Thanks for the great comment and for sharing 😀 I agree with the parts issue as well. I can understand why vinyl has made a comeback ... but cassettes??? the sound quality was never that good even back in the 1980s!!! The only benefit was that you could record onto cassettes.
The problem of being able to make emergency calls during power outages would be for the home router to include without charge backup battery for the router. An updated handset that would be able to use router-based power for the handset with enout backup capcity to provide several hours of service.
Ofcom have stated that when migrating customers to Digital Voice BT and other service providers must provide a battery backup for the Smart Hub / router that lasts for at least 1 hour. I believe 1 hour was specified because a very high percentage of power cuts last 1 hour or less. (I cannot remember the percentage figure). BT's Digital Voice handset has a rechargeable battery anyway for normal day to day operation that will last an hour so this handset will continue to work during a power cut if the Smart Hub is powered by battery backup. If you are using an old analogue handset plugged directly into the Smart Hub then this will work while the Smart Hub is running on battery backup. However, any analogue handsets that are using the mains powered analogue telephone adapter will not work during a power cut.
Old burglar alarm and elderly person alert systems which are hooked up to an existing analogue phone line will presumably need replacing? But I guess it doesn't matter when the power is down..
Yep ... all these sorts of systems that connect to old analogue phone lines will need to be upgraded. Burglaries and old people's alerts happen when the electricity is working and when the electricity has failed so these sort of systems will need to be changed to digital.
Not necessarily analogue equipment can be connected to the phone socket on the router or an analogue to VoIP adapter can be used. As for mains failure alarms continue to work from their internal batteries you just have to fit a low cost UPS to the router and ONT if on full fibre.
I think the key point about digital voice is that it’s an enabler to remove the copper network and gets rid of all the local telephone exchanges. I certainly think that BT could have thought much more about the impact on vulnerable users or those with a requirement for calls in a power outage, but I believe they have better plans in place for that now. Personally I think digital voice is one step but the much more important one for the country is the FTTP rollout as that will allow the UK to turn off all the TV transmitters enable the next shift to fully streaming TV as well as giving all of us a 10x or 100x increase in broadband speeds. Personally I think it can’t come soon enough, but there’s no way digital voice will be done by the end of next year
Unfortunately I have read that some people are getting confused and believe that when they migrate Digital Voice they are migrating to FTTP at the same time !!! I got an email from a viewer who is an elderly person living on a boat and she does not have a mobile phone. Her landline (I assume boat is permanently moored somewhere) was migrated to Digital Voice but her story was a series of disasters and poor communications from BT. I think that senior BT management and Ofcom do want the migration to Digital Voice to be done carefully to minimise the impact on the vulnerable but unfortunately this does not always happen. I was migrated to Digital Voice very early and even managed to get the free digital voice handset ... I am keen to get FTTP but I wont hold my breath because I live in the countryside !!!
I think you are right BT are "pushing" all their customers to Digital Voice. I think BT has to push because otherwise some customers would stay on analogue voice until the end of the century!!! Unfortunately it is not technically or commercially viable for BT to keep the old analogue network running forever as it is getting more difficult and expensive to repair and maintain the equipment that runs the old analogue voice network. Also BT has to be able to compete with other telecoms operators on a level playing field so BT needs to be run both voice and data on a single IP backbone network like other operators. If BT had to keep the old analogue voice network running then it would have a significant cost that no other operator has got which would be unfair on BT. So I think it does have to be a push.... but it should be "encouragement" rather than a shove !!!
