Telephone line - that swop away from normal copper lines

5,000 public phone boxes are protected by Ofcom in the UK in areas with limited coverage and accident black spots, Openreach can’t remove them, at the moment.
My mobile, which I keep on and charged 24x7 will last approx 75 hours without running out of charge.
In those of 65 years old, 78% use a smartphone, increasing every year.

Maybe we were fortunate. Our service comes from BT., a helpful person arranged installation on the day of our choice. A package arrived the day before containing everything needed including a gizmo to plug our landline base unit into to avoid having to plug it into the new hub. I’d explained to the BT person as our hub is in the guest bedroom (only place our old hub would work!) it wasn’t such a good idea to plug the phone base unit into it. As Mr C has heart issues and does not use a mobile we were also sent a battery pack and charger to support emergency calls.

The OpenReach engineer was super, we all agreed the new hub could be fitted where the old one had been. The cable was tacked neatly to the wall, outside, half way around the bungalow and installed without mess. Once everything was working he tested the landline, showed us how to connect the battery pack, set up our tv, made sure we were happy and went on his way. It all took nearly three hours. My phone, the iPads and the computer connected without problem, Alexa argued a bit and then gave in.

So far so good. The landline (3 handsets) works perfectly as long as I remember to put the area code in for local calls. The internet speed is much faster meaning we have happy teenagers when they want to play games on their phones. It was one at a time before.

If you have notice of installation I’m told that is the time to ask for anything extra you need, such as the gizmo to enable the landline base unit to be other than attached to the hub or a battery backup.

We were probably very lucky with the engineer, I just hope I haven’t jinxed it all by being so positive!

We were moved over to VOIP in our last house. In our new house we have something similar. Both are/were crap. The line cuts out without warning or reasoning. We had a week when we could not getincoming calls.

We are always told these things inprove the service offered to customers. They don't. They just make life simpler for he existing suppliers.

Precisely M0nica - this is not for our benefit. They've clearly forgotten/don't give a monkeys about "the customer is always right". I've generally been asking around a bit more - and Chat GPT is telling me they don't have a legal obligation on them to give me my minimum 4 weeks notice I understood we are supposed to have - or indeed any notice at all!!!!!! They wouldnt dare pull that stunt of just switching off our fuel or water with no notice and not caring whether/when they'd work again. So why is our phoneline deemed to be different/they can do what they please and blow us? (Well at least standard plug-in phones can't be amended either......).

I don't understand why they're allowed to play ducks and drakes with us about this service. I never ever had any water service problems back in my home city and I lived there 40 years (the last 26 in my starter house). Never ever once and the one time I called them in (ie because a daft wotname of a neighbour had planted a leylandii tree near my house I would be selling one day and I figured its roots would go down into our Victorian drains and wreak havoc - and so I called them and went off to work for the day and by the time I came back from work I got a blow-by-blow description of they'd had various workmen out that morning/long phonecall/things down drain investigating/job done and dusted). West Wales is very very different indeed re the water company here (who are awful!) and in the 12 years I've been here they've been out time after time for the area...because things were wrong with their pipes and time after time we spend hours worrying about our water - whilst I try to say "Why are you so different to my old water company - with problem after problem and they never had that?". But even this useless/cba water board does tell us "It ain't you - it's us" and a little automated phonecall comes through saying that and I sigh resignedly with "Not again.....why are they so bad? South West Water isnt - so why are they?" and the water is working again a few hours later and I don't have to get involved in doing anything to make it do so. Because they know WE are the customer and we have to be notified and helped. So why is it different for the phone etc companies? It's a service to our home - the same as the other services - and so why the different attitude by the provider?

Same again with electric - there was a particularly bad storm recently. Some of the town had their electric stop working on them - there was community places to gather and wait/charge mobile phones/etc and people on Facebook offering help. Few hours later - back to normal. So again - why are phone companies let off the hook and can even get away with not telling us that we will have a problem and they deliberately caused it? What makes them different?

Why do the other services have to darn well at least try and provide a seamless service - but they don't?

You are perfectly right - it's all about them and blow us the poor customer trying to get a decent service.

Gobsmacked at such "don't give a damn-ery" on their part. Bet they don't pull that stunt on Buckingham Palace for instance and wouldnt be surprised if they're even allowed to keep their copper lines/have them replaced there if need be. If it's good enough for them to have special treatment then.......sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Worried that it does look as if I could just go to pick up my phone to use it and find it's been cut off and me not even told - still less asked when it's convenient to me/told an engineer will come in (of course) and not leave until I'm completely sorted to my satisfaction.

