Internet based "Land Line". I'm having a problem.

Not as far as we, the customers and users, are concerned. We had our changed over last year and have nothing like the same service or convenience as before the changeover. Only one of our extention phones works now, so we are unable to have a landline upstairs at all.
Sometimes they just don't ring at all, when people are trying to contact us, and, of course, they don't work at all when there is a power cut.
This change is of no advantage at all to the customer.

Landlines:

I have a major issue with these being discontinued. It is a retrograde step and could be potentially dangerous. BT and |Openreach are arbitrarily disconnecting landlines without first checking that there is a reliable mobile signal.

This happened in our last rental and now in our permanent house. My visiting daughter connected her phone to the broadband network, which only worked in two rooms of the house and not upstairs at all.

Silver Voices has launched a campaign about this and my local MP is involved. I suggested various scenarios:

1. What if one is upstairs and there is fire downstairs and there is no signal? Dead.

2. What if there is a violent intruder. There is no signal, so help cannot be summoned.? Dead.

3. What if there is a medical emergency? How can an ambulance be called? And the Lifeline/Telecare scenario still has not been resolved. Dead.

This has really not been thought through properly. The government is abrogating responsibility on one hand but on the other giving the telecoms companies the go-ahead. Why? Because they are all London based, their tiny minds are unable to think outside the M25. We live in a rural area (I must remember that the present incumbents are trying to decimate it) but there is no acceptable reason why I should not be allowed to have telephone conversations with friends and tradespeople. Unless somebody knows differently?

I am guessing that this fiasco has been put together by a 25 year old who has been tech savvy since he was four years old. Surely, no sensible adult could back this ridiculous scenario? Alexander Graham Bell must be turning in his grave.

Another with similar problems. Phone calls get cut off, you cannot use the phone in half the house because you are too far away from the base station. For a week we couldn't phone out and had to reset the router to get it back .It drives me nuts. I do have a mobile phone, but reception is not good.

I may be stating the obvious, but have you restarted your router? It cures most things. If it is affecting the TV as well it is your broadband that has a problem.

I'm still waiting nervously here in West Wales for them to come along in the first place re this - and not looking forward to what might happen then.

I know we're scheduled for spring 2025 - so it's on their list for shortly. I think my main consideration is that I have 2 landline phones (one in my study and the other in my sitting room).

It's a bungalow - so not two floors to consider. But I am worrying how to keep my sitting room one going (as the study one is my main one). I keep the sitting room phone basically so I can hear the phone go if I'm the other side of my house or in the garden. I've got a nasty suspicion they'll cut off my secondary one - and, as per usual, not give a darn that this would mean worse service for me.

Not to mention the "How does my main phone even work if the electric is off?". Answer is = "It doesnt and we dont care".

Many rural areas have a poor signal.
Why are they doing this?

Interesting about this, Aely, it was just mentioned on another thread
The bad signal is also causing Pixellation on the TV and intermittent loss of Internet on my laptop.

Government needs to look at this again. Write to yourMP.

I'm with BT - my internet is fine but the landline on the new digital handset I had to have is dreadful. Cuts out in the middle of calls almost every time.

I'm also in a semi-rural area, fortunately mobile signal is pretty good.

And how stupid is it that you have to dial the code for local calls on your landline - hardly progress is it?

BT do landline only option - the copper landline. That's what we have as can't get broadband so have satellite internet instead. Whether they are still doing new contracts for copper lines I don't know. I think we pay £19 a month and it includes mobile calls as well as landline so basically don't pay for any calls on top of the £19 a month. We rarely use it but I like having it as it's the only thing that works when we've had power cuts. I was told they would keep it going for quite a few years yet. If the option goes, we won't bother with a VOIP internet line - might as well just use a mobile phone then.

@Aely - maybe just cancel it and get a basic mobile phone? It's the same thing really - it uses your wifi or a mobile phone signal if out. Ok so it needs to be put on charge every night but that's easy enough. We only really use our mobiles now and the landline is just for emergencies. Although I admit I sometimes use it to phone my mobile when I've put it down and can't find it!

Edit. The £19 a month includes all calls basically. There's a limit on how many calls to mobiles but it's quite high so not likely to go over it. Unless you call someone's mobile daily for long chats.

dalrymple23

Landlines:

I have a major issue with these being discontinued. It is a retrograde step and could be potentially dangerous. BT and |Openreach are arbitrarily disconnecting landlines without first checking that there is a reliable mobile signal.

This happened in our last rental and now in our permanent house. My visiting daughter connected her phone to the broadband network, which only worked in two rooms of the house and not upstairs at all.

Silver Voices has launched a campaign about this and my local MP is involved. I suggested various scenarios:

1. What if one is upstairs and there is fire downstairs and there is no signal? Dead.

2. What if there is a violent intruder. There is no signal, so help cannot be summoned.? Dead.

3. What if there is a medical emergency? How can an ambulance be called? And the Lifeline/Telecare scenario still has not been resolved. Dead.