My house has several analogue extention sockets built in. Will they become redundent? What happens if you require those extentions for multiple phones? Peter
For each old analogue phone you will need to buy a BT Digital Voice Adapter. (I have found them on eBay for £15.99 + free postage) This plugs into a mains socket near to where you want the old analogue phone to be located. You then plug the old analogue phone into the BT Digital Voice Adapter which connects wirelessly to your Smart Hub 2. You can plug one analogue handset directly into the Smart Hub 2 and I think BT offer one free adapter when you migrate to Digital Voice. So you don't need to buy a BT Digital Voice Adapter for all of your old analogue telephones. So yes ... your old extension cabling does become redundant as all you phones are now connected wirelessly to the Smart Hub. There are ways to use the old cabling but its a bit fiddly and I think the migration to Digital Voice is a good opportunity to migrate from old fashioned wiring to wireless which gives you a lot more freedom & flexibility to move the sockets around if you rearrange furniture or whatever ... and no cables around the house. When I migrated to Digital Voice I binned both my old analogue phones & sockets - removed the wiring and only used the new wireless Digital Voice Handset.
We have two (separate) telephone lines (separate telphone numbers) in our house: one for work and the other for personal. The work number is already linked to our broadband, so I assume when the switchover happens we will simply plug the work phone linked to that broadband line into the existing BT Smarthub router. But what about our personal phone number? Will BT have to provide us with an entirely separate/new router for the our personal telephone number?
I believe the landline only service that you use for your personal telephone service is not being migrated to Digital Voice yet. I think this is because BT do not have a good solution because it would be expensive for BT to provide a separate Smart Hub 2 for a landline only service. For customers like you who have a Smart Hub on another telephone line a good solution would be to for the Smart Hub to support 2 telephone numbers ... unfortunately I think the Smart Hub 2 can only support one telephone number. I have read that BT is currently testing a new service called SOTAP for Analogue (Single Order Transitional Access Product for Analogue). SOTAP will provide a replacement for the old analogue telephone line that provides the same (or very similar) functionality to old analogue telephone lines like working during a power cut and working with telecare systems for the elderly that require analogue telephone lines. The article I was reading said that BT plan to pilot it during May 2024 with a tentative launch date of September. However, the focus seems for SOTAP seems to be vulnerable customers and it is a transitional product that will only be available until 2030. I assume you are not a vulnerable customer and you want your home landline beyond 2030 so SOTAP may not be the solution for your home landline only service. I am afraid my only suggestion is to wait and see what BT propose for your home landline only service. It is possible that you will be provided with a second Smart Hub for your landline only service.
my landline was already plugged into an analogue telephone adapter; - now I have a small gizmo that plugs into the mains and acts as a phone line, - my ata is now plugged into it ...what I really wanted was to be able to use the gizmo as an ata connected to my pbx but it is locked to propriety only....
BT seem to like the approach of locking equipment to BT's service. The free Digital Voice handset that I got when I migrated to Digital Voice is locked to BT's service.
Bt allow sip devices such as grand steam to be allowed on fibre digital voice only connections than a hub 2 , thus allowing own equipment as main router whist still allowing a analog phone to connect
@@Helpful-Stuff both if you have digital voice and bt fibre your forced to use the hub 2 to get calls , if you don’t use there equipment, with the built in dect system, you lose your ability to pick up voice but also the advanced features such as making a call whilst another handset is it use, even if you have a 3rd party device with audio out such as a Fritz they still stop the audio being configurable, I’m sure this is a breach of Competition rules, antitrust and freedom of Choice ofcom should interfere and make bt offer ease of separation from router to get audio from a different device since places that are now having there analog switched off have to also have a bt hub to connect an analog connection where’s a grad stream 812 for instance is almost the same size as the bt vdsl modems and doesn’t need any other kit for line only user to connect up ,business hub users they bundle a free phone and don’t mention the limitation. Further more these handsets are locked so once you leave bt you can’t register this device on other voip dect units effectively creating unnecessary e waste
It's Openreach, now a separate company, that is doing this. The current exchanges are many years old and the equipment is no longer made. As failures occur repairs and replacements are more difficult or impossible. Openreach are forced to change the equipment to digital, forcing BT to change our connection.