I've contacted the friend who changes people over to this supplier (as she's a sorta rep/contact for Utility Warehouse) and she says she's going to ring them tomorrow and ask them all about how they do things on this (as it does look a bit like maybe Utility Warehouse ignore peoples need to keep using their phone). So I should know a bit more then and let's hope it's positive.

Got awful visions of just being cut off and having to pay MY own money to get in a private engineer to sort me out and wondering who I'm supposed to be forwarding that bill to - answer being "I betcha I'm the one expected to pay it and no reimbursement".

Though my worst visions are the way my existing (pretty recent) phoneline goes underneath my garden including underneath my new paving stones. In which case - my temper would be heard from the nearer main road - as I threw them out of my garden if I caught them in the act (as has happened to some people). Plus side - I've got security cameras and could prove what was what and I'm now on friendly terms with a newish neighbour of the very intelligent/very forceful/Renaissance man type and I know very well he's perfectly capable of yelling matches and I doubt anyone would try sticking around for long against my will in my garden if I'm in and he's at his house nearby doing more renovating work on it. Not with both of us yelling at them to clear out.

Must speed up seeing "a man about a phone" to get my Chattie basic mobile phone up and running - as simple as it basically seems to be = me and technology are not a compatible mix.

If someone needs "sussing out" - then yep...I can do that basically and amused that a cornershop owner to my last house wanted to know which of his assistants was the thief he realised he had there and I was the customer he chose to ask for a verdict on who it was. Cue - I told the owner (as I'd picked up that a new one there was dicey) and that assistant got promptly sacked and the others thanked me for protecting them. But technology = agh!

This post is hilarious! Not for real surely?!

Nicolenet

This post is hilarious! Not for real surely?!

Believe me, it is 😉

This isn't as big a deal as you fear. There's a socket on the router that you can plug your existing wired house phones into. The only real difference will be that if there's a power cut, the whole system goes down, not like the old phone that had its own power supply down the line.

If you fear 'new technology' why on Earth did you use Chat GPT? !!!

That is precisely one of the points why many people wish to keep our existing phonelines - as they don't go down and everything else can be off - but the landline phones will still work.

Add this is a remote area here and lots of people literally will have no way whatsoever to make a phonecall no matter what if their old landline phone gets cut off - due to poor mobile reception. Plus some properties are SO remote they can be/sometimes are cut off by bad weather and the like.

I've figured I could have a new router if need be - and my main phone is inches from it. But my second phone is way away in another room and no way of attaching a very lengthy cord to a 2nd phone thingie on the router (assuming there is a 2nd phone thingie in the first place on one).

This remote area has already had an episode right near me - and I'm lucky I wasnt affected by it personally - where the electric was off for a couple of days (during cold weather at that). Cue for community halls opening their doors, neighbours with power offering help, etc. I was lucky that I was just out of reach of an affected area or that would have been everything in my house out of action - apart from my landline phones. So all I had to do was check if any immediate okay neighbours needed the use of my facilities and they didn't and we were sorted.

When we have power cuts, which are quite frequent in mid Wales, my mobile phone still works. If the local mast tower is also affected, I can get a weaker signal from the next nearest usually. I can charge my mobile in the car if there is no power bank as a back up. I think you would have far less worries if you got an up to date mobile with a decent battery life.

We had a letter from BT to say we were going digital and the date it would happen. Our broadband is with Virgin. We tried BT broadband but the signal kept dropping out.

What I don't understand, is our area has gone digital but our landline is still working, the only difference is now we have to imput the dialling code as well as the telephone number.

petra

CariadAgain
If you got the hang of a smart phone you could FaceTime your friend.

Or use WhatsApp - wouldn’t cost anything!

Retired65

We had a letter from BT to say we were going digital and the date it would happen. Our broadband is with Virgin. We tried BT broadband but the signal kept dropping out.

What I don't understand, is our area has gone digital but our landline is still working, the only difference is now we have to imput the dialling code as well as the telephone number.

The mystery deepens.

That wouldnt be a bother if that's what happens - as the friends I regularly phone have to have a dialling code used anyway - as they're respectively in southern Ireland and back in my home city.

