Telephone line - that swop away from normal copper lines

The biggest problem with the changeover is the way BT has handled the whole changeover. Their aapproach to consumers from day 1, has been 'this is what we are going to do and this is when we are going to do it.' They were entirely prepared to leave people in need of emergency lines at all times, without back-up and even when forceed to do so did it with very bad grace

Their publicty has just been airy assurances that it will give us better service than we had before and we will not notice the changeover. We had absolutely no notice that we were goingto lose our landline and have VOIP until the Open reach people knocked on our door.

We were stupid enough to believe the publicity, so it came as a nasty shock when after the changeover phone calls cut out, when I found, if I walked to our utility room or integral garage the phone cut out entirely, despite a house wide mesh system. Events that had not happened with a landline.

We need to remember that BT and the Post Office were once one and that the problems with the PO computer system go back decades and that the cpr[orate culture that led to the dishonourable and aappalling way the Post Office treated is post masters, is part of the BT corporate culture as well. As far as BT is cncerned the consumer pays up and shuts up and talke what it is given.

You won’t be able to delay it, because they will switch off the system at your local exchange, it’s a phased programme, due to complete nationwide by January 2027.

I'm wondering if come the time I'll have to spend my darn money and hire a private engineer and tell him what I have and ask how I keep it like that - or as near to as I can possibly manage etc. They should know about what's what and - because I'd be paying them quite directly - then care about what's what.

As far as I can tell - I might be able to "play for time" to drag it out for a year or so (which is a noticeable proportion and worth doing at this sort of age I am now and gives them longer for everyone else to "kick up" of the people that do expect decent service and will "say something" if they don't get it - rather than those that just "accept what they're given" (never a category I've been in myself since adulthood LOL).

Might be the best way to play it. After all the electric smart meters have been delayed and delayed again for a lot of us because some people are kicking up about them and trying not to have them.

Times change Cariad in my and many others view, for the better, going backwards, as far as tech is concerned, isn’t possible in most areas, including phone communication.

I'm merely pointing out VOIP technology handsets are not the only ones available for 'house' phones. If you have poor quality voice calls on your landline substitute handsets, you could ask about different solutions because there are choices. I'm not going to copy the results of a Google search on DECT here.

I've worked in high tech industries for many years before retiring. I don't believe my brain has been fried by exposure to the wavelengths used by telecomms over the last 30 years and I'm getting on. I would, however, keep away from nuclear power reactors.

CariadAgain

NB; Can you explain in laypersons language what you mean by DECT technology?

Why don’t you ask your ChatBot friend. 🤷‍♀️

There's clearly a massive incomprehension gulf.

- That everyone has Alexa - I can't think of anyone at all that does. Wouldnt have one as a gift - as it's hardly something anyone needs.
- It's double dutch to talk about DECT phones and VOIP handsets. Surely they're both phones and they are both presumably plugged into the router instead of into the phone socket and they both have a problem about "How does one plug a 2nd phone into a 2nd something-or-other in a different room?" and some people don't care what happens to us.
- What's a module when it's at home?

Might as well be talking in a different language.

Me - I want:
- my main phone in my study as per now and I'm being told it has to plug into my new router I'm told I will need instead of into the phone socket. Well that will still work.
- my secondary phone in my sitting room and gawd-alone knows what that is supposed to plug into and the "don't cares" of this world are saying "Tough luck - you've lost it and we don't care if you can't hear your study phone ring in your sitting room. You'll just have to check your study phone at intervals to see if someone you couldnt hear has left a message on your main phone"
- I am going to be paying exactly the same phone/internet bill as I do now - no dearer obviously (ie just because of something that's nowt to do with me and my choices)
- They refuse to have a system available to deal with making landline phonecalls if the electric goes off = tough luck - we expect you to use a smartphone even if you havent got one/dont need or want one/couldnt use it anyway as it's too complex for a non-techno person (and anyway it's a health hazard because of being wireless - hello!!!!). You can take risks with your health if you like - but some of us are certainly not going to do so because other people don't seem to know that fact that they are hazardous or refuse to believe it despite all evidence proving it is.

My head hurts....

Well we will all survive (some better and more easily than others ) our ears won’t drop off and we won’t fizzle up in a heap We will all get used to the new tech that comes along well nearly all ( except Cariad ) the world won’t stand still for the few people who are wanting to stay in the 1900 s
We get used to it
I use Whatsapp or Messanger to talk for free as long as I like to my overseas relatives and friends why not do that Cariad

Renata - You've reminded us that a lot of our public property is now in some private hands or other - because the Government of the time flogged our property off - grr!!

Guess this is where the chickens are coming home to roost - ie our phonelines being shared with a variety of private companies. Gives them all lots of scope to play "pass the buck" and lots of scope in a country that doesn't function very efficiently anyway (I can say that - as I am British and the inefficiency often appalls me) to try saying that things are down to someone else and not them. Previously - in Normal Times - there would be just the one public supplier and it's obviously their responsibility and they could split costs all round and/or go to the Government to sort paying for it all.

NB; Can you explain in laypersons language what you mean by DECT technology?

Thank you missed out - it's all helping to clarify what the situation is. You don't surprise me a bit re old cables not taken out when new ones were put in - even when the racks were buckling under weight.