This has really not been thought through properly. The government is abrogating responsibility on one hand but on the other giving the telecoms companies the go-ahead. Why? Because they are all London based, their tiny minds are unable to think outside the M25. We live in a rural area (I must remember that the present incumbents are trying to decimate it) but there is no acceptable reason why I should not be allowed to have telephone conversations with friends and tradespeople. Unless somebody knows differently?

I am guessing that this fiasco has been put together by a 25 year old who has been tech savvy since he was four years old. Surely, no sensible adult could back this ridiculous scenario? Alexander Graham Bell must be turning in his grave.

They will probably tell us all to get red button call alert thingies - my Dad used to have one round his neck. I have no idea how that worked.

to put a more positive note on this, ours works well now we have a booster (though of course this costs more), slight delay on answering but we did buy expensive Siemens handsets as there is a lot of rubbishy ones

there are not is - OH distracted me!

If they did say "red button call alert thingies" = they have another problem then, ie those of us who have no intention of doing something we've got in the little virtual "box" in our head that is entitled "That's an old person thing - I ain't gonna do that then". Yep...I know...I know and some would call people in their 70's (as I am) "an old person" - but only if they'd lost the will to live..........and could run faster than me...

We were transferred to the new digital service almost 2 years ago despite raising grave reservations with BT. It is not unknown for our power to be out for 2/3 days-no internet, no phone connection. The mobile signal here is patchy and the mobile mast can also go down in a power cut. It does not have a generator backup so we are left with no service via either mobile or landline. We have the domestic 12 hour battery backup up which is completely useless if we do not have a signal. The last power cuts meant a drive of around 8 miles before we picked up a mobile signal. As we both have health issues we felt extremely exposed/vulnerable and have now bought a second hand satellite phone to provide us with communications in the event of a power outage.

I live in London and recently switched from EE to Community Fibre. I have problems with my TV and phone, but not on the same scale. I have been told it is Community Fibre's problem, but I do not know what they can do about my phone.

I have three landlines, the kitchen, the sitting room, and my bedroom. It is very irritating when I am expecting a call but the phone does not ring.

gentleshore
They will probably tell us all to get red button call alert thingies - my Dad used to have one round his neck. I have no idea how that worked.

These too work off your telephone line. No telephone reception, no operational red button alert.

Elowen33

I may be stating the obvious, but have you restarted your router? It cures most things. If it is affecting the TV as well it is your broadband that has a problem.

I am resetting my router every couple of days. When I have had a good enough broadband signal to check the companies "status page" it marks my TV and internet as being "intermittent" but my phone as fine - which it is when my signal is good enough to do the check!

I have Virgin but do not have a landline. Virgin has the worst customer service I have ever come across.

I contact them when my contract ends and the price more than doubles, It has never taken less than an hour to speak to somebody to bring the price back down to a reasonable level.

Katek

We were transferred to the new digital service almost 2 years ago despite raising grave reservations with BT. It is not unknown for our power to be out for 2/3 days-no internet, no phone connection. The mobile signal here is patchy and the mobile mast can also go down in a power cut. It does not have a generator backup so we are left with no service via either mobile or landline. We have the domestic 12 hour battery backup up which is completely useless if we do not have a signal. The last power cuts meant a drive of around 8 miles before we picked up a mobile signal. As we both have health issues we felt extremely exposed/vulnerable and have now bought a second hand satellite phone to provide us with communications in the event of a power outage.

I've not heard of the concept of a satellite phone.

How does that work out?

- How do they work?
- What do they cost to get them?
- Is using them just like a standard old-style landline phone? (ie they ring when someone is trying to ring you, you are on the phone however long you decide to be, you can ring whenever you please (even if the electric has gone down)?
- What is the cost of using them?

I agree with all the above. It is a truly retrograde step in so many ways and leads to a lot of stress. My consultant called me to give me my brain tumour results and it kept cutting out. When we got it through our new Sky broadband package we were told it was "all singing all dancing and could do so much more than the present phone". Total lies!!!!

CariadAgain
The first satellite phone I saw was in 1997. He was someone who came to look at our boat which was for sale.
The second time was 2004 when we needed a freelance international customs officer.
They are bigger than the mobiles we know.
They have a big transmitter that connects to a saterlite.

Current satellite phones and communicators are pretty much the same size as mobile phones and don't have a separate transmitter. They work directly from one of many satellites and are ideal for emergencies. The reason I say emergencies is because these phones can be very expensive to run. Monthly contracts can run into 3 figures but you can also buy prepaid airtime which is what we have. It was around £40 for 30minutes of airtime which isn't cheap, but what price peace of mind? Handsets can be expensive but our second hand buy was £300. Again, what price peace of mind? Oh and they work just the same as a conventional mobile phone. DH had one for work as he could end up in places with very poor mobile signal and DIL as a keen hill walker/climber has a much smaller, cheaper communicator which basically just sends out an emergency signal with her location. It's one way of providing yourself with a degree of security but certainly not a cheap option. It was either this, short wave radio and a Morse key or smoke signals!!

Gentle S: Lifeline/telecare is the red button thingummybob around neck or on wrist. At the moment it only works with conventional land lines.