Which providers will let me keep my home phone?

iniltous

Something of a self defeating argument, the complaint of DV not working in the event of a power cut generally is only advanced by those claiming not to have a mobile signal so ‘feel’ vulnerable should they need to contact the emergency services, you on the other hand are claiming to have 100% mobile  connectivity 100% of the time , so your complaint presumably is that you feel that your copper connection to telephone equipment that’s more than 40 years old is more reliable, however the statistics don’t support that point if view .
Im not sure how you arrive at the less value point of view , as stated many paid for services on PSTN are free on DV and the base price is exactly the same ( DV telephone is the same price as PSTN  , for rental and call charges ) 

Im pretty sure the majority of consumers will get much better performance from 900Mb FTTP than 230Mb 5G , but much like your experience with PSTN telephones, you seem to be unlucky in that the better technology seems to work less well for you 

brewerdave

M25 said:

Copper landline is dead and the people who thought it was a great idea to replace it obviously only seen a landline when they visited their grannies in the 1980s.

Just an observation but not everyone has a usable mobile signal at home- for example ,we are struggling to get a usable 4G signal here , no 5G whatsoever, outside or in.. Wifi calling is a bit hit and miss.
And no, we don't live out in the wilds, we are about 6 miles from a major city.

onomatopoeia99

M25 said:

Digital Voice is just a fancy way of saying you're getting less of a service. Or no service at all if you have no electricty.

If subject to regular grid failures, consider investing in a UPS to sit behind your router.  The backup at the exchange or cabinet for your traditional landline won't last forever in a widespread grid outage either.

M25

iniltous said:

....so your complaint presumably is that you feel that your copper connection to telephone equipment that’s more than 40 years old is more reliable, however the statistics don’t support that point if view .

Which statistics say real people have better experience bypassing a 150 year old technology and plugging into a router that needed local power? The old telephone system seemed to be rock sold IME. I have no idea why they're getting rid of it (except the people who thought it was a good idea never used the service very much, obviously).

Digital Voice is a great thing for people who don't rely on it.

I'm using a UPS since I lost my FTTP for a week. I might dump the UPS as it was really just for landline calls through the FTTP. As I've given up on landline calls it's no use really.

littleboo

I have no idea why they're getting rid of it (except the people who thought it was a good idea never used the service very much, obviously).

1) Its obsolete, 40 year old technology
2) It consumes huge amounts of power
3) It requires 1000's of physical buildings around the country
4) The skill resource to maintain it are ever diminishing
5) It relies on a copper connection to the home, the Openreach rollout of FTTP only makes sense if the copper is retired

Other than that, its all good for another 150 years

onomatopoeia99

M25 said:

iniltous said:

....so your complaint presumably is that you feel that your copper connection to telephone equipment that’s more than 40 years old is more reliable, however the statistics don’t support that point if view .

  The old telephone system seemed to be rock sold IME. I have no idea why they're getting rid of it (except the people who thought it was a good idea never used the service very much, obviously).

The System X  and System Y / AXE digital exchanges were introduced to the network from the beginning of the 1980s. You may recall the dial tone used to be at a lower pitch in the days of strowger / crossbar type exchanges and some people got confused at the higher tone the new exchanges put out and thought it was a line fault.  Things have moved on a lot since then and the whole circuit switched network that they underpin is being replaced by a packet switched network that supports more than just copper landlines as increasing numbers of properties can only get optical fibre.  You can't send a voltage down optical fibre to power anything.

The existing hardware is ancient in electronic terms and there is no sensible case for developing new exchange hardware that still supports sending an analogue signal over copper lines for voice communications in an era when everything is being moved to packet switching (and already has been at exchange level for some years).  So the decision was taken to retire the network after an extraordinarily long period of service.

What's replacing it uses far less power, which is important in many ways that shouldn't need explaining and is actually maintainable, which hardware designed in the 1970s is increasingly not almost fifty years on.

Rob5342

newpuppy said:

I never phone out, but a couple of people ring me on it because it would be expensive to call my mobile. 

Have you or they actually checked the price for phoning your mobile? At one times calling mobiles was expensive, but these days inclusive call packages tend to cover both, and the the BT and TalkTalk prices I looked at are the same for mobiles and home phones.

Rob5342

M25 said:

iniltous said:

....so your complaint presumably is that you feel that your copper connection to telephone equipment that’s more than 40 years old is more reliable, however the statistics don’t support that point if view .

The old telephone system seemed to be rock sold IME. I have no idea why they're getting rid of it (except the people who thought it was a good idea never used the service very much, obviously).

 Internet infrastucture is in place for video calls, streaming, working from home etc so it makes a lot of sense to use the same infrasture to carry voice calls, especially as people tend to use mobiles rather than fixed lines these days. Fibre cabinets have backup power supplies, and you can buy a battery backup for your router if you really want to.