Broadband market dysfunction

kevbb

Has anyone noticed that now PSTN is being switched off, any new contracts do NOT include a landline. You have to sign up to a 'digital voice' service which is inferior yet seems to cost as much as or more than the allegedly 'hard to maintain' PSTN service. A digital solution should be miles cheaper. Also just in the last month I see that all the major suppliers prices have converged when the voice service is included - and you are forced to a 24 month contract (nothing shorter)

This is very anti-competitive, and Ofcom doesn't seem to have an option to complain about poor competition

littleboo

Well yes, you can longer get PSTN voice, because its being withdrawn and has (just) passed its stop/sell date. Why would you expect to be able to get a new contract on a product that is end of life and will be withdrawn part way through the contract term?

QrizB

kevbb said:

This is very anti-competitive, and Ofcom doesn't seem to have an option to complain about poor competition

There are many suppliers of digital voice services, more than there ever were suppliers of landlines. If you have a mobile phone you might not even want a separate voice service.

I struggle to see how this can be considered anti-competitive?

JSmithy45AD

QrizB said:

kevbb said:

This is very anti-competitive, and Ofcom doesn't seem to have an option to complain about poor competition

There are many suppliers of digital voice services, more than there ever were suppliers of landlines. If you have a mobile phone you might not even want a separate voice service.

I struggle to see how this can be considered anti-competitive?

It's not, it's just a nonsense thread. I can't see how it's supposedly "inferior" as the OP claims either.

fiish

Using the 'Compare Broadband Deals' page on MSE, I see that this doesn't seem to be the case. There seems to be a fair amount of choice, at least for my address. I have options for 24 month, 18 month, 12 month and even a few deals on 1 month rolling contracts. That said if I wanted to stick with a really big major provider like VM or BT, then, yes, it seems hard to find a deal that doesn't lock in for 24 years.

Perhaps OP is in a relatively underserved area where fewer deals are available.

iniltous

The OP argument is pretty inaccurate, their complaint seems to be that as PSTN is no longer available that you have to take DV if you want telephony, not true, ‘DV’ is BT’s proprietary IP telephony , so only BT customers that want telephony have to take DV .
 Customers of other communications providers using MPF may or may not have IP telephony on offer , but DV is not a generic term for IP telephony ,and obviously there is now a choice that previously didn’t exist , you had to take a phone service even if you didn’t want one.
The OP  states DV  is inferior, but it isn’t , the only negative is that it’s inoperable during a power outage , but that can be mitigated with a BBU/UPS , and they state it costs the same as ‘or more’ than the ‘allegedly hard to maintain PSTN’ system, BT DV is exactly the same price as BT PTSN and it’s undeniable that the exchange switches ( System X and Y ) that are at least 30 years old , some nearer 40 years old , ‘spare parts’ have not been manufactured for decades , so are indeed difficult to maintain, how many 30 year old ‘electronics’ are still in use in any other setting ?