phone change over

[#1]

hi

 if i go to full fibre broadband does this mean i can keep my landline phone when the old system shuts down.

[#2]

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@rehtnap2023 wrote:

hi

 if i go to full fibre broadband does this mean i can keep my landline phone when the old system shuts down.

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Worth reading these threads:

https://community.plus.net/t5/Home-Phone/Switching-from-FTTC-to-a-VOIP-service/td-p/1932695

https://community.plus.net/t5/Home-Phone/Voice-migration/td-p/1932900

https://community.plus.net/t5/Home-Phone/landlines-are-being-fazed-out/td-p/1932724

https://community.plus.net/t5/Home-Phone/Will-plusnet-provide-a-voip-landline-service/td-p/1898912

plus a few more threads, all discussing the switch off of the PSTN (and by going Full Fibre/FTTP you're disconnecting from the PSTN voluntarily).

In essence, landlines don't just natively work over FTTP, as there's no copper wires to power the phone.  Plusnet are not offering a VOIP phone service for those that switch to FTTP/Full Fibre.  This means you need to switch to a provider that will sell you a VOIP service, plus you may need to install equipment in the house to get existing phones to connect to a broadband service (or you can get new VOIP phones for the house).

I'm trialling a VOIP phone arrangement for the time when the PSTN gets turned off in 2025.  What I've done at the moment is buy an ATA (analogue telephone adapter) that connects to our house phones (instead of them connecting to the master socket).  The ATA is plugged into the internet router and has been set up to use the VOIP service provided by Andrews and Arnold (as Plusnet don't offer one).  I'm paying A&A£1.44 per month for the phone connection, and calls are charged at between 1p and 1.5p per minute (more for premium rate numbers, emergency calls are free)..

Main downside of this is that the phone, as standard, won't work if there's a power cut.  The PSTN has back up power provided at the exchange, that powers all the phones as long as the lines are working.  Fibre has no power so your phone won't work if the power goes off.  My fix for this has been to install a battery back up system to keep the modem, router and ATA powered if the mains goes off.  Some suppliers (not Plusnet AFAIK) provide a battery backup system as part of the switch to FTTP, just to allow phones, alarms etc to continue to work in a power cut.

[#3]

There are several separate stages in the PSTN retirement:

• stop sell from 5th September 2023 - after that it won't be possible to get a new PSTN line, or transfer an existing one to a new provider
• staged removal of PSTN in various exchange areas - in those areas you won't be able to keep PSTN until 2025 even if you want to
• the removal of the last PSTN connections by the end of 2025

BT are already encouraging customers to move to DV. Other providers will do the same.

If you want to keep your land line number then you will have to move it to a VoIP provider in the next couple of years, but in some areas it will be much sooner (they can't migrate everyone on the last day).

[#4]

FWIW, a village not far from us has just had its PSTN trunk line turned off.  Openreach have had a policy of not repairing major PSTN line/exchange problems for a couple of months now, especially in areas where only a small number of customers are served.

This will become more common over the next two years, as more major faults go unrepaired.  I suspect that this will start to hit the news this autumn, when the usual equinoctial storms take trunk lines down and Openreach decide they are not worth replacing.

Be interesting to see how much more resilient fibre is to storm damage.  The tests I saw on overhead fibre "cables" some years ago were very impressive, the stuff is like ABC power cable, strong enough to support fallen poles.