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virgin laying their microducts here did manage to leave a couple of BT copper lines poking out the tarmac.

BT have announced that FTTP will be available here next year, I suspect they don't yet know the extent to which Cadent has f***ed their ducts.

This one?:

Part of the sales pitch perhaps "so much more reliable than...."?

Thank you Andy / John :-)

Mobile cover round here is very poor, our population is around 3,200 so we're probably not commercially viable for anything too fancy. I have asked my sister to call me on my landline because it is impossible to carry out a conversation on a mobile.

Interesting that two suppliers are providing fibre, I suspect that must be funded/subsidised.

For calling emergency services I keep an old style phone that I plug in if we have a power cut, it presumably relies on power on the 'phone line.

To be able to have 'phone conversations I need a landline so presumably that means a VOIP service? In a power cut there isn't a problem assuming it's just a social call.

In an emergency I need a working landline as mobile is unreliable.

Since there is at least some level of mobile cover the question is would I be treated as vulnerable (I am 77) or "dependent on my landline".

My ISP is Plusnet and they offer a help line so presumably that is my next port of call.

Any advice/guidance or good/bad experiences would be useful before I call :-)

I think you could argue you qualify as 'dependent on your landline' and throw in a bit of 'I'm old' to the mix too and I doubt they would fight too much.

What you'd probably get is a battery backup unit to support your router on either FTTC or FTTP so they still work if the power goes out - you'd need a wired phone as the BBU wouldn't also support a DECT base. But they tend to be of limited capacity - enough to support you for a few hours, but not for a days-long outage if there's a storm or flooding that knocks out the power.

Also PN don't do landlines for new customers (even VOIP), so they will probably punt you towards BT or EE who do (all three are part of the BT group).

TBH, if it's safety critical and you have the money it's probably better to invest in a 'portable power station' which will power your gadgets for days

- also charges your mobile, tablet, laptop, etc. This kind of thing which is 288Wh:

These should be better than a traditional UPS, which typically only has a

Theo

Once you have fibre, get a phone and a contract that supports wifi calling

It really does work - far better than the average mobile signal!

Yup, recently giffgaff started supporting wifi calling. That made a massive difference to mobile performance round here.

Well, if the second contractor screws up the job, maybe you should Do It Yourself?

The people of Wennington, Lancaster, (pop about 200 in those days) were so fed up with their lack of internet service that they installed their own. You can read all about the project here...

I have a friend in that village who navvied for the project and in his opinion, the broadband they now have is better than the regular commercial product and cheaper too. Well he would say that, wouldn't he?

Nick

Wow, what a fantastic project :-)

The work involved in just getting wayleaves/permissions must have been phenomenal.

If you are still in contact the links need checking because I'd like to read more.

It was (or became) part of B4RN:

Thank you :-)

Bookmarked for a leisurely read.

once you get fibre sorted, just turn on wifi calling* on your mobile phones. They will then use the home wifi for all your mobile phone calls

I'm pretty sure that's what I use at the moment with IDMobile (three network), I have never seen any bars on my mobile, just a tiny little dot that is barely visible.

Three supports wifi calling. If it's in play you should see a little telephone handset with circle arcs

(I wonder if that will work?)

It's a variation of that with a "5" next to it, is that 5G?

Might well be.

Noodle around the 'connections' menus and see if its an option there, or round the phone app and see if its an option THERE. Its under the three dots menus in my android phone app on this 3 SamDung galaxative shitwallet

Android UI has to be the most complete piece of s*it since OS-X.

and "HD" phone calls (not), whatever those are.

Might be if you get a BT digital handset, but I haven't tried one.

One came as part of our fibre connection. Connects to the wi-fi and has battery backup. (age consideration).

Never used as I managed to fudge our existing Panasonic wired set up to run from the router. Kindly don't ask me how it works:-)

Not sure why people are linking 'WiFi Calling' to fibre. If you have an internet connection, WiFi calling should be useable - provided, as you said, the phone network supports it.

Indeed, I had an execrable ADSL connection in a house I was only going to be in for a year and could not be bothered to get the line fixed.

But it was fine for wifi calling