Copper pairs

[#1]

We've recently transferred to Plusnet from BT for our telephone service.

We are concerned that BT were going to transfer all customers to an 
Internet service
making the present copper pairs redundant. We have several services that 
use the existing copper pairs!

What is Plusnet's attitude to this massive change? That last that I 
heard from BT was
that the changeover was 'on hold'. Any update or news please?

[#2]

@rigel1 It depends when your area is to be provisioned with 'Full Fibre'/Fibre To The Premises. Even when this happens, you will still have the 'copper cables'  for a while until the copper network as a whole is decommissioned - soon after 2025 if the fibre network is in place in the whole of the UK.

Is 'Full Fibre' available to you?

[#3]

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@rigel1 wrote:

We have several services that use the existing copper pairs!

You have until December 2025 to find alternatives  -  ISPreview : ISP BT Pause UK Digital Voice Rollout 

[#4]

@rigel1 

It's not just BT that are transferring phone services to Digital. OpenReach are in the process of withdrawing PSTN which runs the phone service. The only copper left running will be that from the FTTC cabinet to individual houses.

There are still many unanswered questions eg what happens in a power cut. You need to look at your services which use the PSTN copper wire and research / keep an eye out for any announcements re their continued use.

Brian

[#5]

This might be a useful read -  Openreach : "Getting ready for digital phone lines" 

[#6]

@Anonymous Useful. Not that I'll be getting FTTP until the last minute, according to the current BT plans - unless altnets get here first, but my current Fritz!box is already compatible with my current phones, so if I'm still with Zen then, it will just be a case of unplugging from the NTE5 into the 7350 (or whichever box I have then).

[#7]

@jab1  I'm not even on the Openreach FTTP plans that are due to be built by the end of 2026, despite being surrounded at about a mile radius in every direction by houses that already have Openreach FTTP !.   However County Broadband  have been busy in my area, and I have an FTTP pod with the fibres attached immediately outside my front door,  so could sign up today for FTTP and have it installed this week if I so wished.  I already have a suitable router that could handle 1Gbit throughput, and I have a Gigaset N300A-IP phone base station which already has both analogue landline and VoIP working on it, and at least four battery backed UPSes that can hold the power to my internet and phone connection for well over an hour.  The only thing that is now holding me back from changing my broadband provisioning, is that my daughter is currently doing her A-levels and I daren't disturb her usage of the internet until she has completed her exams and hopefully achieves the results she needs to go to university in September, at which point I'll reconsider my broadband supplier and convert my landline number to VoIP - when I can allow for a few days of interrupted service as my services transition.

[#8]

Given the amount of time (2-3 years) that it took Cadent to negotiate access and the ability to excavate in my immediate vicinity I'd be sure that BT's plans are (at best) 'highly ambitious' and perhaps rather vaporous. Cadent even went through a name change during the process. And then used a third party to do the work.

The current project manager for this is going to be (or should be) sweating buckets. IMO. But they'll likely be moved into a new position before the close of the project. And some other poor sop will carry the can.

Or is that me being cynical?

Of course, if someone had their thinking cap on several years ago the purple trunking could have been layed in at the same time as the big yellow pipes along the nearest highway. But, no. That A road is probably gonna have to be dug up (yet again).

(Once the trunking is in it is just a case of blowing through the fibres. Other means of feeding through are possible.)

[#9]

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@Anonymous wrote:

@jab1  I'm not even on the Openreach FTTP plans that are due to be built by the end of 2026, despite being surrounded at about a mile radius in every direction by houses that already have Openreach FTTP !.   However County Broadband  have been busy in my area, and I have an FTTP pod with the fibres attached immediately outside my front door,  so could sign up today for FTTP and have it installed this week if I so wished. 

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You must be in a really strange location.😉 We are right on the edge of SW Sheffield, but as all our cables are U/G there iare no major access problems, so providing BT get their ducks in a row it should happen as predicted, but who knows with that organisation? A local altnet has already laid their cables (in the BT channels) to about half a mile away, but nothing on their site suggests they are anywhere near ready to supply.

[#10]

@Anonymous 

County Broadband will be completely independant of OpenReach cabling so there would be nothing to stop you from have two connections running. Get County connected and then see about cancelling your current ISP / phone service.

Brian

[#11]

Also from your provided link.

"However, many consumers often only become aware of such transitions once they start to be directly impacted by them. The problem is that replacement VoIP solutions do have the odd caveat, and some of the most vulnerable people are starting to notice.

The first problem is that consumers, even landline-only customers, will need a broadband connection, and this makes the setup a little more complex (e.g. you must plug your old analogue phone into the router, an ATA adapter or change handsets – more details). The next challenge stems from the fact that a lot of older systems, such as building alarms and remote medical monitoring devices, have not been adapted to work with digital voice solutions.

On top of that, people often forget that the old analogue copper phone lines were remotely powered, which meant that even in a power cut you could still connect an analogue handset into the wall socket and make calls. But to do this with VoIP would require battery backup (Battery Backup Solutions) for your handset, router and ONT (the latter is only relevant if you have FTTP) – these will also only last for so long (a few hours, at most). Hard luck if you need to call 999 in an area with no mobile signal during a protracted outage.

Suffice to say, the recent storms left many people to suffer from lengthy power cuts and those who had been migration to a VoIP style product (e.g. customers of BT’s Digital Voice) suddenly came face-to-face with these caveats – particularly those in areas where mobile signals don’t exist or are unreliable."

"Lengthy power cuts" are known to extend to days (that's what happened in multiple places last winter). So UPS/BBS backup isn't really a workable option. It may be workable for many, but it isn't workable for all. USP and all that

I'm wondering what my mother would have made of this. And people of very similar age who have yet to pop their clogs. At least they wouldn't be able to blame it on the EU.