Forced onto Fibre

iniltous

You don’t see a problem in that the Government, business and most consumers are demanding ‘gigabit’ speeds , but you expect an antiquated system to be maintained alongside for those that don’t need faster speeds ,or are resistant to change , what other network providers have to do this, and given that running two networks cost more than running one , who should pay for that extra expense ? 

Ultimately, you are not being forced onto FTTP , you can stay on what you have , it’s the price you object to , but that’s down to the company you use , no one else, if they take advantage of a customers reluctance to change to FTTP , again you seem to be blaming the wrong organisation.

BT charge exactly the same price for broadband irrespective of the ‘medium’ it’s delivered over , so 40Mb broadband  is the same price on FTTC or FTTP , having to use FTTP is no more expensive unless the ISP wants to make it so, obviously some ISP may have different prices for ADSL, VDSL or FTTP.

As stated , if the company your mother currently uses has put their price up , that up to them , if you identified a deal with another company that that wasn’t honoured , that’s upto them , if this company advertised a deal that couldn’t actually be delivered , because the supplier they use had communicated to them the withdrawal of these wholesale products years before their actual withdrawal, but that company continued to advertise them as available anyway , even after the date they were removed , again that’s up to them, 

If you can get a line only deal without any included calls  ( by this , presumably you mean it’s PAYG calls at 20p/min ) for £16.73 and you only need a line for incoming calls , what’s the issue  ? that’s less than the £18 you were paying albeit without a broadband service you state you no longer need .

You state you don’t need anything but a line for incoming calls , so quoting the price for unlimited calls seem unnecessary, if outgoing calls are not likely to be made.

Not sure what info I provided was incorrect , I posted links to the BT site , and separately stated unlimited call with a broadband service are ‘about’  £16 more  than the equivalent standalone broadband ( without any telephony  ) , it’s actually £18 ,so it’s gone up £2 since I last checked ,  that’s  why I said the price is ‘about’ £16 , so if you can get unlimited calls for £13  more ( rather than £18 ) that’s a £5 discount, surely that’s a good thing , even if inclusive calls are not needed.

Your issue seems to be that something you once could get for £18 a month isn’t available anymore , what you call competitive presumably is now uneconomic to provide at that price , the change of technology isn’t responsible for that price rise, pretty much everything costs more than it did a year or two years ago , there is no reason why you should expect telecommunications would be any different, and as stated , if the company that offered £18 line and broadband as WLR , and we’re making a profit and still could make a profit, then they could deliver it as SoTAP , but would have to use IP telephony not PSTN 

carer4mum

iniltous said:

Your issue seems to be that something you once could get for £18 a month isn’t available anymore...

I'm really sorry to hear about your plight. I hope that one day you can read what you have written and see what you actually said. I have experience in what you are going through and I do really hope the best for you. I'm sure this platform offers a release for you, but your comments are incoherent and not relevant to this post.

Maybe your aim is to shut down a post. The only reason I sent the post in the first place, was to help other people by bringing it to their attention. Clearly your input was purely selfish. Please keep out of this post and let other people have a say. £18/mth is available, if it wasn't for this stupid rule that you are championing. Pull your head out of the sand, there are people who are worst off.

moneysaver1978

Sorry you/your mum are in this situation - I believe that if copper is available for telephone use only (and you pay for it), it should be available to customers for the same reason that if customers want broadband-only line, it should be available.

That said, is a sim-only phone an option - something like this or this?

bunnygo

Digital voice is NOT the same - the main issue is zero resilience in a power cut. Also you have to dial the area code for all numbers, so if (like many people) numbers are programmed into a handset, all will need to be reprogrammed.

It is clear that suppliers are now charging more for landlines; I'm with plusnet and it is £2.50 a month more on 'unlimited fibre' as opposed to 'full fibre' which I can't get anyway. The latter means no landline. I've recontracted with them until November 2025 to secure the landline in the hope that this shambles improves.

Yes, the old copper network needs to go but the replacement has been thought out by millenials with reliable mobile coverage and reliable power. Total design disaster.

if you are with BT there is a £22 a month package including unlimited broadband and 700 minutes of calls, plenty for most people.

Olinda99

yes change can be very upsetting

I remember back in the day my aunt used to rent a black and white television. one day it didn't work and she called the company in and they said that she would have to have a colour one as there were no more black and white televisions. the problem was it cost about 30% more each month

she was adamant that a black and white one was exactly what she wanted and was really annoyed at having to pay more money.

we never heard the end of it for the next 10 or 15 years!

eventually of course she stopped renting and bought a new colour tv

400ixl

bunnygo said:

Yes, the old copper network needs to go but the replacement has been thought out by millenials with reliable mobile coverage and reliable power. Total design disaster.

99% of people do not need to have 99.99% availability of their phone line. So it has been thought out to be the most cost effective for the vast majority of people.

If someone does need that level of availability, then there are simple power UPS solutions that can be installed. No need to burden everyone with a cost for the 1%.

There is no design disaster.

bunnygo

as always, stuff the old who have fall alarms, stuff the rural types who rely on a working phone line but have no mobile coverage, stuff the ill who do need a callout via a landline. And stuff those of us who actually prefer a landline rather than having to charge a mobile with its poor quality.

the UPS 'solutions' last one hour. Rural power cuts are always much longer than that.

levelling down for lack of engineering effort. Not good.

littleboo

What engineering solution do you think there is to supply power over a fibre connection?

onomatopoeia99

bunnygo said:

the UPS 'solutions' last one hour. Rural power cuts are always much longer than that.

You can buy as big a UPS as you like.  I live rurally and the main problems I face are dips of 1-2 seconds that are long enough to reboot everything, and outages up to 15 minutes which seem to be because the local substation is old and doesn't reset automatically (it used to be much worse, they could go on for hours as they had to send a person in a van out to reset it by hand).  Consequently, I have a 3000VA 2U high rackmounted UPS behind my router, which weighs 45 kilos due to all the lead acid batteries inside, and a Tesla Powerwall which is around 14000VA.  Between them they'd power a normal ISP router for weeks.

400ixl

bunnygo said:

as always, stuff the old who have fall alarms, stuff the rural types who rely on a working phone line but have no mobile coverage, stuff the ill who do need a callout via a landline. And stuff those of us who actually prefer a landline rather than having to charge a mobile with its poor quality.

the UPS 'solutions' last one hour. Rural power cuts are always much longer than that.

levelling down for lack of engineering effort. Not good.

In what way have they stuffed those who prefer a landline, they are still providing a landline. You loose credibility with statements like that.

UPS to run a router only can be quite small and last for days. You could run it for hours off a decent sized portable power bank with the right adapter.

Much longer than that you would be looking to relocate as no electricity likely means no heat, no hot water, limited cooking etc etc.

You are clearly on a rant and just want to hear supporting echo's. So all the best.