OT: Landline or not?

[S Viemeister]

I use a dual-SIM phone, with UK and US SIMs - when the local tower goes down, neither one gets a signal.

[Andy Burns]

The final dropwire from pole to house is usually copper clad steel, aerial cable between poles is figure-8 type with 50-100 copper pairs in one compartment and steel support strand(s) in the other.

[Theo]

'Digital Voice' *is* VOIP, but effectively locked in to one provider (your ISP). Effectively you're stuck with whatever landline package your ISP offers, and traditional ISP landline packages can be very expensive (either making you buy a ~£10pm 'unlimited calls' bundle or else having very high call charges, like 24p setup fee for a short call).

The analogy might be with getting your email from your ISP: it works, it's simple, but it's limited and there is a risk of the ISP holding you hostage now or in future.

If you move to third party VOIP the tech is basically the same, but your landline is set free from your ISP and their limitations. It's more flexible and can be cheaper, depending on your use case. In this case phone just becomes another internet account like email, cloud storage, etc.

Theo

[Robin]

I've no idea if "it's not us it's them" is a practical problem. I do know some who are not technically literate/confident see benefit in having only one firm to deal with when it doesn't work.

[SH]

i have a dual sim phone, the two sims are EE and Three.....

if one tower goes down, I hope the other tower stays up.... :-) assuming they don;t co-share towers?

[Chris Hogg]

On Mon, 3 Jul 2023 13:58:06 +0100, Robin [e-mail] wrote: Useful stuff - thanks. Another question - I assume my existing router gets its internet stuff through my telephone connection (much higher frequency or something similar, separated from the speech frequencies by filters), simply because it is connected to my drop wire from the nearest telephone pole. If that drop wire is no longer active because 'the other end' is now an empty building, how do these new BT Smart Hub 2 routers communicate to the internet etc? Some sort of wireless/Wi-Fi/radio connection?

[Andy Burns]

that bit of copper stays between the green cabinet and your house, to keep your xDSL working, until you get FTTP

[SH]

I should think the total scrap value of all that copper and aluminium far exceeds the market capitalisation of BT/Openreach and Virginmedia!

[David Wade]

Well if you use your landline to make calls then ZENs digital voice is competitively priced, is remotely configured so pretty much "plug and go". However they now don't disclose the credentials so its only available on the Zen router. I would say for many people this is a good solution.

If you don't make calls you can save money by using another voip provider, such as voipfone.com. You can also access their service from other devices.

BT digital voice is the same price as a POTS line and is "rip-off".

BT seem very expensive...

There should be no risk provided you don't move house. Whilst you can't move your e-mail address, OFCOM have said number portability must apply to VOIP as well as POTS numbers. Of course that assumes BT play ball. Plusnet did send me what seems like a "frightener" ....

Dave

[S Viemeister]

I'm assuming that our local tower is shared. My two SIMs are BT and TMobileUS.

[Jeff Layman]

Are you *sure* it's "standard" VOIP? The reason I ask is that Zen state on their Digital Voice webpage at

:================================================What’s included in our Digital Voice package?

Digital Voice is our home phone service for fibre connections... ================================================ So it appears that, as least as far as Zen is concerned, it is for FTTP only.

And that's where I start getting confused. Do I assume that if I went for an independent VOIP provider now, that they would provide some sort of dongle between my current copper phone line and Zen's Fritz!Box router? I would then have to plug my DECT phone into the dongle to use the other VOIP provider's service? And it would be possible to keep my current phone number? The problem then is that I would be paying BT for the line rental (even though I would no longer be using their telephone service), paying Zen for FTTC broadband, and paying the VOIP provider for their service. My intention, unless it would be a lot more expensive and more limited in function in some way, would be to just use Zen. They already provide the router into which I could plug the DECT phone, they already provide broadband, and I could use them as the line rental provider too (although I assume that would be part of the package anyway). That should be a simple plug'n'talk. The problem with all that

- at present - is that Zen won't do Digital Voice until FTTP arrives!

Well, Zen isn't my primary email provider, but I do have a few @xxx.myzen email addresses; I could have up to 10. They took me a bit of setting up, but work well (although I wish they were IMAP rather than POP, but that's another matter). In fact the Zen emails are free whereas I have to pay for my primary email address simply because I prefer to use it with an email client rather than their webmail interface (doesn't everyone?...); the advantage of the primary email is that it's an address for life. There is little difference in functionality between them, as both are webmail based. I can't see Zen holding me to hostage somehow. Perhaps one day they'll introduce a small charge or at worst cut the service completely. Then I'll have to find another for an email backup.

See above. What are the limitations you are referring to?

