Migration of phone network to digital

[wrights...]

I'm looking for examples of where this has caused hardship, especially for disabled or housebound people. Anone got any stories to tell?

[alan_m]

My mother had an expensive monitoring service (panic button etc.). due to her age and medical condition(s).

Virgin came in a changed the line to digital. The monitoring service failed to work despite two additional visits and with Virgin supplied additional equipment.

Their final solution "you have a mobile phone and that is your backup" and effectively washed their hands of the problem.

In the end my mother upgraded her service with the monitoring company, at an extra cost, to a service that supported a digital line (VOIP).

If my mother didn't have the support from people to phone up Virgin and the monitoring service plus the ability to pay extra for the monitoring upgrade Virgin would have happily left her with a non-working emergency lifeline.

[wrights...]

Thank you

Bill

[Chris Hogg]

There is something about this at the moment on BBC Red Button > News Index > Technology > Digital landline switch paused for the vulnerable. It says: "UK phone companies have paused making vulnerable customers switch to digital landlines following 'serious incidents' where telecare devices stopped working. Nearly two million people are thought to use such equipment, which can be used to summon help in an emergency. Digital landlines can fail in some circumstances, such as a power cut. Phone providers have signed up to a charter under which people can only be moved from an analogue to a digital line if there is no impact on telecare".

[Rod Speed]

[e-mail] [e-mail] wrote

Australia has entirely migrated now and I have never heard of any problems and it would be surprising if there were because the end user sees nothing different at all.

Plenty have abandoned their landline completely, basically because a mobile phone is cheaper plan or calls wise but does obviously need the phone to be charged and the handset costs more than the cheapest landline phones.

[Brian]

We switch to digital phones in October. Seamless.

At the time, we had Fibre to cabinet.

We changed to Fibre to house last week. Again seamless.

I plugged the existing phone cabling into the ( free) digital adaptor and linked it to my router. My existing phones just plug in as usual. I could link my DECT handsets direct to the router but decided to keep the existing base as it has a handset and answer machine. Even the EchoLink works.

[Tim Streater]

I'd like to do this too, since my router, a ZyXEL, supposedly supports it and has RJ45 sockets on the back marked "Phone". But the screens the router's UI shows when I log into it say nothing at all about VOIP, even though the router doc does.

[SteveW]

A perfect example of whewre this might have been a problem would have been my parents' next-door neighbours. The husband had severe emphesema and was permanently on an oxygen machine. If the power went off, the oxygen machine would go off and he would need to switch to the oxygen bottle, but he could not operate the valve. If his wife was out of the house and the power went off, he was completely reliant on the phone to get help. If the phone went off with the power, it could have killed him.

[SteveW]

Some places have poor or no mobile reception and when the house phone goes off due to power failure, at the same time that medical equipment fails for the same reason, it can be deadly.

[Rod Speed]

Perfectly possible to ensure that there is still a digital phone service when the power goes off.

[SH]

Another issue is Power.....

In teh event of a power cut, the local phone exhange has its own UPS or generators.

With analogue phones, they are remote powered from the *exchange* so the phone would *still* work even where there is *no* power in the house.

With Digital VOIP telephony, you *need* backup power for the Router and also the ONT if you are on fibre to the home.

So if the house loses power, thats your router and ONT without power. How do you then make a phone call?

I know people say aha but you have mobile phones..... This is the point, the emergency telecare systems *rely* on a working landline, not on a mobile phone!

[charles]

and, my mobile phone depends on wifi calling. That doesn't work without power. Yes, I could go outside, but if I'm bedridden I can't do that.

[alan_m]

Yes it is possible but the telephone providers seem to be failing to supply the correct equipment to ensure that a previously working "emergency" service for the vulnerable is still working.

This is the kind of service where the person may wear a panic button transmitter and in the event of a fall or other emergency the button is pressed which sets off a sequence off events. The monitoring service will immediately ring back and/or instigate a two way speaker phone like service where they can listen to what is being said in the house. Based on the response, or non response, they will call designated helpers or the emergency services (or both). On calling the emergency services the monitoring company can give the relevant medical details.

In my mothers case the service failed to work immediately after the line was changed even when there was power in the house. Initially Virgin failed to supply a battery backup but even after they provided this and changed their interface box twice it wouldn't work. My mother then rented different compatible equipment from the monitoring service, at extra cost. I'm not sure of the exact cost of the service but I believe it is around £400/annum.

I believe there is a legal obligation for the telecom companies to leave customers with this type of service with a working system on changeover. Obviously just supplying a interface box that an analogue phone can plug into may not be the complete solution.

In the Virgin case they seem to have missed the point and started to use the excuse that a mobile was the emergency backup.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Oh my god, how will we ever replace horses with cars when we *might run out of petrol*

[The Natural Philosopher]

Them put UPS on your router and NTU

[charles]

I have, but how many others will?

[charles]

That shouldn't affect somebody's health

[alan_m]

That's not really the point of this thread. Yes, provide battery backup for power cuts and perhaps change the equipment to interface to digital phone and you have a working system. BUT This not what the telephone companies are telling people with these systems and not what is happening when they come along to change the system.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But what if you need to get to hospital in a hurry!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Anybody who needs it that badly.