I've been told by a local businessman here that's basically in the "he's nobody's fool category" that they've found they've got the problem here of a substantial proportion of the local exchange has been found to contain asbestos and they're having kittens about it (well the more responsible ones will be - and the errrr...far-from-responsible ones won't be giving a darn as per usual). I've been a little "surprised" by lack of safety precautions I've noticed in a variety of respects round here (scrambling round on the roofs of 3 storey houses/no scaffolding up etc anyone?!!!)/building houses on land even I know has Japanese Knotweed and I've seen no sign of it being properly dealt with anyone?!!!.)

So - goodness only knows what's happening (or not) at that phone exchange...I almost dread to think.

I have seen no mention of DECT phones, only VOIP handsets.

Before changing from copper to fibre, I had two, wireless DECT handsets in the house, one in the upstairs bedroom and one in the kitchen. When Openreach installed my new router, they replaced my two DECT handsets with new ones. The new router includes a DECT module so nothing has changed (except I had to transfer my many landline phone contacts over to the new system).

I mention DECT technology because no-one else has. For those with 'difficult' homes, it should help to improve call quality over VOIP.

I wonder about those complaining about having to dial the 'Area code' when making calls. Surely you save your contact numbers on your phone? Once stored, you don't have to dial anything, just open the contact and press the 'Call'' button. You could also ask Alexa/Siri to call your contact for you.

The other thought that comes to mind is that I don't remember anyone mentioning WiFi calling from a mobile phone. If your mobile signal at home is poor (and you have a modern mobile phone), you can make good quality calls from your mobile via your internet router.

No-one has mentioned the ability to provide satellite phones for remote areas with poor mobile coverage.

Technology moves on - I've been into old exchanges. Old cables were not taken out, newer ones were just laid along the tops of the racks which were buckling with the weight. The buildings housing the generators that provided power needed to keep old landlines active were huge. Maintaining old networks and equipment is costly and unsustainable.

When you say "as long as you have a broadband signal in those rooms" I'm focusing on the word "you" - as in meaning "Your internet connection has to be wireless - rather than wired-up". Am I interpreting that correctly?

How does that multiple phones in a house work out for someone who has wired-up computer and doesnt/won't have wireless. That's confusing me - how one would have a landline phone from a wired-up computer router in a different room - and I'm interpreting it as meaning "wired-up people can't". Have I got that right?

The medical alarms thing is indeed an issue for those who need that sort of facility. Reminder to self to check on the older woman living near me on her own and I know I gave her my contact details - so she can phone me if she has an emergency and I can take it from there until her daughter (an hour car journey away) could get to her. The area I live in now is so remote and appalling NHS service in many respects that my "got to go to A & E" interpretation if I ever needed it is "Phone the local taxi firm I use and get them to drive me back to my home city A & E - that 5 hour drive would probably be a sight quicker/more comfortable than a wait in one of the A & E's in this area - which shock me rigid whenever I hear what they're like - ie totally unacceptable" and I'm absolutely horrified by some of what I've been told about them.

That "Oh you'll have a battery back-up if you ask for it" doesn't cut it when, I gather, the battery only lasts for about 1 hour!!!! That's pathetic. There's no way that would last for several "emergency" calls to local firms etc and even one personal conversation with a long-distance friend. Very primitive technology indeed. When we had a recent electric outage on some housing near me here it was out for a couple of days - and that during cold weather. A long time to not be able to make/receive phonecalls on a landline phone and in an area where it's impossible to follow the emergency plan I always had back in my home city - which I never had to implement once in all those years and it just consisted of two words = "Go out". Out for a place to eat, out for a hotel, out for somewhere social one could just be in....just "Go out" and that was all the emergency plan I needed.

In remote areas (like where I am now) "Just go out" doesn't work as an emergency plan and one has to be able to make phonecalls somehow - as areas like this work more around "The emergency plan is checking out if there's community facilities opened up for people....check if there's anywhere else in the town still working as normal etc". Not everyone can just "phone a taxi and leave the town for however long necessary if things aren't working". I appreciate that few people could in fact. Living in some areas is more "challenging" than many appreciate and that pathetic 1 hour battery worth would vanish in no time at all.

I'm related to someone who worked for B.T. for many years.
The old copper cables, originally installed, and maintained, at massive expense all over our country by the G.P.O. - (later called B.T.) are now seriously deteriorating, and having to be replaced.

B.T. was gradually stopped from being a monopoly by our government, between 1984 and 1991. So now they have to share the network with many other phone suppliers.

For them it is no longer an affordable possibility to dig up all the roads or pavements again, all over the country, to install new copper cables!!! In any case, with the internet, it is sadly an outdated technology.

To facilitate all the new phone companies who are currently sharing B.T.'s old network - a new technology has to be introduced. Which are fibre optic cables. This new technology is much more powerful, easier to maintain, and more secure than the old copper system.

It is really annoying for us all to undergo this change - but it is the right thing for all of us in the long term.

The new indoor 'phones are "V.O.I.P" (voice over internet protocol) and function from your broadband - so I believe you can have as many of these phones in your home as you want - as long as you have a broadband signal in those rooms.

Many of us are declining having one or more of these "V.O.I.P." phones, because of the extra expense of renting them - and we are saving money by being "mobile only".

The scary thing is that people who rely on medical alarms - would have their alarms cut off, if their broadband went down. So I don't yet know how the 'phone companies are going to get around this serious problem.

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.

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!

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.