I take your point. Openreach is a wholly owned subsidiary of BT Group but run at arms length from BT. If I had titled the video "Why are Openreach migrating landlines to Digital Voice" it would not be getting as many views because BT's customers get emails from BT telling them about the migration to Digital Voice so the general perception is that it is a BT migration. I will continue to call it a BT migration because I want to ensure that the video gets watched as much as possible.
On this web page Ofcom says www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/future-of-landline-calls "If you are dependent on your landline phone - for example, if you don’t have a mobile phone or don’t have mobile signal at your home - your provider must offer you a solution to make sure you can contact the emergency services when a power cut occurs. For example, a mobile phone (if you have signal), or a battery back-up unit for your landline phone. This solution should be provided free of charge to people who are dependent on their landline. If you are not eligible for a free resilience solution, you may be able to purchase one from your provider or another retailer - talk to your provider about options." From comments left on this and other videos I have made I now that it can be difficult to get BT to provide a free battery backup ... but if you are dependent on your landline especially if you are vulnerable then you should insist that BT provide a free battery backup. If you need to purchase one then they can be purchased from BT / EE store.ee.co.uk/products/cyberpower-back-up-for-bt-digital-voice-service--smart-hub--115476-HMY2.html
So, the answer to the question 'Why?' is that the change is to benefit the service provider rather than the user. And I'll bet our national security services will continue to use the well tried and trusted systems which are less easily hacked into than IP services.
If you have a newish BT Hub then switching over is easy. Your answering machine should still work and BT will supply a free adaptor for an extension. Mine changed over last November but no one else in my building has even been contacted yet. BT seems to be rolling out the service in a weird, piecemeal way which is very odd. Even so, everything is working OK. There are people who don't have broadband or a smart phone so what they're supposed to do is a mystery.
I don't understand the rollout either - I agree it does seem weird and piecemeal. I live in the south-west and I was migrated to digital voice in February 2022 - almost 2 years ago! I have no idea why I was migrated so early in the rollout. Because I was so early in the rollout I got a free digital handset. I think it is really unfortunate that BT have no withdrawn the offer of a free handset. This handset made the migration very simple and I was able to throw away my old analogue handsets.
@@Helpful-Stuff BT could be trying to get get people to buy new digital handsets in a panic whilst conveniently forgetting to mention that their existing one will more than likely be fine.
If an analogue handset & router are in the same place then migration to digital voice is easy - just plug the analogue handset into the back of the Smart Hub. I think it becomes complicated when a house has 2 or 3 extensions around the house in which case people may panic and rush out to buy new digital handset(s) when there are other solutions that allow you to keep using the old analogue handsets ... although there is a cost of buying an adapter for each handset.
@@Helpful-StuffBT will supply 1 adaptor for free (although they accidentally sent me 2) but the cost about £20 each from the EE website. You need conveniently sited plug sockets too for extensions.
I connected my existing BT landline phone just after I was upgraded to full fibre. Pulled off the black label on my newish BT hub and plugged it in. Did the call test both ways and it works. We have a home phone number but it tends to be used by scammers.
I was asked in a comment on another video if I could upload a video that shows how to change the ringtone on the free BT Digital Voice handset. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZTGRMPMM8aQ.html
Wouldn't touch BT with a very long pole. Been with Zen for years and just got FTTP and Digital Voice last month. 900 Mbps internet and the phone is fine, just had to change a plug from one socket to another. An Uninterruptible Power Supply means we won't have a problem if the power fails either.
I have looked at Zen's website. Looks good and the Which? recommendation is reassuring. I don't have a problem with BT's broadband service ... what I do have a problem with is the stealth way they have increased my monthly payments by 24%. This video explains how they have done this ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kgm3WWFEGQs.html I am considering changing and I will look at Zen. Thanks
It’s just a shame there pricing is so uncompetitive even before adding voice for there gigabit service right now the two cost 30 per month over bt and over double community fibre
@@ram64man Ok, so what are BT's prices for full fibre gigabit access and digital voice..? We're paying £46 a month, which we consider reasonable, it's only a fiver or so a month more than we were paying for 40Mbit/s. Zen also promise they will never increase their prices during your contract term, so if you stay with them, the price won't go up.
