Landline's being switched off - Questions

HollyandCo

I've been without a landline for nearly two years.

There are occasions when I have really missed it.  I live in a sleepy village and the internet drops in and out.  I'm never without it for long and generally I only know about it when I get messages on my laptop or TV, saying my connection has been restored.   Using my mobile phone is only possible in one side of the house.  Occasionally I forget whilst talking and I walk from one side of the house to the other but then the connection breaks up.   So, I have started to think of having my landline reconnected, only to find Landlines are being phased out.

Does this mean that if we have no internet, or poor 4g, then this is it.  Ie, we like it or lump it?  I am worried about any needs to call emergency services.  I don't like taking my mobile up into my bedroom.  Is there an alternative option?

matelodave

Landlines aren't actually being switched off despite what the papers and those on Facebook, TickTock and others are saying.

It's the stuff in the telephone exchanges that is being switched over to a different way of providing a landline or fixed rather than mobile telephony service.

At the moment, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is running on equipment that was installed 40 years or more ago and is well past its use by date and getting beyond repair.

The alternative is for a landline, either using the existing copper wires, like it is at the moment or by optical fibres in the future but with the phone service delivered over what is called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). 

VoIP is carried over the broadband network which will require a different box inside your home which will probably have to be plugged into the mains supply. Those who've already got broadband will end up plugging their phone into their routers , either directly or via a  VoIP adapter others will be given a mains powered adapter into which you plug both your phone and landline. Telephony doesn't require a huge bandwidth or fast speed so most lines will be more than capable of providing telephony even if they weren't up to streaming etc. Its also likely that arears where the existing broadband isn't ever so good will get a boost in performance.

We live a long way from anywhere and had our pathetic broadband service upgraded to fibre nearly six years ago and have had VoIP for the past three years. The phone is plugged directly into our router and it works in just the same way as it did before with the one exception, that it stops working when there's a power cut, much in the same way as our DECT phones always stopped working when there was a power cut.

It's not a major problem for most people, especially if you've got a mobile phone as a back-up. However if you are a vulnerable person or have no other means of making an emergency phone call in the case of a power cut then network providers will come up with a solution, possibly a standby power supply, to keep your phone working for a period of time.

giraffe69

We live in an area with no mobile reception (at least indoors) but have given up our landline because wifi calling works well on both our mobiles and it doesn't matter which side of the house you are on. Check if your mobile provider does this(all the major ones do) and if your phone is capable. It doesn't cost anything extra.

HollyandCo

matelodave said:

Landlines aren't actually being switched off despite what the papers and those on Facebook, TickTock and others are saying.

It's the stuff in the telephone exchanges that is being switched over to a different way of providing a landline or fixed rather than mobile telephony service.

At the moment, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is running on equipment that was installed 40 years or more ago and is well past its use by date and getting beyond repair.

The alternative is for a landline, either using the existing copper wires, like it is at the moment or by optical fibres in the future but with the phone service delivered over what is called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). 

VoIP is carried over the broadband network which will require a different box inside your home which will probably have to be plugged into the mains supply. Those who've already got broadband will end up plugging their phone into their routers , either directly or via a  VoIP adapter others will be given a mains powered adapter into which you plug both your phone and landline. Telephony doesn't require a huge bandwidth or fast speed so most lines will be more than capable of providing telephony even if they weren't up to streaming etc. Its also likely that arears where the existing broadband isn't ever so good will get a boost in performance.

We live a long way from anywhere and had our pathetic broadband service upgraded to fibre nearly six years ago and have had VoIP for the past three years. The phone is plugged directly into our router and it works in just the same way as it did before with the one exception, that it stops working when there's a power cut, much in the same way as our DECT phones always stopped working when there was a power cut.

It's not a major problem for most people, especially if you've got a mobile phone as a back-up. However if you are a vulnerable person or have no other means of making an emergency phone call in the case of a power cut then network providers will come up with a solution, possibly a standby power supply, to keep your phone working for a period of time.

Thank you.   I hate the site of my router - cables running everywhere!

So, assuming a household does not have a broadband supply, BT would be connecting something up in order for the telephone service to continue?   And people will still keep their phone numbers?

matelodave

If you dont have a broadband connection then how does your router connect to the internet. If you dont have a mobile *4G/5G router) then you must have a connection to the outside world either by wires or an optical fibre (unless you are one of the rare people who have it deivered by satellite or over a long distance wifi service)

Obviously if you dont have a line coming to your house and you want a phone or broad band service then someone has to run wiring or fibres to your premises.

I've still got the same phone number that I've had for the past 13 years (which is as long as we've been here) so it's usually possible to keep the same number (I've been with SKY, TalkTalk, BT and now Vodafone and its been transferred without problems).