Wonder if your landline is plugged into your router anyway? Both my landline phones are separate from my router - just plugged into two different phone sockets.

I've fairly recently swopped my broadband to that superfast - but just to the cabinet (if I'm remembering aright) and not superfast all the way to the house. Maybe you're one of those things and you've done that totally separate to all this malarkey and that's what is making the difference??

Goodness only knows what makes the difference sometimes. I'm still finding it extremely odd that (50 odd calls by engineers later) my broadband prior to that stopped "playing ducks and drakes" when an engineer visited me yet again back along the very first workday after the (blimmin' awkward) next door neighbour moved out - when he'd only been in the previous time a couple of days before she moved out and it was time no. 49 or whatever it was that it was still not fixed and so it was like the very next workday same guy was back again (and it would have been obvious to him her house was now sitting there empty).

I presume the "green box with all the lines in" that your phoneline comes from might have some connection with it as well???? You can tell I'm not techno-minded. All I knew about the "green box" that served my house was it became very clear it was a bodge job set-up and there's supposed to be a certain percentage of spare lines in these "boxes" - it's down there stated in writing in national guidelines and less local engineers confirmed it to me....but the engineers were struggling here because all those spare lines had been used up and they were doing a lot of cobbling together of how-it-shoulda-been and I came to some rather unfavourable conclusions of what was going on all round.

One of the mysteries of life - along with how many people don't apparently know mobile phones/smartphones are health hazards to use (underlined/written in red/how does one get that message over that "No I can't just swop from a phone that is NOT a health hazard - because it's a landline" to one that is a health hazard - because it's a mobile phone or smartphone. I'm not going to let my health get "played ducks and drakes" with to suit society - I'm going to keep using a landline (to suit my health). Society does not have the right to dictate to anyone they will put their health at risk to suit Society - landlines it is then (to protect my health).

My landline handset is now connected to a digital source. I do not know exactly what that means, but I do know that it now does not work during power cuts ..... hmmm ... doesn't feel much like progress to me!
I use my smartphone instead.

I think you re a tad out of date with your scare story of smart phones being a health hazard, maybe fits your narrative of not wanting one though Cariad 🤣

I was thinking that too BlueBelle, particularly given that digital home phones, particularly modern cordless ones, emit radiofrequency (RF) radiation as well. The base station acts like a mini cell tower, continuously emitting RF signals to communicate with the handset, even when no call is being made. There is no proven link between RF radiation and cancer though, so if you want to maintain phone contact, it seems illogical to resist having a mobile for that reason. I know lots of people who have now dispensed with a landline altogether in fact.

Not sure how people can manage to miss seeing articles re the health hazards of carrying smartphones around with them frequently - given how many of them there are.

But I guess that equates to how many women were totally unaware our State Pension age was being put up (a fact I'm well aware of - because the State neglectfully didnt send me a "We're putting up your State Pension Age" letter either back when I was in my 40's and I'm only too thankful I'd started reading a passable newspaper regularly - as I realised that fact because of the newspaper having an article about it or I wouldnt have known either).

So it certainly looks as if lots of people have likewise managed to avoid seeing all the articles/tv programmes etc around about the hazards of these hands-off phones - but I am one of the ones that did see the articles/programmes (yep...including on mainstream media). I'd been taking it for granted that the fact that most of us know this meant everyone knows it....but we've got posters on here that managed to miss all these articles/tv programmes and seem to not know that fact.

CariadAgain
Of course we have all read the articles but it doesn’t take long into the articles to see they are written by the same people who believe the earth is flat and Hitler is still alive.
Btw, both claims above are not true.

Maybe I can help alleviate some if the fear. I work in this industry. Yes its true.. everyone will be going digital eventually and yes you will be encouraged and given notice and no they won't just come and dig your garden over. It is a conversation that you will have with the 'openreach' engineers about the best route into your property. Please be mindful that its not all BT anymore, there are 2 main network providers that all the broadband companies use which are Openreach and City Fibre. Plus a few smaller independent ones. This is irrelevant to you, you're main concern would be making sure you have a router from your Broadband supplier which you can plug your landlines phone into. Its called voip. All your internal phone sockets will no longer work. If you use these, you will need to get a new set of cordless phones that just use electricity. You can ask your broadband provider for a battery pack for emergency use, if you have a power cut, but they will only usually give these out if you have a medical need for one of a lifeline connected to your phone/Internet. Its really not as scary or as bad as it sounds. And I would recommend having a basic mobile phone fully charged at all times for emergencies.

