To think removing Analogue phone systems by 2025 is too soon?

[bigbluebus]

I know many on MN don't have phones plugged into landlines but many of us who are in slightly older demographic probably still do as our older relatives like to ring on landlines and also mobile reception is not always brilliant in more rural areas.

We were one of the unfortunate households who suffered recent power loss for 3 days and nights in freezing temperatures so keeping in touch with elderly neighbours and relatives was quite important. Of course our cordless phones don't work without power so, as advised, we have an old phone which plugs into a phone socket in such circumstances.

BT plan to get rid of this option by 2025 and landline services will only be available via broadband. As far as I'm aware the plan is to bring in a cheap basic broadband option for those who have no broadband service. But broadband needs electricity. So all those elderly and vulnerable who only have an 'electrically powered' phone line will be totally without any means of communication if the power goes off and they don't have a mobile phone.

The last 3 days here have taught us that the powers that be don't give a shiny sh*te about those on their supposed welfare list in times of crisis. My elderly neighbour (all electric) was not offered any assistance by the energy company and if she had lost her phone line too it would have made life even more difficult.

Whilst we are rural enough to have so many overhead power lines that the storm caused major disruption we are far from being out in the sticks. I feel that once again those not in towns/cities are not being considered in the name of 'progress'.

I appreciate there will come a time when the 'new' older generation will all have mobile phones but don't think that time is here yet nor will it be by 2025.

And don't get me started on the all electric agenda being pushed in the name of global warming - without our open fire we would have been frozen at the weekend!

@GetTheFlockOutOfHere

www.yotelecom.co.uk/blog/bt-switch-off-everything-you-need-to-know/

The BT openreach optical network termination box takes 4 AA batteries for the landline to work in a power cut.

I live in a mobile blackspot so we use our landline quite a lot. When the switch happens I'll get a VoIP phone.

@GetTheFlockOutOfHere
You will still have a landline but it will work off broadband and therefore electricity - which is fine most of the time - until you have no electricity. This is exactly what many have experienced over the last few days. Most probably have been able to use mobile phones but those who don't have them or who have poor mobile signals are completely stuck.

Get yourselves one of those battery powerpacks to plug your mobile lead into in case of a power cut. Keep it charged and they will last for ages. I don't have a landline anymore, mid 50's and live in a rural area.

My parents live in a coastal area with no mobile phone reception at all. They would be screwed without their landline. As would all the people on the beach who come up to use their phone in an emergency as the only phone box in the village is usually out of order.

I'm also fed up of the sales bods from BT business harrassing me to get rid of my business landlines, despite me saying no stop calling, so I'm deliberately holding out for as long as possible.

Quickchangeartiste We were 3 days and very cold nights without power. The ineptitude of the updates was unbelievable. It seems like they were posted randomly by someone who had no clue what was happening. The engineers were in our village all day on Monday trying to restore power (we only knew this because we saw them). The lights flickered on and off at 4pm - just 5 mins earlier the power company had extended the outage to 10pm that night. Just as there was much despair on Facebook, power was restored and stayed on. But if we'd known on Saturday that the power would be off that long, the community would have sprung into action with opening up community buildings with power much earlier. As it was we had a constant moving of the goalposts by a couple of hours as each deadline approached. So we all clung to the hope that power would be restored imminently only to be disappointed yet again.

[quote bigbluebus]@GetTheFlockOutOfHere

www.yotelecom.co.uk/blog/bt-switch-off-everything-you-need-to-know/

[/quote]
Thanks I will go look at that now.

They ended the use of the copper phone network in my town (in Finland) yesterday. They're offering replacement phones, especially to the elderly who don't use mobiles, that are table phones that look like the old landline phones, and they can keep their old landline numbers, which I think is a nice touch. We don't have the issue of bad mobile network in my area though, which would make this change bad.

@Natsku

They ended the use of the copper phone network in my town (in Finland) yesterday. They're offering replacement phones, especially to the elderly who don't use mobiles, that are table phones that look like the old landline phones, and they can keep their old landline numbers, which I think is a nice touch. We don't have the issue of bad mobile network in my area though, which would make this change bad.

@Natsku that's great but will they work without electricity?

@Quickchangeartiste

Having just spent 4 nights without power in NE Scotland, we would have had no information had we not had a landline with an analogue phone - kept for just such emergencies. SSEN and our local council posted any and all updates on the internet, including where to get help and progress. You couldn’t make up the scale of ineptitude and lack of comprehension So while most of the time I don’t need a landline, I do need an alternative available, even publicly, via which I could contact emergency service, access information etc.

That's disgusting!

I bet if the power had gone off in LONDON, it wouldn't have stayed off for 4 bloody days and nights.

No offence to anyone who lives there btw, but it's true.

We still have a landline because where we live the phone signal is shit. So unless they sort that out

Oh crikey. I didn’t know about this.
I have caring responsibilities for an older relative with significant learning disabilities. They rely on the house phone, as it’s all set up with speed dials to us, etc. As they can’t read or write, they don’t have the internet, as they wouldn’t be able to use it.
Obviously I’ll need to look into her options. 😣

@bigbluebus No they won't, so not great if power goes out for days, not an issue in town but I don't know about the more rural parts of my area.

our older relatives like to ring on landlines

I no longer have a landline, but I can receive calls to the landline number I've had since 1989 on my mobile.

and also mobile reception is not always brilliant in more rural areas.

I think improving mobile coverage is a better option than keeping landlines.

We were one of the unfortunate households who suffered recent power loss for 3 days and nights in freezing temperatures so keeping in touch with elderly neighbours and relatives was quite important.

I think events like being without power for three days should be so rare that it's not worth factoring them in. If they aren't, they should be made less rare.

Op I was thinking this very thing when I heard yesterday how many people were still disconnected from power.

Do we all need to buy diesel generators to power our broadband?

You could power broadband with a battery backup. (I think there is at least one ISP who offer a router with built-in battery backup.) One could also add a battery backup to a broadband modem. (A better one than the built-on one.)

A lot of people panicking unnecessarily. For those that don't have or want internet connections, they will get a box that your home phone will plug into and it will work (more or less) exactly the same as it currently does. The box needs power, so it won't work during a power cut, that's all. If you're very worried about that you can use a UPS (battery pack thing) or get a mobile.

Outages are not going to get any rarer.

Neither a modem nor a router use much power, it wouldn't take much of a battery to power them.

I'm 40 and I'd be screwed without our landline too, there is no mobile reception on our street at all and pretty dire throughout the whole village. I've had preschool phoning me on my landline before to get hold of my neighbour whose son was poorly, they couldn't get hold of her because she hasn't got a landline! I hate it when we get a powercut and the bloody phone stops working.

It's all a bit "smart motorway".

We are not elderly or vulnerable but we live on the side of a hill in a newly built housing estate. We have no mobile phone signal and rely on a landline or WiFi calling. In a power cut or broadband outage we would have to hope we are able to walk quarter of a mile to get a signal. My disabled neighbour would find that impossible.