BT Landline switch off

[morqthana]

and have a look at this

Ta.

That's basically what I was going to try / look into.

Wonder why BT don't tell people about it, rather than making out you can have 1 phone plugged into the hub, and that's it.

 

[Diver Fred]

Looks like it is all going to happen.

Looks like BT / Openreach have done SFA about the problem of VOIP phones not working in a power cut, despite promising last year that they would.

Looks like they are assuming that every single one of their benighted customers has a mobile, and a reliable mobile signal.

Looks like they are assuming that not one of their benighted customers has more than one wired handset or other device (like a fax machine).

Looks like the whole <bleeping> plan has been made by people who are so <bleeping> ignorant and so <bleeping> insular that they think the entire world is like them.

I have a house wired for corded phones. WTF should I have to (at my expense) be forced install several of those disgusting and arguably illegal PLT things, or (at my expense) be forced to buy several cordless phones? What if there's no handy electrical socket near where I want the phones?

I have a lift with an emergency phone in it, and a power cut is a very likely time to want to use it. So what the <bleep> am I supposed to do?

Just how <bleeping> unacceptable do BT's plans have to be before someone official takes them to a quiet corner and says "You will NOT <bleeping> make things worse for people and then make them pay to try and recover some, but not all, of the functionality you've decided to take away"?

Please - it is NOT just BT - it is all Telecom's providers who made the agreement some years ago;
see https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-transition-from-analogue-to-digital-landlines
. BT call it Digital Voice (why I don't know as the whole country has been digital switched and transmission from circa 1995).

I'm F**K**G sick of people blaming BT for an industry wide practise. What is so really bad for BT is the 'Universal Service Provision' requirement so the cherry picking (CP's) companies sit on their hands and let BT take the blame for something they are all doing including taking the revenue generating business and BT has to sort out all the other problems that the CP's can't be bothered to service.

 

[cwhaley]

Since we switched to Virgin Media for our internet and since all of my elderly relatives have passed away, we haven't used the phone line in years.

Our master socket is in our walk-in wardrobe (just a cupboard above the stairs), so I've been using the socket to power a switched lamp above the door! Got the idea from when we used to get power cuts and Dad would power lamps around the house from the sockets.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Our master socket is in our walk-in wardrobe (just a cupboard above the stairs), so I've been using the socket to power a switched lamp above the door! Got the idea from when we used to get power cuts and Dad would power lamps around the house from the sockets.

Run that past me again..?

 

[cwhaley]

Run that past me again..?

Master socket in bedroom wardrobe. Wardrobe is dark so artificial light is useful. Wired an LED lamp with an RJ11 plug on the end and a door-activated switched between it and the lamp. Now when the door is opened, the LED lamp lightens the cupboard.

Dad used to do it when we got power cuts (we live near a power station and for some reason used to get a lot).

 

[davelx]

Since we switched to Virgin Media for our internet and since all of my elderly relatives have passed away, we haven't used the phone line in years.

Our master socket is in our walk-in wardrobe (just a cupboard above the stairs), so I've been using the socket to power a switched lamp above the door! Got the idea from when we used to get power cuts and Dad would power lamps around the house from the sockets.

So technically you are getting "free" power from openreach.

 

[cwhaley]

So technically you are getting "free" power from openreach.

Yes. Don't know if they monitor the line use but it works with a voltage regulator.

I don't want the socket there but I'm not allowed to move it, so that's compensation to me.

 

[DiyNutJob]

I don't watch TV. So, I don't know what's going on.

I have a landline phone. Can I just plug this into the router and it will work as before? I paid good money for a new landline phone recently and hoping I haven't thrown away the money. I am Ok for not having emergency access to the phone as I never had that need in the past.

 

[SFK]

I have a landline phone. Can I just plug this into the router and it will work as before?

Yes - basically that simple for one phone. Only issue is if your phone is a long way from router.

I was going to try/look into, running all my phone wiring and sockets from the port on the back of the hub...

I wrote a guide on connecting your router VOIP connection to your home phone cable so can have mutiple phones:

How to connect Phones and Alarms when BT phone service changes to Digital Voice

After implementation of Digital Voice, how to make all phones and alarms on other sockets work again. After BT's implimentation of Digital Voice my BT connected phones and alarm no longer works. Following is my solution to reconnect them to the 'phone' output of my router. What you need...

www.diynot.com

 

[SFK]

ps - I also have my router and my DECT phone base station pluged into a battery backup (UPS) so that my internet, my wifi and my VOIP opertates if there is a powercut (for a few hours).
(noting thart this only works if BT's cabinet also has battery backup).

 

[DiyNutJob]

Yes - basically that simple for one phone. Only issue is if your phone is a long way from router.

I just realized something! My broadband is via the copper wires. Am I f*ed? At the moment both the router and phone are up stairs, and not at the place where the BT wires come into the house next to the door on the ground floor. The interior wiring was part of the house build.

 

[bernardgreen]

I wonder if there are any "farmers line" still active in the UK, These were where the GPO would put their network termination equipment (NTE) on a pole at the boundary of the site. The cable from the pole to the farm house would be installed and maintained by the farmer.

The NTE was a couple of fuses and a couple of voltage limiters to prevent dangerous voltages reaching the GPO network.

With a farmers line there was never a requirement for electrical power on the post for the NTE

If a farmers line is converted to fibre will :-

a) the farmer have to provide power at the top of the pole
or
b) will OpenReach have to find a way to run the fibre across the terrain that previously prevented GPO engineers from installing a copper pair cable to the farm house.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Yes. Don't know if they monitor the line use but it works with a voltage regulator.

I don't want the socket there but I'm not allowed to move it, so that's compensation to me.

Draw enough current from the line, and it would show as engaged..

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I just realized something! My broadband is via the copper wires. Am I f*ed? At the moment both the router and phone are up stairs, and not at the place where the BT wires come into the house next to the door on the ground floor. The interior wiring was part of the house build.

Same situation here, though not part of the original build. Plan is, when it comes...

Main router in living room, next to where I expect it to come in then around living room under carpet, to reuse a LAN cable, feeding up to old main router. Old main router then feeds everything else, just as before.

 

[cwhaley]

Draw enough current from the line, and it would show as engaged..

I did become very interested in it all for a while, especially the way the network was set up and operated. I even started looking up the now defunct UK Warning and Monitoring Organisation, with its network of control points and receivers for use in case of nuclear attack.

I'll try our landline later.