Power cut? No more landline. Router reset/internet down? No more landline. Retiring a system that just works and has done for decades to throw everything into the internet traffic jam, all forced to be done in 4 years before cutoff, is inevitably going to cause problems. Not to mention the potential for hacking virtual wiretapping. Not everything is about big business, millions of homes being forced to rewire or lose landline forever, many will just abandon landline resorted to more mobile traffic and old people unable to use their phones when their router/ISP goes wrong. This addiction to making everything internet connected is a disaster when the internet inevitably has problems.
Convenience at a cost innit? Analogue means of communition and information should still be available and usable regardless of cost. The BBC at least understands this and Radio 4 is still earmarked to be available on LW even when every other FM/MW transmitter is switched off. Openreach ought to apply the same principal to PSTN landlines.
Precisely. What really worries me is the 999 service - if people need that on an old cabled telephone(which was powered by the old PSTN network) - that just worked - with IP phones I can see that service being unreliable compared to old system.
Uninterruptible Power Supply. Most if not all businesses have them, if they don't then they should. We have a home office and ours will keep all the computers and the phones going for an hour or two if the power fails, and we've never once in the 8 years I've lived here had a power cut lasting more than 5 minutes.
@@TestGearJunkie. Yet internet, including voip, will be running on the copper netowrk. I live in the biggest city in my county, and BT STILL haven't laid fibre around here.
I would much rather go back to the copper wire system. If you're in a rural area or somewhere mobile phone reception is bad or the electricity cuts out, you then have no way of contacting anyone with everyone being forced to have an internet connection just to make a phone call. Not many people these days have cb or ham radios either.
It will be great. Aside from not working when there's a power cut. And your emergency call and fall alarm devices stopping working if you're elderly or disabled. You'll essentially be forced to have internet, whether you want it or not. If your router fails then your phone will too. BT made little note or preparation for these problems until recently, and were basically advising peopel to use a mobile phone! They're now realised and put a temporary hold, but that is now expriring.
@@davkdavk In a prolonged power cut the mobile network will fail too. The repeater towers do not have an independent power supply. At best they have batteries to cope with brief interruptions.
@@richardgregory3684 Given that the emergency services now use the mobile networks instead of the previous Airwave system, I imagine that upgrading them to have a decent backup power supply would be high on the agenda.
This idea has already been moved back to 2026 and there are still places in urban areas that cannot get FTTC let alone FTTP. Some locations will not be viable for FTTP and will not have copper either when the exchanges go off line. But no one GAF about them.
We've just had a power cut. We're also on the priority service list as a member of the household is disabled. The existing landline has it;s own power and we were therefore able to receive calls from the electricity provider to keep us informed. Or call emergency services if w ehad to. With voip we'd be completely cut off because no power=no router=no internet=no phone.
Has the power cut finished..? How long did it last..? In 20 years I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of power failures I've had that lasted longer than 5 minutes or so.
@@TestGearJunkie. It was about one and a half hours. It also affeced quite a wide area in the city - not just the local "power block" but neighbouring ones. Traffic lights etc failed too.
@@richardgregory3684 We've been lucky here. We're literally across the street from a major substation, so a 132kV feed would have to get taken out before we lose power. Unless some idiot puts a pickaxe through a cable, of course, but that's never happened in the 8 years I've been here. As I said elsewhere, my 91yr old mother in law lost power for over a week, everything went out, phones, internet, street lights, the lot, for the whole village. She had to move in with another of my sisters-in-law until it was back on. But most cuts don't last that long.
@@TestGearJunkie. It just seems to me that making your phone dependent on the internet is putting another egg into the basket, and being without a phone is potentially much more risky than being without internet access. I guess because my mum is very elderly I'm just sensitive to the idea of not being bale to call 999 because there's a powercut.
@@richardgregory3684 I get where you're coming from, but the inescapable fact remains that the copper network is approaching end of life and just isn't viable to maintain any more for the diminishing number of people that don't have or want the internet. My mother-in-law is 91 but she's very internet-savvy and uses an ipad daily to video chat with friends and relatives. I get the worry about not being able to call 999 but I do believe they're intending to provide battery-backed solutions to the most vulnerable. Failing that, a small UPS can be had for under £100 and is a worthwhile investment. Granted, you shouldn't have to pay for one, but with no other option, isn't a few quid worth it..?
This is a case of the improvement being a lot worse than what we currently have. It is simply greed by the telecom companies. There is a long list of disadvantages, with almost no upside. The network will be less resilient by removing an alternative communication pathway, Waste the baseband, cost the customer more, not work during any power failure, unlikely to work during a national emergency, add nothing to the user experience, cost the country in expensive electronic imports, create a new electronic waste mountain, make the system vulnerable to hacking attack, and this is just a few of the disadvantages.
