I don’t have a landline - what would I do in an emergency?

[Ozgirl75]

I live in the countryside, not very rural but no phone signal at all, literally zero bars. I have wifi calling and also a phone line via my broadband.
This is all fine, it works and is no problem.
But the other day we had a short powercut and I had obviously no internet and no phone and it made me think, if there was ever a fire or something like a real emergency with no power, how would I call for help?
Im young and healthy (and drive) but when all landlines are gone, how will people deal with these scenarios?

YANBU
Our landline has gone digital already - apparently all phones will be eventually - so landline phones would not work in a power cut anyway.

It is concerning. I live in SW London in a notoriously bad reception area. We got landlines simply for that reason. We never use them otherwise and I have no idea of the number. I don't know what to suggest, sorry.

I mean I know that for most people they’ll never have to make an emergency call - but we did once at my parents house. There was a fire right outside when the electricity pole caught fire. My parents have a thatched house and they called the fire brigade immediately and they were there in minutes.
However, we also had a power cut at that moment. So if everyone in their small village had broadband phones, how would they summon the fire brigade? It’s a 15 minute drive to the closest slightly larger village.

I was on the BT website today, looking up something about the digital landline switchover (I like having a landline as a back up to mobile for emergencies), and there was something about being able to get a battery pack....hang on...

Keeping connected during a power cutIf there’s a power cut or your broadband fails, you’ll be unable to make any calls using Digital Voice, including 999 calls. You’ll still be able to use a mobile phone, just make sure you keep it charged at all times. If you don’t have a mobile phone or are in an area with no mobile signal, please contact us on 0330 1234 150.
Customers who need extra support may be offered a battery backup unit to make sure you can still make calls. The unit will keep you connected for a short time if there is a power cut. We advise that you limit your usage to essential calls only to preserve battery life during any outage. If you believe you will need a battery backup unit, please contact us.

Bloody hell. I didn't release rural places didn't have any way to get in touch. I'm not sure why I assumed there was always a way to, especially in an emergency. That's so bad in this day and age.

You don’t get any 3/4g where you are either? If you do, wifi calling will work with them. If you don’t, is there any chance other networks give mobile signal where you are? Or does it not make a diff? Why you dial 999 it will use any network signal,
not just your own.

you can also text 999, sometimes texts have a better chance of going through than calls if low signal.

Oh that’s actually VERY cool! I’ll contact them. I assume it would keep the internet going for a short time too so I could make a wifi call.

No, sadly I get absolutely zero signal. It’s ridiculous, I’m in Surrey, only 20 minutes from Guildford! It’s not the back of beyond, but there is not a jot of signal.

I would have said to go to the pub but you say you have literally zero bars.

...

But the serious answer is to get a battery back up unit for the router, if you're worried about it.

It is concerning. I keep a basic, corded phone to use in the event of a power cut - and it has been used, albeit not in an emergency situation. That option won't be there in the future. I'll have to get a power-bank for my mobile and (the hard part) remember to keep it charged up.

My closest area with a signal is about 8 minutes up the road (in the car) as it’s at the top of the hill! So not terrible but I assume lots of people in the U.K. are WAY more rural than me.
It was interesting, we were in Greece this year and I had fully 4G everywhere I went, even at sea!

I've traveled a lot in rather remote places (Myanmar, Far East Europe, SW Asian Islands etc etc) and I've never had as poor phone or internet connection as I have here in a particular part of SW London.

It’s mad isn’t it? My husband works away quite a bit and we have a chat when he’s driving and we’re cut off all the time and the worst area is around Birmingham. It’s a massively populated area! Wtf?!

Maybe look at the Starlink options for satellite based internet/phone wifi?

You can use landlines in a powercut. They run on telecommunications, not electricity.

You can, but BT in their wisdom are getting rid of landlines, that's the point of the thread.

Ah OK. It's late 😊

😄

Just remember that most mobile phone masts do not have battery back up, so if it’s a wide scale power cut you’re unlikely to have mobile reception either. Just to brighten your day.

We live rurally. When the power goes off (which is a semi regular thing) then the only option if we really needed to communicate is using a power bank and driving to a high point about ten mins away where you can usually get signal.

If we had a fire or something like that, I'd be relying on neighbours for help, for a medical emergency I know which neighbours have some training. The reality is that, even with the phones on, it would take ages for emergency services to get here, so we'd still be in our own.

I'm missing the point of the thread entirely, but i live close to you and wondering where this is?! I only get 1 bat of signal and its dodgy at best! We might be neighbours 🤣

We live in an area with good mobile signal but frequent power outages, so we have a solar charger. It can deliver some charge on even a cloudy English day. On a sunny day it charges like a charger plugged into the mains.

There's loads of rural places where we are no signal for any networks

It's incredible that the government are allowing landlines as most of us know them to disappear. Even getting a VOIP 'landline' isn't the norm with broadband suppliers. It's almost like an emergency phone network needs to be created so every single household is guaranteed to be within X minutes walking distance of a way to contact emergency services. The mobile network is shocking in the UK - not sure if that's lack of investment or people refusing masts but I could listen to Radio 1 on my phone in Japan in their underground road network deep under water but couldn't do the same in a village in the SE of England. I don't know what type of disaster it's going to take for someone in a position of power to join the dots on removing and solid telecoms system but not having a robust alternative in place.