However its down to who ever supplies your service - some broadband suppliers dont offer a phone service anymore so you need to ensure that you find one who does.. I'm with Vodafone and they ask whether I want to keep my old number or get a new one.

Grey_Critic

Oh dear - one of my pet topics. Not everybody is tech savvy (my wife for one) and we have a landline (at present) She has a very basic mobile and it is set up as simple as possible. The only person she calls is me so presses couple of keys and hey presto.  I might add she was very successful in business but cannot get her mind around computers, when she first got a mobile phone the grandkids spent hours trying to teach her to text - she still cannot do it.

But to be very serious the plans to change things are worrying a lot of people and many are not very old. Pensioners are ringing Virgin to say they (a) do not have the internet (b) they do not want Broadband (c) they do not have mobile phones and do not want them.

A friend of mine (85) has Dementia and mobility issues, his wife (83) struggles as it is and if he falls she needs help - OK with a landline she picks up the upstairs phone and calls for help. She has a mobile but depending where in the house she is then no signal - Mobile phones do not like 3 foot thick stone walls. Several weeks ago Virgin disconnected her landline when working local, even calling and explaining it took two weeks to restore things.

Yes technology means change but the assumption that everybody can use it is pie in the sky. A large part of society is being disenfranchised with the rush to be digital in everything. Not being tech savvy is really a disability and not all disabilities are visible

ISIHAC19

Couldn't agree more with Grey_Critic!

Firstly a bit of background; without naming names, until a few months ago we had a landline 'phone and broadband package from a well-known brand of department stores, with the actual service being provided by a subsidiary of a major telecomms company.  The 'brand' decided to withdraw from the market, yet the subsidiary wouldn't provide the same service other than by default meaning we were paying an out of contract price. When it became clear that none of the usual names would offer what we wanted, I duly started to trawl through other potential providers until I came to one that although it would only provide a fibre Voip and broadband service did at least explain what was going on.

In essence I learnt that Openreach had adopted a policy that from the end of September this year no new copper wire based services will be available. Note that also applies if anything changes ie you move house/go out of contract..........

The provider of this 'bombshell' also said that the Government had made no effort to inform people; certainly until that point all I'd heard about the demise of copper wire services was it was going to happen by the end of 2024. This company said that they and others had tried to get more public awareness of this September's deadline, but had eventually given up when Government gave them no encouragement/support. Having recently raised this with my M.P I'm still waiting for a response; my guess is that politicians are avoiding raising it now because of all of the financial pressure many are facing after the large increase in inflation. As we are lucky(?) enough to have had the roads and pavements in our area dug up to lay fibre cables to outside people's property, we decided we might as well make the change. We have now paid out £120 to Openreach to bring fibre into our house and are likely to pay out a similar amount for a back up power supply (for digital landline/router/ONT- which is the Openreach box equivalent to the old 'master socket').

By the way, as others may well have seen in the press, the Spetember cut-off appears to now be the 5th !    

twopenny

Not heard a thing about this
 and while they've fitted fibre I belive (the vans were here and that's what they said when I asked) it would be devastating if that happens suddenly.
Our little estate has 90% frail and elderly who rely on landline and old fashioned packages.

And while prices of food and fuel are astronomical having to buy a pricey fibre package is going to cause real problems.

Surely there has to be some slow and informed change?
We're already struggling with 3g being shut off and the cost of new phones.

I'm in an area where we go with the flow for mobile reception quite happily and there seems to be no care or trying to deal with that first.
There is no fibre for other than towns and poor mobile with an exceptional number of vulnerable people in a wide rural area.

KxMx

There is supposed to be provision to provide those who need it with a very very very basic broadband connection, to enable access to Digital Voice. 

Chickereeeee

ISIHAC19 said:

....

In essence I learnt that Openreach had adopted a policy that from the end of September this year no new copper wire based services will be available. 

This is not correct. Copper based PSTN services will no longer be offered after the 5th September, ahead of the entire PSTN switching network being retired in a few years time. Effectively, voice calls will all run over the data-switching network, rather than data over a voice network (as it was a few years ago) or a mixture, as it is now.

The preference is for fibre optic cable all the way to the premises, where available. However, where fibre is NOT available, copper can still be used. The difference is the copper will be running a data protocol (like VDSL) to get broadband to the premises, and a box there will provide a telephone socket for the user.

To the user, the service delivered will look similar whether delivered over copper or fibre: a box with a data and a voice port. Fibre will be MUCH faster, of course.

In either case, if you do not want broadband, you will just have the voice port, to plug your phone into.

JohnB47

As has been said, once a house is moved to full fibre broadband (FTTP) and home phone, if the broadband fails, the phone stops working.

But also of note is that it will no longer be possible to plug a 'plain ordinary telephone' into the master socket and get service that way. Not just because there won't be such a master socket - the technology will be completely different.

That's my understanding anyway.