@@Helpful-Stuff The selling points for us were the choice of router (I've been using AVM products for 20 years) and the guarantee they will never raise your payments. Oh and when you ring tech support you get someone in the UK (Rochdale to be precise) who is an engineer and has an idea of what your problem might be, rather than some eejit in India reading from a script, which we had when we were with Sky 🙄
Yep agreed ... these backup units last for one hour which apparently is long enough for the majority of power cuts in the UK. Ofcom says that they should be provided free of charge to vulnerable customers who depend on their landline because they do not have a mobile phone or do not have a mobile phone signal at home. An elderly viewer has emailed me to let me know about the problems she had migrating to Digital Voice ... BT did agree to supply a battery backup unit free of charge because she does not have a mobile phone but BT still charged her postage!
I will ask BT for a battery backup unit as I don't have or want a mobile phone. Also, with Digital Voice everyone with a landline will need to have broadband. That could be quite a few.
Ofcom's website states: "If you are dependent on your landline phone - for example, if you don’t have a mobile phone or don’t have mobile signal at your home - your provider must offer you a solution to make sure you can contact the emergency services when a power cut occurs. For example, a mobile phone (if you have signal), or a battery back-up unit for your landline phone. This solution should be provided free of charge to people who are dependent on their landline. If you are not eligible for a free resilience solution, you may be able to purchase one from your provider or another retailer - talk to your provider about options." www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/future-of-landline-calls I hope this helps you to get a free battery backup unit from BT.... it does not say that you need to be vulnerable to get a free battery backup unit ... only that you need to be "dependent" on your landline which you are because you don't have a mobile phone. I must admit I am not sure what BT's solution is for customers who only want Digital Voice and do not want broadband. If BT want to offer a Digital Voice only service with no broadband then it is possible to block access to the internet and only allow the Digital Voice service to work on a customer's connection.
Ofcom have said that BT must provide vulnerable customers with a battery backup for their Smart Hub that lasts at least 1 hour ... because the vast majority of power cuts last less than 1 hour.
So, in 2 years time (2025 I understand), when the analogue telephone system is retired and everyone needs to be on FTTP, what will happen to the people who don't want their driveway dug up to lay in a fibre-optic cable? Okay, they can use a mobile phone, but how will they get a broadband service with no fibre to their property?
Turning off the analogue telephone system and the migration from copper to fibre are two independent projects. By the end of 2025 all analogue telephone lines will have been changed to digital telephone lines. The new digital phone line will work over the existing broadband connection which could use the old copper wire infrastructure or a new fibre connection. Digital phones do not require fibre to work. My home is a good example. I have a copper wire connection from my home to the local cabinet which gives me a download speed of about 37Mb/s. Early in 2022 I was migrated from analogue to digital phone landline. So my digital phone is currently working over my copper wire connection to the local BT cabinet. OpenReach have been in contact about installing fibre to the building but it is still at the paperwork stage ... no engineers have visited the building yet. Realistically I don't expect to get fibre installed to the building until 2024. At this stage the building will have both copper wire and fibre connections to the local exchange. However, my contract with BT is for a copper wire connection. I will then need to contact BT to purchase a fibre broadband package ... BT or OpenReach cannot force me to buy a fibre package. I may decide to continue with the copper wire connection because it will be cheaper (but slower) than the fibre connection. However, through all of this my digital phone will continue to work over my copper wire broadband until I eventually switch to fibre.
