Bloody digital switchover!

[twiddlingthumbs69]

Has anyone successfully been changed over with BT from analogue to digital.
I've just had 48hrs of hell with it. And a migraine!
It really seems as if BT hasnt thought this through.
I'm tech savvy and it bamboozled me. We now have a phone that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.
But! The real problem is, in the event of a power cut the landline won't work but, more importantly, neither will the elderly alarm pendants, which my mother has.
Picture the scene. There's a power cut. Mum gets up in the dark to find a torch, trips over, pushes her pendant for help and nothing!
Apparently BT were warned about this together with the system being not user friendly for the older generation and have gone for it anyway. 😡

I know. This an absolute scandal and I am so surprised that the government has ok'd this to just go ahead. It's not just the issue with pendant alarms. It's also what happens generally when there are long power outages. Our power goes down all the time. The last time it went out for over 24 hours and was over a really large area, The mobile phone tower also went down so my only means of contacting anyone was my old landline. If I hadn't had that I would have been stuck. I just needed to contact work to find out what office I could go into as I was unable to work from home. My home phone also meant I could contact U.K. power to find out what was going on and get updates. If I was an isolated elderly person with a health crisis this inconvenience/annoyance would have been much more serious.

When we had the storms in Scotland I understand that also took out the mobile signal and their power was out for days. So in a major crisis where homes are likely damaged and people more likely to be injured a whole raft of people wouldn't have been able to contact anyone for help or updates on the situation.

In more rural areas they don't have mobile phone signal as a norm so after the switch all power outages will mean they are stuck being unable to contact anyone for updates/find out how long the power might be off so they can make decisions about what to do and more importantly they won't be able to contact anyone in an emergency.

A 1-3 hr battery pack isn't going to cut it (and most people won't reduce one of these anyhow, they'd have to pay). People are literally going to die as a result of his change.

We where switched over some time ago during covid. I was warry due to the no phone during a power cut, but we've had several power cuts in recent years so DH instead a limited UPS system. Powers the phone and his computer for a short time.

Yup, we've been on the receiving end of this during storm Arwen. No power for 7 days, no mobile service, no means for us to access emergency help or check on other family also affected. BT sent us a battery box thing that lasts an hour. I complained and got nowhere, just basically suck it up. Great when I live very rurally and regularly lose power/mobile service.

I'm with Plusnet and I switched over to fibre to the premises a few months ago, having to give up my landline in the process (as didn't want to switch to BT to keep it).

I still lose signal occasionally on my mobile. Usually around 9pm in the evenings! Other than that, it's been fine.

Why don’t you complain about no power

And yet the copper line is incredibly reliable. Way more reliable than broadband/digital signals which appear to help inherently unreliable. I think my copper line has had an issue once in 40 years of having a home phone.

That's part of the reason why they have delayed turning off analogue radio as digital is crap in comparison. .

@rwalker I could complain (and have in the past) but the issue seems to be chronic long term underfunding of maintaining the system (albeit a different reason is given every time so that's just my supposition). It goes off frequently around here (as does water). I have no problem with the argument of ensuring that power and mobile signal was better, covered more areas and was more reliable. But this stuff needs to be sorted BEFORE the copper line is switched off, not afterwards.

Exactly the same here

I’ve just listened to that Jeremy Vine show (I mentioned upthread). There were a few callers mentioning similar problems as have been raised on here.

The telecoms guy who was on there said it’s not so much refusing to maintain the copper lines but more to do with they can’t maintain them once replacement supplies run out as the parts are no longer manufactured. I thought that was a fair enough comment myself (how many times do we get told we’ll have to have a replacement boiler because the parts are no longer available?) but it still doesn’t alter the fact that if there’s a power cut, people without a mobile phone or signal are stuck.

He got a bit twitchy when someone mentioned a battery backup for the personal/care alarms is next to pointless if there’s a power cut as the internet router is powered by…..wait for it….. electricity … are there plans to provide battery backups for those? He deflected a bit by asking who’s responsibility it would be to provide a battery backup for a router. Again, fair point, but this stuff should have been thrashed out before announcing the roll-out of the copper lines switch off.