This system forces you to use an internet connection, but what if you just don't care for relying on internet and want a separate plug in to phone socket landline phone? Or if the electric etc goes out? Then there will be no charging mobile phones.
You need tget a portable battery power pack. Or more than one for when the power goes out. However, if it goes out for long enough the radio masts won't work either.
@@billgreen576 Nor will landlines if the outage lasts longer than the reserve power supply at the telephone exchange (usually about 24 hours). My mother in law was without power for a week last year when storm damage left half her village without juice. No phone, no internet, no nothing.
@BlubberBrother1672 Indeed I do. The UK is a Poonami of bad ideas under our current Tory adminstration from plans to stop installing gas central heating boilers in homes to stopping sales of new ICE vehicles and many many more. All PR spin with no regard to the real life consequences.
They won't. PSTN phones will not work with the Internet. VoIP is basically a way of making voice calls over the Internet. BT are replacing old phones with VoIP phones. VoIP phones either connect to the Broadband Hub via a cable or I believe you can get WiFi versions and you will get to keep your old number. You will need to have a Broadband connection but everyone has access to this and it does not need to be fast, Voice calls use hardly any bandwidth but as all Copper cable will be replaced we will all end up on Fibre connections. And of course once the Landline has gone then there will no longer be a need to pay the Line Rental for the Copper Cable although I am sure BT will get their money back somehow even if this exercise is going to save them lots of money in the long-term,.
@@TestGearJunkie. Well, we've been swapped over to VOIP for about a month now, and our BT experience has been far from smooth!..... There are still things yet to be sorted with Billing and access to my online account without which we can't use any of promised functionality of the new VOIP system. It will be interesting to see how it goes.......
@@rustandoil Do you have fibre to the premises..? If you can get that it's a lot more reliable. As for a VoIP provider, we've been using Sipgate since 2004 and apart from a few hiccups in the early days when they were struggling to get the UK servers up and running, they've been faultless and I still have phone numbers going back to that time that work fine.
@@TestGearJunkie. It will if there's a power cut. The existing landlines carry their own power and major exchanges have their own generators to ensure that telephones work even during a power cut. The replacement is absolutely dependent on your router being operative. Your phone becomes an internet based service. No power=no router=ninternet=no phone.
@@richardgregory3684 I wasn't talking about a power cut, that's been well dealt with elsewhere. I was talking about pre-fibre broadband dropping out while the phone remained active, something we've had more than once. Broadband over FTTP is very reliable, and (granted, with power) the VoIP phones will be as well. I've been using VoIP in one form or another since 2004 and I can count the number of power failures on the fingers of one hand. With a UPS (a worthwhile investment) the system is even less likely to drop out.
P O W E R C U T !!!!!!! Not to mention redcare pendants/fall detectors and security systems that rely on PSTN. Openreach has taken absolutely NO precautions towards this switchoff and unless a Non electricity required version of a router is introduced, you're screwed in the event of a power cut.
@TestGearJunkie. there we go then. Unless one of these becomes standard then it isn't a total replacement for PSTN in terms of redcare etc They've really screwed the pooch here
@@whatamalike Yeah, possibly, but a small UPS just to power the router and maybe a PC wouldn't cost the earth, I've seen them for less than £100. Even the relatively large one we have, which gives us a good hour and a half for two computers, 4 monitors, plus the router and all the rest of the networking kit only cost us £250 from eBay. I agree it's not ideal having to buy one if you didn't need one before, but it's a worthwhile investment in my opinion.
Spend millions on a coronation.... but replacing copper wire is too expensive. Mm k. So we are forced to all rely on broadband. Tell me again how this is a democracy?
Power cut? No more landline. Router reset/internet down? No more landline. Retiring a system that just works and has done for decades to throw everything into the internet traffic jam, all forced to be done in 4 years before cutoff, is inevitably going to cause problems. Not to mention the potential for hacking virtual wiretapping. Not everything is about big business, millions of homes being forced to rewire or lose landline forever, many will just abandon landline resorted to more mobile traffic and old people unable to use their phones when their router/ISP goes wrong. This addiction to making everything internet connected is a disaster when the internet inevitably has problems.
Convenience at a cost innit? Analogue means of communition and information should still be available and usable regardless of cost. The BBC at least understands this and Radio 4 is still earmarked to be available on LW even when every other FM/MW transmitter is switched off. Openreach ought to apply the same principal to PSTN landlines.
Precisely. What really worries me is the 999 service - if people need that on an old cabled telephone(which was powered by the old PSTN network) - that just worked - with IP phones I can see that service being unreliable compared to old system.
Sure someone once said something about eggs and a baskets. Cant remember what exactly, but im sure it all worked out just fine. :-)
Skynet can't wait.