@@safirahmed City Fibre (not BT or Openreach) installed fibre in our street last year. A couple of months ago they finished installing fibre into our block of 6 flats. They did this entirely underground and we had no disruption whatsoever. Last month we had FTTP installed in our flat and it was all done in a couple of hours, most of the time was taken with routing the fibre from where it entered the property to where we wanted it terminated. We have a home office so we have a UPS powering all the computers and the router is connected to that, so we won't even have problems if the power fails.
@@TestGearJunkie. Seamless installation of FTTP from underground cables is ideal and BT, Openreach and Virgin have underground installations in addition to services provided by BT telegraph poles.
You can still get a BB service, but not everything has to be 'Fibre' Central. If you don't want to dig up your drive way, get fixed wireless internet to your premises over 4G or 5G. This is becoming commonplace in rural areas for people to get online. It's affordable and as reliable as traditional internet access.
This reminds me of the push towards smart meters. Are we sure they will not use it to monitor our calls and web usage? Power cuts are more likely than ever now and we will be cut off completely without a mobile phone which we couldn't charge. I don't trust this and they have started bombarding us with reminders to get it booked in.
The bottom line is the PSTN network is old and the equipment used is obsolete with limited spares. Even if some company somewhere wanted to continue to manufacture replacement equipment & sell it to BT, it would be difficult because some of the components are not made any more. Of course everything is possible if the money is right ... so if BT was prepared to pay another company a very large amount of money to continue to manufacture obsolete equipment then some company somewhere would do it. BT would obviously then pass these high costs onto their customers. Customers would complain that BT was too expensive and move to other telecoms providers who would offer a cheaper landline service because they would offer digital voice. The net result would be that customers would migrate to digital voice by moving to other telecoms providers. In the mean time BT would probably go bust because they offered an old fashioned analogue voice service that was many times more expensive than digital voice but they would only have a very small number of customers who are willing to pay a very large amount of money for a landline. There is no big brother conspiracy here ... it's just the advancement of technology and the economics of providing a cheap landline service. If you are really concerned about "big brother" then - get rid of your smart mobile phone because it holds a LOT more information about you than your landline - when using your broadband at home always use a VPN because your broadband provider can see every single website that you visit even if you use Incognito mode in your browser - cancel your landline because there will be a record of all your phone calls whether it is old fashioned analogue PSTN or the new digital voice service
Ofcom's rules for the migration to digital voice now specify that operators must provide vulnerable customers who are dependant on their landline a battery backup solution that will work for at least 1hour free of charge. And other customers must be able to buy the battery backup from the operator and other retailers. I was also reading yesterday that BT are testing a new service called SOTAP for Analogue (Single Order Transitional Access Product for Analogue). SOTAP will provide a replacement for the old analogue telephone line that provides the same (or very similar) functionality to old analogue telephone lines like working during a power cut and working with telecare systems for the elderly that require analogue telephone lines. The article I was reading said that BT plan to pilot it during May 2024 with a tentative launch date of September. www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2024/03/openreach-to-pilot-alternative-uk-analogue-phone-line-in-may-2024.html
BT have offered voicemail on analogue landlines for many years. The real USP of landlines has always been their remarkably reliable uptime, even through powercuts, which will now be susceptible to any broadband fluctuations. BT have been very anti-competition in choosing a proprietary VoIP protocol, that isn't compatible with existing systems, again forcing customers to use supplied routers.
You are correct ... I had forgotten that BT offered vmail on analogue lines. I don't think the error is so bad that I need to change the video because the reality was that the vast majority of people purchased an answerphone for their analogue telephone line. I have read that BT are currently testing SOTAP which will provide an emulation of an old analogue telephone line over digital infrastructure. Apparently this will include the ability for the telephone line to continue to work during a power cut. www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/11/openreach-prep-alternative-uk-analogue-style-phone-product.html If BT launch this service later this year I think a lot of people who have not yet been migrated and want to keep their analogue telephone line will be very grateful ... I can also see a lot of people who have already been reluctantly migrated to digital voice being very angry that they were not offered the SOTAP service!
