, for entertainment factor rather than anything else, that if your only phone in the house is a cordless phone (not mobile) there was a legal requirement for you to have a spare battery for it. If you had a corded phone in addition to the cordless then you didn't need one.

I trust this law was true, I was wondering, firstly if it still exists. Secondly, if it does, what happens if you have no phone plugged into your phone line? Are you legally required to have a phone (and spare battery if it is cordless) even if it isn't plugged in?

Mark_In_Hampshire

I don't recognise any of this, though I'm interested to see if anyone can shed any light

As far as I know, actually, the legal requirement is on BT to have battery backup so that the lines keep on working during a power cut. Maybe you can confirm that one

Heinz

It was a (probably justifiable) scare tactic used when cordless phones started becoming popular and before cellphones were so common. AFAIAA, there's no 'law' involved.

Buzby

No it was never true. Under which 'Act' ? It certainly wasn't in the Communications Act. Back when BT introduced the 'Hawk', a big and bulky pre-DECT analogue handset, the instruction book did warn that if your power failled, so too would the Hawk and your access to a phone line, so it warned not to have a spare battery, BUT retain a wired phone as an emergency back-up.

Not much different to the VOIP providers who say they're not a service to diall 112 (999) over, but many allow it anyway. But then, if you lost 240v, your router would go down.....

macman

Since there is also no law requiring you to have any kind of phone, this is just an urban myth.

InsideInsurance

Obviously there is no legal requirement for a landline but the rationalisation was that if you did have a line then you were required to have it. To do with emergency contact.

I do remember checking the instruction manual for my phone, as instructed during training, and there was "something" in it at the time but no longer have the manual (or phone) to read exactly what it was and looking at modern phone manuals there is no such commentry.