I'm also worried about this because mum's been told that her alarm button will still work

I reckon it won't but how do we argue with the engineer? Do we just hope it can be reinstated somehow?

The copper network is done the 50 year old exchange equipment is no longer manufactured
they are currently cannibalising redundant equipment to keep the current stuff going

years ago everyone was on copper the network cost a fortune to run and maintain
nowadays only a fraction of people have copper it’s not financially viable

My mum had to switch and has had multiple problems with her phones, often being unable to receive calls. She is so fed up at 85 has had to switch to mobile only as she’s found it so stressful with BT and can no longer rely on her phones ☹️

BT are meant to "offer" a solution for digital customers with no reliable mobile signal to reach 999 in a power cut (which qualifies them as "at risk", which is different from "vulnerable"). Ofcom don't specify what the solution should be, but in reality it can only be a Battery Backup Unit (BBU) - and of course the one-hour capacity means that if you have an emergency into a three-hour rota cut (which we were warned to expect last winter), hard luck - the battery will have run down around the 60 minute mark even if you haven't made a single call or used the internet for other purposes.

In practice, BT don't seem to be offering such backup units. And Ofcom aren't interested enough to sort out BT agents who deny that such units even exist. If you don't have a reliable mobile signal, and can't get BT to provide a free Battery Backup Unit , make a formal complaint to BT at [email protected]. If they still refuse, you can then ask for the complaint to go to the Ombudsdman, but you should win in the end, Ofcom are quite clear that BT need to provide you with a solution to the 999 problem if you don't have a usable mobile signal.

If you get your broadband from one company and plan to get your Voice Calls (VOIP) from another, it's trickier. Ofcom aren't clear about which company should provide you with a "solution" and in practice everyone seems to say "not us". If you are in this situation, try asking your MP for help - they will ask Ofcom who might (eventually) deign to do something about the unholy mess that they are overseeing.

There's more detail in a simple website that I have created on the issue.

I'm not sure how that 'solution' works we have a proper battery back up system for the house as we have solar & a battery with automatic switchover in cases of a powercut (we've had some doozies over the years thanks to only having overhead lines in this area) but when we get that situation we only have internet via the mobile network not because our router doesn't have power because it does, it's the fibre connection box down the road (that serves this half of our village) that doesn't have power so we get stuck there with the connection going no further. So if there is an area powercut rather than a house one how do these systems work?
We are lucky we have good mobile coverage but we have relatives that don't.

@JohnGeddes Thank you for your work on this and for the link.I hadn't realised quite what an impact the move will make .
People in rural locations are going to struggle if they need to contact emergency services or stay in touch with relatives/friends.

I bought a retro phone a year or so ago, brilliant as it doesn't need a pier cord (so can be used in a power failure)..... Blummin thing doesn't work now

The problem is people are still in the mindset that they have the same obligations as they did when they were a monopoly and nationalised company
generally all the other providers have cherry picked the rich pickings and left them with unprofitable the rural shit that no one wants to touch

the copper pstn network is literally limping along
and now only a fraction of people use it prices would have to massively increase and I mean massively or it be subsidised

aldo the 50 year old technology is dying nobody make it and they have to strip redundant exchanges for spares and they are fast running out

Instead of kick the telephone service they need to campaign for a more stable power system and mobile coverage

keeping it switched on as it is is not an option

Feel sorry for my friend, denied fibre at the far end of the road (3-4 miles from centre of Reading) because it's only 5 houses affected. The other 20 or so houses got Gigaclear fibre, not that it works. Now most use Starlink or a mobile dongle.
For the past FOUR years there's a fault on the line. When it rains, water gets in and it is VERY crackly. BT have even put a bit of blue rope up to pull a new section of copper cable through - but haven't, they assume because of digital roll out is planned. Periodically the line goes down completely, but they cannot give it up as very elderly parent only knows this number. So friend rings to get it fixed. Engineer is always bemused about the blue rope. Same conversation, well yes, there is a fault but it works.....intermittently.
However there is NO fibre, so she has no idea what they'll do do digitise it!