@@Helpful-Stuff That is good news for the vulnerable reliant on linkline services, or alarms that need reliable phone lines. I've been using VoIP since the Dixons Freetalk days myself and haven't used a landline for voice services since that time, because digital services are so much cheaper. BT seem to be offering all the downsides without any discounting and using a proprietary protocol too.
I worked in telecoms for almost 25 years but never for BT. I am a BT broadband customer and happy with the service that they provide. But not particularly happy with the way that they increase prices mid-contract at CPI+3.9%. I am glad the regulator is going to ban these mid-contract CPI+ price increases.
1. BT's Digital Voice had to be paused because of problems with old house alarms, personal safety alarms etc which need an analogue phone line to work and vulnerable (mainly elderly) people who would not be able to call emergency services during a power cut. The rollout of Digital Voice has started again but I am still reading articles about the same issues with the rollout of Digital Voice. These problems are not a surprise and should have been managed better by BT. I think BT has seen the rollout of Digital Voice as a technical "telecoms" challenge with insufficient time or money to address the "people/customer" impact of the rollout of Digital Voice. The target end date for the roll out of Digital Voice agreed with Ofcom is end 2025. I have read about calls to extend this to 2030 ... but as far as I am aware the end date is still end 2025. 2. There is obviously a cost to BT of migrating to Digital Voice and it will be a big cost because of the enormous number of BT customers. However, BT will gain significant cost savings from turning off the old analogue voice (PSTN) network and running all their services on an IP backbone network. So looking over several years the migration to Digital Voice is actually a cost saving for BT. The cost to a BT customer of migrating to Digital Voice is zero unless you want to buy a Digital handset. I was lucky and was migrated to Digital Voice early in the rollout in Feb 2022 and I was offered a free Digital Voice handset. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Na-Ie90EeY4.html Unfortunately, I have recently discovered that BT no longer offer a free handset. 3. There is a lot of confusion about the rollout of fibre because I have read articles which state that Digital Voice rollout is the same as the fibre FTTP rollout so that once you get Digital Voice then you have FTTP. This is absolutely not true!!! I migrated to Digital Voice in 2022 but using the existing copper wire and FTTC. Now in 2024 I believe we have got fibre installed in the road some time ago but its not working yet and certainly isn't extended to any of my neighbours homes. About a year ago I filled in the forms to give BT permission to install fibre in the building. It is now a waiting game to see when BT will decide to install fibre all the way to my home. BT have a target of 25 million premises connected to FTTP by end 2026 (note this is not all BT customers and it is a year after the end of the Digital Voice rollout to all customers). I live in the countryside ... I suspect I will not have FTTP by end 2026 ... so like you I am think it will be a long time until I get FTTP
What a brilliant "upgrade". Putting all your eggs into the internet basket. Your router fails? No phone calls. Internet servers fail? No phone calls. Power cut? No phone calls. Want to use your phone in other room where you used to have a workign extension socket? No way; you have to dick about with cordless phones, faffing about linking them and just hope you haven't got thick walls or that the spectrum isn't absolutely rammed full of similar devices already. Got a fall alarm of telecare device? Well that will stop working too! Apparently BT's advice was "buy a mobile". These of course also fail in an extende dpowercut as the repeater towers go offline. I'd had some experienc eof this: my wall socket was "upgraded" - all the extension sockets stopped working (and my router was plugged into one upstairs, right next to the PC, and I used a wired connection to it). After the "upgrade" the router had to stay downstairs and I had to use wirless. Liek everywhere else, the wireless spectrum is ram packed and I get lots of contention , plus my home's walls are quite thick and the signal gets attentuated a lot.
I installed structured cabling at home. 19" rack under one of the desks in our home office, Ethernet sockets all over the place. Analogue phone cable comes out of the router and goes into the rack and terminates on three paralleled RJ45 sockets. Analogue phones can be plugged into any Ethernet socket using a BT socket to RJ45 plug adaptor. I can also plug in computers anywhere without having to use wireless, in fact it's not even enabled on the router.