Uninterruptible Power Supply. Most if not all businesses have them, if they don't then they should. We have a home office and ours will keep all the computers and the phones going for an hour or two if the power fails, and we've never once in the 8 years I've lived here had a power cut lasting more than 5 minutes.
"They were so pre-occupied in thinking about whether they could...they didn;t stop to think about whether they should"
Ian Malcolm.
That's the age old story. But the fact remains the old copper network is reaching end of life.
@@TestGearJunkie. It's reaching the end of its life because they have chose to. Get back to your video games.
@@Jason.King.at.your.service Eh..? Never played a video game in my life, unless arguing with pillocks like you counts.
@@TestGearJunkie. Yet internet, including voip, will be running on the copper netowrk. I live in the biggest city in my county, and BT STILL haven't laid fibre around here.
I would much rather go back to the copper wire system. If you're in a rural area or somewhere mobile phone reception is bad or the electricity cuts out, you then have no way of contacting anyone with everyone being forced to have an internet connection just to make a phone call. Not many people these days have cb or ham radios either.
You'd be surprised how many amateur and CB radio operators there are.
M7TUD
@@wisteela Indeed (GM6URP) but under UK licence rules we aren't allowed to interconnect with the PSTN the way they are in the US.
It will be great. Aside from not working when there's a power cut. And your emergency call and fall alarm devices stopping working if you're elderly or disabled. You'll essentially be forced to have internet, whether you want it or not. If your router fails then your phone will too. BT made little note or preparation for these problems until recently, and were basically advising peopel to use a mobile phone! They're now realised and put a temporary hold, but that is now expriring.
A lot of providers provide sim based backup networks now
@@davkdavk In a prolonged power cut the mobile network will fail too. The repeater towers do not have an independent power supply. At best they have batteries to cope with brief interruptions.
@@richardgregory3684 Yeah, but highly unlikely. no more likely than traditional phone lines if you think about it.
@@richardgregory3684 Given that the emergency services now use the mobile networks instead of the previous Airwave system, I imagine that upgrading them to have a decent backup power supply would be high on the agenda.
@@TestGearJunkie. I wouldn;t bet on it, I'd bet more they just assume they will be working.
This idea has already been moved back to 2026 and there are still places in urban areas that cannot get FTTC let alone FTTP. Some locations will not be viable for FTTP and will not have copper either when the exchanges go off line. But no one GAF about them.
We've just had a power cut. We're also on the priority service list as a member of the household is disabled. The existing landline has it;s own power and we were therefore able to receive calls from the electricity provider to keep us informed. Or call emergency services if w ehad to. With voip we'd be completely cut off because no power=no router=no internet=no phone.
Has the power cut finished..? How long did it last..? In 20 years I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of power failures I've had that lasted longer than 5 minutes or so.
@@TestGearJunkie. It was about one and a half hours. It also affeced quite a wide area in the city - not just the local "power block" but neighbouring ones. Traffic lights etc failed too.
@@richardgregory3684 We've been lucky here. We're literally across the street from a major substation, so a 132kV feed would have to get taken out before we lose power. Unless some idiot puts a pickaxe through a cable, of course, but that's never happened in the 8 years I've been here. As I said elsewhere, my 91yr old mother in law lost power for over a week, everything went out, phones, internet, street lights, the lot, for the whole village. She had to move in with another of my sisters-in-law until it was back on. But most cuts don't last that long.
@@TestGearJunkie. It just seems to me that making your phone dependent on the internet is putting another egg into the basket, and being without a phone is potentially much more risky than being without internet access. I guess because my mum is very elderly I'm just sensitive to the idea of not being bale to call 999 because there's a powercut.
@@richardgregory3684 I get where you're coming from, but the inescapable fact remains that the copper network is approaching end of life and just isn't viable to maintain any more for the diminishing number of people that don't have or want the internet. My mother-in-law is 91 but she's very internet-savvy and uses an ipad daily to video chat with friends and relatives. I get the worry about not being able to call 999 but I do believe they're intending to provide battery-backed solutions to the most vulnerable. Failing that, a small UPS can be had for under £100 and is a worthwhile investment. Granted, you shouldn't have to pay for one, but with no other option, isn't a few quid worth it..?
This is a case of the improvement being a lot worse than what we currently have. It is simply greed by the telecom companies. There is a long list of disadvantages, with almost no upside.
The network will be less resilient by removing an alternative communication pathway, Waste the baseband, cost the customer more, not work during any power failure, unlikely to work during a national emergency, add nothing to the user experience, cost the country in expensive electronic imports, create a new electronic waste mountain, make the system vulnerable to hacking attack, and this is just a few of the disadvantages.
This system forces you to use an internet connection, but what if you just don't care for relying on internet and want a separate plug in to phone socket landline phone? Or if the electric etc goes out? Then there will be no charging mobile phones.