[David Wade]

I don't believe this is true. I looked at a bit of mine left over from a recent removal of a disused Business Highway ISDN line. Its exactly as described here:-

so two copper pairs an three steel support wires.....

Dave

[Andy Burns]

The wouldn't necessarily provide one, you could either buy a VoIP capable phone, that would just plug into an ethernet port on your router, or you could buy a ATA (analogue telephone adapter) which is as you describe.

Yes, make sure Zen won't cancel your broadband if you port your phone number to someone like voipfone, it's early days for all this and there are probably pitfalls ...

[Andy Burns]

Depends on the age, 1970/80s number 3 dropwire is the steel variety.

[Alan Lee]

...

We got rid of our landline last week. It was £38/month for phone and broadband. Of course, like most people under 70 yo, we dont use the landline to make any calls, and only receive marketing/spam calls to it, so no reason to keep it.

For BB, we've gone with Three Wireless. Unlimited data for £20/month, and the first 3 months free. Totally painless, online TV has been fine, not noticed any difference at all regarding speed. I wish we had done it sooner.

[Theo]

It's SIP VOIP but locked away so you can't access it apart from via their router. From 5th September they are not allowed to sell analogue landlines, so any new connections from then on will be Digital Voice. Everyone will be switched by the end of 2025. I don't know what Zen currently do for FTTC but they have two months to sort themselves out if they don't do Digital Voice, else no more landline customers.

(FTTC is also 'fibre' as far as BT's marketing goes, so it's possible their statement above also covers it)

Yes, or you would buy your own. Or you'd use a VOIP phone (wired or DECT) that has the 'dongle' integrated. Or you'd use an app on your mobile if you wanted. Or all of the above at the same time.

Yes.

You wouldn't be paying BT for the line rental - if you have a separate line rental contract that would stop when you migrate the number. However you'd still need to pay for the FTTC which would have to include an element of line rental, and you'd have to arrange that with Zen. Most people get landline and FTTC from the same place so there's no explicit line rental (or if there is it's just a pricing trick - 'free broadband, just pay line rental': they won't let you have just the free stuff, you still have to pay for something).

(if you do have this split line rental arrangement, extracting the number from the physical line may be a bit more complicated. Either way the switch needs some planning)

That would be fine, if that suits your needs. Horses for courses.

The things I'm thinking of is when the ISP arbitraily decides to shut down a particular set of email addresses (as John Lewis Broadband did 3 days ago), or if you want to migrate away you have to pay them some egregious fee to keep an email address going that everyone knows and is too awkward to change. If the number is separate from your internet connection, you are free to move it to whichever place works best for you, just like you can migrate a domain to a different host.

1. Your phone number is tied to your address. Move house and you lose it
2. Your phone number is tied to your router. Want to use a different router - you can't.
3. Your phone number is tied to your physical location. Want to be able to answer your landline when away from home - you can't.
4. Want to answer your landline on your PC or via an app on your phone - you can't.
5. Want to have your calls redirected to another number? Very costly at most ISPs
6. You can have it ring both your landline and mobile app at the same time
7. You can have your voicemails delivered as emails or some other format
8. Much cheaper international calls

and plenty more. For the record, I use all of the above features.

There is no right or wrong answer, so if none of that is of interest then the basic ISP landline may be fine for domestic purposes.

Theo

[charles]

while they may share the tower, they will have their own equipment at the bottom.

[David Wade]

Nope, if you go to

which is for FTTC it says

"No phone line included"

and further down

"all packages include digital voice"

If you have the latest 7530AX then it includes VOIP functionality, a socket into which you can plug a normal phone and a DECT basestation capability.

Its not locked down and so it can be used with virtually any VOIP provider. Mine is connected to voipfone.com and seems fine.

The cheap VOIP providers don't provide any hardware, you have to provide your own.

From my reading of the web site they will.... .. as from later in the

I use gmail and outlook.com. No charge for any client.

I don't believe they can. OFCOM guarantee number portability for voice.

With BT its the same price as a real copper landline. With ZEN you are locked into their router hardware. However have played with the router its pretty flexible.

Dave

[Chris Hogg]

When (and if) I get FTTP, will they simply replace the copper with fibre on the poles, or will it be buried. There is a green cabinet about 30 yards away, roughly opposite my bungalow, but on the other side of a narrow lane and strip of woodland. I don't know its purpose. I don't envy them the job of running the cable underground, if that's what they will try to do.

[Mike Clarke]

But these exchanges already house lots of networking equipment which will still be needed. No doubt some space will be freed up when the telephone switching equipment goes but some of that space will also be needed for the extra network kit to handle all the digital voice stuff.