@TestGearJunkie I wanted my BT Smart Hub near my desk so that I can plug my desktop computer directly into an ethernet socket on the BT Smart Hub. My BT master socket is in the hallway so I ran a 20m CAT5E cable from the hallway to my desk. This works well for me ... but your setup sounds much better than my simple setup.
and everyone will have to have fibre very expensive for customers but good for shareholders and remember in a government emergency all servers go down except BT
Technology moves on ... nobody uses modems and dial-up internet which is charged buy the minute anymore ... everybody wants very fast always on connectivity to the internet. Fibre will give customers this. Copper wires were first used in 1911 ... its now 2023 ... so copper wires have been used for telecoms infrastructure for over 100 years. Not a bad lifespan but copper wires need to go to the graveyard just like modems. The migration to fibre is good for both customers and shareholders. There is a lot of competition out there for fibre to the premises this is and will continue to drive prices downwards - it will not be "expensive for customers". I have absolutely no idea what you mean by "in a government emergency all servers go down except BT". BT is a private company and is not an agency of the government so I have no idea why you believe that BT would be an exception in an emergency. It also would not do the government a lot of good because there are a lot of customers connected to the many other telecoms operators in the UK. I don't understand what you mean by "all servers go down" exactly how would the government bring down "all servers"?
Big mistake getting rid of PSTN they could have run fibre to the houses along the copper wires and leave the pstn alone. It was built with taxpayers money when BT was a nationalised company so should remain. They are reliable, they work when the National grid is down and you can have extensions and pick upo the call anywhere in the house. Now you have to know the telephone number of every member of the family.
Some countries have already closed down their PSTNs, others are in the process of migrating customers of their PSTNs and remaining countries will do so shortly. Do you really want to consign BT & the UK to be the only country to run a PSTN and to be in some sort of telecoms slow lane? From a practical point of view its just not possible to maintain the PSTN. The equipment in the PSTN network is old and it is already difficult and expensive to get spares. Would people who refused to migrate off the PSTN be prepared to pay a lot more £ for their voice telephony service in order to pay for this expensive old network. Between 1980 to 1995 BT migrated from the old Strowger electromechanical switches to System X. BT became a private company in 1984. The old Strowger switches were funded by the tax payer when the Post Office ran the telecoms network but most of the System X migration happened when BT was a private company. I would argue that the PSTN was not built with tax payers money because all the old Strowger switches have gone. When I was younger back in the 1980s and 1990s I used to have to remember telephone numbers of family and friends. However, since I have got a mobile phone the only phone number that I know off the top of my head is my own mobile telephone number. Most people have a mobile phone these days so you need to know individuals number rather than a household's landline number ... but that's not a problem because we all carry a mobile phone which remembers all our contact's phone numbers. The only point I will agree with is that the PSTN works when there is a power cut but I am afraid that does not justify the cost of keeping the PSTN working ... even if it was possible to keep it working. Ofcom have said that operators must provide a backup battery capable of keeping the router/Smart Hub working for at least 60 minutes since most power cuts last less than 60 minutes.
Absolute crap service on all fronts! This is not an improvement, it's a backward step BT!! Biggest negative is that during a power cut you've no landline!! I don't have any mobile signal at home so I'm well and truly fucked! Add to that the delay meaning natural flowing conversation becomes impossible then the breaks meaning you have to ask the person to 'repeat' all the time! Listen to BBC Radio 4 interviews if you want to know how bad telephone comms have become!
Perhaps you should listen to BBC Radio 4 more carefully and learn how to make your point with the strength of your argument and not the strength of the expletives that you use to make your point.
You have summed this up very well. I will not migrate to digital until there is no other option. It is crazy not to have a phone if there is a power cut and how much will it be costing to have the phone using power all the time. My mobile signal at home is not very reliable so I will be well and truly fucked too when the eventual switch off of the analogue system happens.
