OT: Landline or not?

[Andy Burns]

BT fit batteries ...

[Rod Speed]

Its much more complicated than that now with RIMs and CMUXes providing most of the landlines.

No perhapys about it with satphones.

And it makes much more sense to have decent batterys in mobile phone bases now.

[John Walliker]

However, if the number is first ported to a VoIP provider they should be able to move it from one business to another without any delay. (I have done this with A&A several times.) John

[Theo]

That's not a port, because the number stays at A&A. It's just reassigning the account the number is connected to. If you were to transfer the number to another provider eg Voipfone then I think the porting rules would apply.

(The rules are also new from 2022, so may not have applied to prior ports anyway)

Theo

[Andy Burns]

I've moved numbers between providers who use Magrathea

[John Walliker]

I was thinking of a case where one company was bought by another in a very different location and the premises of the bought company were shut down. BT insisted that the number would be lost. I ported the number to A&A before the move and then reassigned the ownership afterwards. This was quite a few years ago. In another case, I had a BT phone line with A&A internet. It was possible to port the phone number to A&A while keeping the phone line active for internet. The line was then given a new phone number by BT, while the number I wanted to keep became a VoIP number. John

[David Wade]

No thats optional. You can have true pay as you go..

Dave

[SH]

what about if you have fibre to the home and you have put your ONT & Router onto an UPS and the old landline phones plugged into the back of the router.... WOuld this still work in the event of a power cut or will the roadside fibre cabinets or fibre exchange also lose power?

S.

[Theo]

I think 'porting' is only so far as it touches the actual phone routing parts: BT to Virgin to Sky kind of thing. Because many VOIP providers aren't big enough to need 1000 numbers in each area code they outsource the phone routing part to another company such as Magrathea. If you do a codelook [1] on the number ranges issued by a VOIP provider, the number range is often by somebody like Magrathea.

When porting to a VOIP provider, I think the same applies. Often the numbers are not owned by A&A, Voipfone, Sipgate, etc but a similar third party. If you're then moving the number between accounts at the same provider, or between companies using the same 'phone routing provider', then it doesn't change the phone routing. If the number range was originally owned by BT, calls still initially land at BT and are redirected to Magrathea who then pass it on to whoever of their customers the number is held with. Therefore redirecting the number from one customer to another may just involve a routing change at Magrathea, rather than a full number port.

However, A&A has their own number blocks ('Andrews and Arnold (Numbers) Ltd' [2]) and doesn't use Magrathea. (This is actually a wheeze to work around some Ofcom charging rules). It seems like Voipfone also have their own numbers now too (as iNet Telecoms [3]), which are different from Magrathea [4].

Theo

[1]

[Andy Burns]

It was a long time ago, and I was going to claim it *was* A&A, but thinking about it, more likely Gradwell ...

[Andy Burns]

BT's FTTP is passive so has no powered kit in the street, and presumably the fibre exchanges have UPS/generator backed supplies?

Altnet FTTP, don't know.

[Chris Hogg]

Oh gawd! Something else to worry about!

I'm with BT. I have three telephone sockets in my bungalow, one of which is the master socket in the bedroom and occupied by a conventional phone; another is shared between a second phone and the BT router via a simple splitter.

The router is about five years old, BTHub6--M6KJ and connects to my computer via (I assume) a WiFi link. The third phone socket is in a second bedroom and is not used at present. There is a bedroom and several concrete walls between the master socket and the socket connected to the router.

The two phones are *at least* thirty years old at a guess, and very simple and basic, just the usual twelve buttons (0-9, # and *)

Why are BT doing this? I have an overhead telephone wire connecting my bungalow to the phone system, so I don't understand the explanation that they're going copperless. Does that mean they'll take down the overhead telephone wires? If it doesn't, and they're still left for emergencies, then why the undoubted upheaval?

How are elderly folk who don't/can't use a computer (like my late mother and my late wife) and rely on their landline telephone for contact with friends and relatives, going to manage?

I do have a mobile (Iphone 7 with Smarty) but don't use it much as a telephone, mostly as a camera. I don't think any of my relatives even have my mobile number.

Will it be a seamless change as far as the customer (me, in this case) is concerned? Will my landline telephone number (and old telephones) still work if friends and family etc try to ring me on it, rather than on my mobile, or will I have to give everyone my new number that I've been allocated under the new system? Will I have to get fancy new all-singing, all-dancing telephones to get it to work?

That'll do for the moment. I expect I'll think of more questions the moment I press the 'send' button.

[Robin]

I suggest you start by looking at the general background and guidance and the come back with questions you are left with. You could start with

But some quick and short - at the risk of oversimplification - answers:

Sort of :)

You keep your old number.

No. But it *might* be easier if you take the offer of free cordless phones.

One key question may be "what happens in a power cut?" But if you have a mobile phone and decent signal you have cover for 999 calls.

[Jeff Layman]

I'm more-or-less the same as you. I'm sure it won't be a seamless change because it isn't a simple change - there seem to be options. In addition, in the "PSTN/POTS retirement" thread, although plugging in my DECT phone to the router would appear to be fairly straightforward and give /most/ of its functions, it looks like some tweaking might be required.

I currently have a BT landline, with broadband FTTC by Zen. Having read through this and other threads, I don't understand why there seems to be a push towards a VOIP provider rather than, for example, changing to Zen supplying FTTP (or FTTC until it becomes FTTP), and their Digital Voice package, so Zen become the only supplier. Would their Digital Voice be that much more expensive, and perhaps less functional, than a VOIP provider?

[Andy Burns]

So they can vacate most of the exchange buildings (which they haven't owned for over 20 years) and avoid replacing old exchange equipment.

Initially they can recover all the copper between the exchanges and green cabinets.

If you can't have FTTP they'll leave the copper from the green cabinet to your house, but you won't be able to use if for phone calls, as it no longer goes to the exchange building, and the building isno longer an actual exchange, so the phone calls have to be done over your broadband, where your phone plugs into the router, or an adapter.

Eventually, once you can have FTTP, they can recover the cable from the green cabinet to your house as well.

[David Wade]

Rather plan for.

Typical setup.

Many modern routers have a phone socket as well.

Not typical. I would say many have switched to wireless DECT phones... .. but if you end up with fibre then you can simply patch the phone socket on the router into your existing sockets.

Because they are removing the antique equipment your phone line connects at the Exchange, which means that regardless of what happens to your piece of copper that goes from your house to the pole, if there is nothing at the other end, it is effectively useless.

They if they are passed presumably they no longer use a phone... ... but if you want just a phone they can provide you with a small unit that fits on the fibre and has a normal phone socket on it. The issue is it needs mains power....

It might need a minor change to patch the new equipment into the old wiring but it should still work, so long as you have power.

Dave

[S Viemeister]

It is not unknown for our mobile signal to disappear during fairly short power cuts, although lately it has often lasted a couple of hours, before going dead.

We're in a fairly remote area.

[charles]

but I doubt if the overhead ones are made of copper.

[Robin]

For good or ill, Ofcom only expect access to emergency organisations for one hour in the event of a power cut.

And while it may well not help there's automatic roaming across networks for emergency services which may help others in local area cuts.

[David Wade]

What else would they be made of? There are (or perhaps were) areas where aluminium cable was used underground because it was cheaper and worked ok for the phone service but a disaster for ADSL/internet access, so if they carry data then they almost certainly will be copper, usually with a steel support wire.

Dave