Krackerskate you skate around how poor and unreliable a VOIP phone can be compared with a land line.

the technology has never bothered me and we happliy accepted a VOIP phone in our previous home - and quickly regretted it. At one point we discovered that we were not receiving incoming calls, and hadn't been for nearly a week because the phone had reset itself. Calls were cut off and despite a mesh system, we could no longer use the phone everywhere in the house, nor in the garden, in the way we had done previously with a landline.

The problem is no better in our new home, surrounded by high buildings our VOIP recpetion is poor.

Im not skating around anything. Im stating facts as I know them. If your WiFi is poor in your property, then have a conversation with your broadband provider or google how to improve WiFi. I didn't invent the system. I just happen to work in that industry. I was just trying to clarify a few things.

petra

CariadAgain
Of course we have all read the articles but it doesn’t take long into the articles to see they are written by the same people who believe the earth is flat and Hitler is still alive.
Btw, both claims above are not true.

Love it Petra.🤣🤣
And TBH such “what iffery” is usually totally irrelevant, often scaremongering and frankly risible.

People also used to have a man walk in front of a train with a red flag to warn of its approach.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that despite being 77, I am the same generation as some others.

CariadAgain

Not sure how people can manage to miss seeing articles re the health hazards of carrying smartphones around with them frequently - given how many of them there are.

But I guess that equates to how many women were totally unaware our State Pension age was being put up (a fact I'm well aware of - because the State neglectfully didnt send me a "We're putting up your State Pension Age" letter either back when I was in my 40's and I'm only too thankful I'd started reading a passable newspaper regularly - as I realised that fact because of the newspaper having an article about it or I wouldnt have known either).

So it certainly looks as if lots of people have likewise managed to avoid seeing all the articles/tv programmes etc around about the hazards of these hands-off phones - but I am one of the ones that did see the articles/programmes (yep...including on mainstream media). I'd been taking it for granted that the fact that most of us know this meant everyone knows it....but we've got posters on here that managed to miss all these articles/tv programmes and seem to not know that fact.

Sorry if this comes over as blunt, but I don’t know how else to say that you don’t need to carry it round with you all the time to get the benefits of having a mobile phone? What is the difference, if digital landline phones emit the same RF radiation anyway? You can’t avoid going digital, so it’s a stark choice, surely, Hobson’s choice is going to be no phone at all, or a digital phone.

I think this is a case of choose your battles wisely. Life is change and I am sure you will still be able to contact your friend in Ireland quite easily.

I used to have a contract where I could phone my family in Australia for unlimited calls on my landline.

I ended the contract when we began making free Whatapp calls on my mobile!

I think this is a mindset issue rather than a technological one. Change can be difficult to manage, but if we don't manage it we are the only ones who suffer, as you have so rightly said CariadAgain.

Just go with it...

Nandalot, I'm the same ! A new line was made from the telephone pole coming into through upstairs bedroom . Engineer said pc and house phone had to be in their with it. It's totally impossible, I'm missing calls , the room , is a spare and unheated . They said a new type phone would arrive but it hasn't as yet so I'm off to BT to enquire. It was Open Reach who did the daft connection!

M0nica

Krackerskate you skate around how poor and unreliable a VOIP phone can be compared with a land line.

the technology has never bothered me and we happliy accepted a VOIP phone in our previous home - and quickly regretted it. At one point we discovered that we were not receiving incoming calls, and hadn't been for nearly a week because the phone had reset itself. Calls were cut off and despite a mesh system, we could no longer use the phone everywhere in the house, nor in the garden, in the way we had done previously with a landline.

The problem is no better in our new home, surrounded by high buildings our VOIP recpetion is poor.

Not very reassuring - and you've had this now in two homes in a row and I know you're obviously intelligent and yet you have problems not of your making with all this set-up.

Visions of "If they do change things on me - OMG I could be onto another 50 or so darn visits from OpenReach to get everything sorted" which is what I had just getting normal phone and Internet that I'd been used to after I moved here (ie the start of it was my phoneline was a party line one!!!!!! and that was just the start of all the sorting out I had to do - all whilst trying to arrange workmen in this "Pembrokeshire Promise (ie unreliability)" are to gut the house and I badly needed a computer/phoneline that worked normally in order to look up everything I needed.