You need tget a portable battery power pack. Or more than one for when the power goes out. However, if it goes out for long enough the radio masts won't work either.
@@billgreen576 Nor will landlines if the outage lasts longer than the reserve power supply at the telephone exchange (usually about 24 hours). My mother in law was without power for a week last year when storm damage left half her village without juice. No phone, no internet, no nothing.
@BlubberBrother1672 Indeed I do. The UK is a Poonami of bad ideas under our current Tory adminstration from plans to stop installing gas central heating boilers in homes to stopping sales of new ICE vehicles and many many more. All PR spin with no regard to the real life consequences.
i dont want to answer my phone anywhere other than at my desk!
You can still answer phone at desk, you can get similar handset.
This is truly awful; anyone with older relatives who live in rural areas knows this is extremely unfair and could have a great human cost.
I'm just hoping that all the providers provide everybody with some way of connecting their existing telephones.
They won't. PSTN phones will not work with the Internet. VoIP is basically a way of making voice calls over the Internet. BT are replacing old phones with VoIP phones. VoIP phones either connect to the Broadband Hub via a cable or I believe you can get WiFi versions and you will get to keep your old number. You will need to have a Broadband connection but everyone has access to this and it does not need to be fast, Voice calls use hardly any bandwidth but as all Copper cable will be replaced we will all end up on Fibre connections. And of course once the Landline has gone then there will no longer be a need to pay the Line Rental for the Copper Cable although I am sure BT will get their money back somehow even if this exercise is going to save them lots of money in the long-term,.
@@daveoram7249 Yes, I know all this, but converters exist, as do routers with phone sockets as they have a converter built in.
I've just succumbed to BT's pressure and signed up for VOIP at our work.... Not looking forward to the transition
Been using VoIP in one form or another since 2004 and I can count the outages on one finger. But then I don't use BT.
@@TestGearJunkie. Well, we've been swapped over to VOIP for about a month now, and our BT experience has been far from smooth!..... There are still things yet to be sorted with Billing and access to my online account without which we can't use any of promised functionality of the new VOIP system.
It will be interesting to see how it goes.......
@@rustandoil Do you have fibre to the premises..? If you can get that it's a lot more reliable. As for a VoIP provider, we've been using Sipgate since 2004 and apart from a few hiccups in the early days when they were struggling to get the UK servers up and running, they've been faultless and I still have phone numbers going back to that time that work fine.
@@TestGearJunkie. Yeah so you keep saying. You know where to put that one finger.
My land lines not working
A dreadful idea. When your internet connection drops out you'll lose your landline connection..
FTTP is inherently more stable than copper, so if you can get this, it's unlikely to drop out as much, if at all.
@@TestGearJunkie. It will if there's a power cut. The existing landlines carry their own power and major exchanges have their own generators to ensure that telephones work even during a power cut. The replacement is absolutely dependent on your router being operative. Your phone becomes an internet based service. No power=no router=ninternet=no phone.
@@richardgregory3684 I wasn't talking about a power cut, that's been well dealt with elsewhere. I was talking about pre-fibre broadband dropping out while the phone remained active, something we've had more than once. Broadband over FTTP is very reliable, and (granted, with power) the VoIP phones will be as well. I've been using VoIP in one form or another since 2004 and I can count the number of power failures on the fingers of one hand. With a UPS (a worthwhile investment) the system is even less likely to drop out.
@@TestGearJunkie. Total bollocks. It is not more stable than copper. You're very keen to push this crap. Is your business involved in this I wonder.
P O W E R C U T !!!!!!!
Not to mention redcare pendants/fall detectors and security systems that rely on PSTN. Openreach has taken absolutely NO precautions towards this switchoff and unless a Non electricity required version of a router is introduced, you're screwed in the event of a power cut.
Uninterruptible Power Supply.
@@TestGearJunkie. will routers come with this as standard?
@@whatamalike Probably not, but we needed one as we have a home office (my wife works from home and being offline isn't acceptable).
@TestGearJunkie. there we go then. Unless one of these becomes standard then it isn't a total replacement for PSTN in terms of redcare etc
They've really screwed the pooch here
@@whatamalike Yeah, possibly, but a small UPS just to power the router and maybe a PC wouldn't cost the earth, I've seen them for less than £100. Even the relatively large one we have, which gives us a good hour and a half for two computers, 4 monitors, plus the router and all the rest of the networking kit only cost us £250 from eBay. I agree it's not ideal having to buy one if you didn't need one before, but it's a worthwhile investment in my opinion.
Spend millions on a coronation.... but replacing copper wire is too expensive. Mm k. So we are forced to all rely on broadband. Tell me again how this is a democracy?
Being retired because of profiteering greed as is usual with BT.