Petition to delay switching to digital landlines

[#1]

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/653201?fbclid=IwAR3zl5gFUbrvDkDEpvuGLy8KQ8xsRhl6NiBXz43m6Ni...

Will be interesting to see how much traction this gets..

[#2]

As a point of interest, a friend of mine who relies on a emergency call system tells me that the switch is paused at the moment - information she has received from her ISP, who were planning to do the switch (for her) in April.

[#3]

Whilst a longer time to "switch off" might help, but may only delay the "pain",  i think that what is needed are two main things:

1. Some means of resilience in the internet based phone system so that those vulnerable citizens and others in areas where mobile coverage is poor and short lived during power cuts etc, can be better catered for;

2 A method of migration from copper to VOIP (or similar) that is fool proof and requires little or no technical/administrative competence of the customer . It might also be better if that switch occurred automatically by default and then the customer could switch it off if they did not want a "landline".

Unfortunately these two things are biased towards the customer and not the industry and Ofcom seem to favour the latter in most of their deliberations.

[#4]

Great find @Protech .The lack of response from Plusnet on switching landline accounts is disgraceful, and this petition might raise awareness of problems with this.

[#5]

I haven't really gone into this or done much searching because it doesn't affect me particularly.

However, my late Father-in-Law lived in a retirement flat, one of 43 in the same building.

1. I suspect many of the residents don't have broadband, he didn't, and rely solely on a "conventional" landline telephone.

2. There is an emergency call system in each of the flats which relies on a landline.

Those residents without broadband will lose their means of the telephone option. Yes, a mobile phone will work, but why should those who don't own/use one be disadvantaged?

That emergency call system will be rendered useless. What do they do? Hang a "S.O.S." banner out of the window?

[#6]

Those residents without broadband will lose their means of the telephone option.

They shoudnt!. Their CP will provide a 'box' (which is essentially a router with a phone port) into which a conventional phone plusgs. The CP will then provide the phone service over a simple broadband (SoTAP if no Fibre https://www.cvf.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/copper/sotap ) connection using Digital voice.

Of course there is still the possible problem of any emergency call system with Digital voice, and backup for power outages ?

[#7]

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@MisterW wrote:

Those residents without broadband will lose their means of the telephone option.

They shoudnt!. Their CP will provide a 'box' (which is essentially a router with a phone port) into which a conventional phone plusgs. The CP will then provide the phone service over a simple broadband (SoTAP if no Fibre https://www.cvf.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/copper/sotap ) connection using Digital voice.

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CP? It looks like you know what you're talking about, but the rest of us might be puzzling over such acronyms.

[#8]

CP - Communications provider

[#9]

@mechanic123  Please keep up at the back, CP is communications provider basically the same as an internet service provider (ISP)

[#10]

Thanks for the clarification, although most of my communication is via email or snail mail neither of which has problems with switch-off next year.

[#11]

"Please keep up at the back, CP is communications provider basically the same as an internet service provider (ISP)"

I'm sorry if some of us aren't as clever as you.

I have a landline phone and other than the outlet on my master socket there's no other means of using it when this poorly thought out money making racket is fully rolled out.

No doubt that will mean the purchase of another phone/device which will connect to my router?

Just the job when there's a power cut, my area has quite a few. Router will be dead and the mobile signal is non existent too.

[#12]

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@newagetraveller wrote:

No doubt that will mean the purchase of another phone/device which will connect to my router?

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Yes, you either need a router with a phone port (and some providers are already supplying these) or you need an analogue telephone adapter (ATA).  Either way you also need a contract with a "voice over internet protocol" (VOIP) telephone service provider.  Plusnet do not offer such a service.  I've partly made this switch, have bought an ATA and set up a VOIP telephone service account with Andrews & Arnold (A&A).  The adapter cost about £40, the VOIP contract with A&A costs £1.44/month plus call charges.

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@newagetraveller wrote:

Just the job when there's a power cut, my area has quite a few. Router will be dead and the mobile signal is non existent too.

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This is a very valid concern, one I share as we also live in an area with no mobile signal that is subject to fairly frequent power cuts (we lost power for a few hours earlier this week, for example).  I wish I could tell you that there is an off-the-shelf solution to this problem, but there isn't.  The problem has several parts. 

Firstly, the switch from the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to VOIP means that consumers are now responsible for powering their own equipment - unlike the PSTN where the communications provider (CP) provides the power for the telephone.

Secondly, the equipment that internet service providers (ISPs) use to deliver broadband may well be subject to failure in the event of a power cut.  In my own case our broadband stays working for around 30 to 40 minutes after a power cut, but then fails as the backup battery in the local cabinet doesn't seem able to keep the service going for longer than that.

To ensure a reliable telephone service after the PSTN switch off needs some careful thought, and the solution for each person will depend very much on their particular circumstances.  There will be no "one solution fits all" for providing reliable telephone services that works for everyone.

For some mobile phones may work (although many mobile phone masts fail when their grid power goes off).

For some VOIP via their normal internet service may work (depends how long power cuts last and assume they have their own battery backup power for their router etc).

For some there will be no terrestrial solution that works, and they may have to look at installing both a battery backup system and something like Starlink to maintain connectivity if grid power fails.

My own provisional solution consists of a battery backup system to keep the router etc powered, an ATA to allow a telephone to work over an internet connection, a contract with a VOIP provider for a telephone service plus a dish antenna mounted on a roof top pole that can just about get an internet mobile signal from a distant mast that happens to have emergency back up power (it's a big mast with a generator building at its base).

Hopefully this clarifies the mess that the PSTN switch off is going to create for some who are reliant on landline phone connectivity, and highlights that it's very much up to each individual to find a solution that best works for them.  It is going to cost some people a significant amount of money to fix the problems the switch off will create. 

[#13]

@JSHarris Not defending CPs, or BT Group, but if you are subject regular power cuts, even, it seems, in normal circumstances, should the electricity network provider not be looking into why, and doing their best to rectify the problem?

[#14]

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@jab1 wrote:

@JSHarris Not defending CPs, or BT Group, but if you are subject regular power cuts, even, it seems, in normal circumstances, should the electricity network provider not be looking into why, and doing their best to rectify the problem?

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Yes, they should, but it's a fact of life in rural areas that overhead power cables will often come down in severe weather.  It happens every winter, and it seems the only way to prevent it is to run cables underground.  Although a robust option it's impractical, both in terms of cost and in terms of the challenges of getting landowners to agree to the disruption installing underground cabling may cause.

To be fair to our Distribution Network Operator, they have replaced a lot of very old cabling in recent years, plus they try and ensure that trees are trimmed wherever they are close to lines.  They are also very good at responding to failures quickly, but often they are unable to fix overhead cables until the weather abates, just because it may not be safe for their staff to work in severe weather conditions.

I think we just have to accept that there will always be areas where the power goes off at times in winter and try and work around it.  In my case, like some of our neighbours, I used to have a back up generator to deal with this, but recently switched over to a house battery system (mostly because it saves a lot on our electricity bill).  The telephone wasn't something I used to be concerned about, as for some reason it's very rare for the phone lines to come down in bad weather.

[#15]

@JSHarris Fair enough.