@@TestGearJunkie. That won;t help you because in a general powercut the street cabinet hardware will also lose power. The thing about analogue phones was simply, they carried their own power along the same line. And indeed, many exchanges had their own backup generators to ensure the service worked in a power cut. The digital system does not caryr it's own power, so it will fail at many points in a power cut. Even the movile network will fail after a time, as the repeater towers lose power, afaik they have batteries able to cope with short interruptions, not long power cuts.
@@richardgregory3684 My other half has lived in the flat we're now in for 30 years. In that time she only recalls one or maybe two power cuts lasting more than 20 minutes or so. Perhaps the fact that we live directly across the street from a very large major substation helps, I don't know, but power cuts aren't a major concern for us.
Traditional landlines are analogue and use the old analogue technology that I explain in the video. This analogue technology is old and the equipment in this network is old and therefore unreliable, expensive to maintain and difficult to get spare parts. BT's Openreach in consultation with Ofcom has therefore decided to close down this old analogue telephone service at the end of 2025. So while BT's Openreach will benefit from significant cost savings by turning of the old fashioned analogue traditional landlines, it must be remembered that customers will benefit from having a modern digital landline. Other countries are closing down their old traditional analogues telephone service and using modern digital telecoms. The UK needs to be competitive internationally and needs a modern digital telecoms infrastructure so at some stage the UK needs to get rid of traditional analogue landlines. I don't believe that there is any specific reason for December 2025. There needs to be sufficient time to migrate all the old analogue landlines to new digital landlines and obviously there is a LOT of them so the deadline cannot be next week!!! ... but equally the deadline should not be 2030. I guess that Ofcom and BT Openreach have agreed December 2025 as an aggressive but achievable deadline to migrate all analogue landlines to digital.
@richardgregory3684 I don't think BT's communications about the migration to digital voice have been very good. The migrations looks like a big corporate organisation forcing unwilling customers to migrate to a new service that customers do not want. BT has also handled the situation with vulnerable customers very badly. It should have been handled much better ... selling the benefits of digital voice and looking after vulnerable customers. BT may pay the price for this if politicians force BT to delay the switch off of the old analogue voice service.
no more emergency calls [no emergency calls] from your home if no electrical power [this includes when your mobile is dead] is available that is terrible nobody will have a choice as every thing is going digital
It sounds like you want to remain in an analogue world. Unfortunately the rest of the world wants to move into a digital world with the many benefits digital telecoms services bring to customers.
@@Helpful-Stuff Thanks I think it was good to make emergency calls during power outages and keep in touch with family, I am not sure if one of my alarms will work, I will see when if soon
If you are a vulnerable customer Ofcom have instructed BT to provide a battery backup unit for the Smart Hub free of charge. This battery backup must provide a minimum of 1 hour of power to the Smart Hub. (Apparently the vast majority of power cuts in the UK last less than 1 hour.) You need to contact BT to let them know that you are vulnerable and require a battery backup unit. If you aren't vulnerable then you can buy it... store.ee.co.uk/products/cyberpower-back-up-for-bt-digital-voice-service--openreach-modem---ont--097284-FV55.html I think the whole "alarm" issue should have been managed much better. Modern alarms use WiFi and/or mobile phone networks to raise the alarm but there are still a lot of older alarms that use a landline and require an old PSTN landline. I hope your alarm is a modern alarm that does not use the old PSTN 🤞
I AM SICK TO DEATH OF BT PHONING ME EVERY TWO MINUETS, LEAVE ME ALONE FOR GODS SAKE. YOU DO NOT NEED TO TELL ME A DELIVERY, i KNOW. i WAS THE ONE THAT MADE THE ORDER. i AM 84 AND I HAVE FELL OVER RUSHING PHONE. INCASE IT`S A EMERGENCY!!!!!!!!!
