Phones again

In fact he uses an iphone himself. And siri on an phone works fine for the blind.

Why VoIP? If you're going to use a UPS to keep the base-station powered during an outage, why not use it to power your existing base-station. Either way, don't forget that the batteries in the individual handsets will run down over time if there's no power.

Why VOIP? because in 3 years' time that's all there will be.

Maybe. But why cross that bridge before you get to it? It sounds as if the OP already has a UPS which could power his existing base station and, at least, solve the short-term problem without spending any money.

By the time copper wires disappear - and I wouldn't hold my breath for it to be within 3 years - the VoIP options will be much clearer.

The copper wires aren't disappearing (yet), the phone service on them is. It's being replaced by 'digital voice' products that run off the phone port on your router. Same VDSL service over copper, just no dialtone on the copper any more.

If you are happy with that arrangement, feel free to go along with your ISP's way of doing things. But if you don't like that - you want to run your own router not the ISP's locked down one; the ISP's phone offering is not to your liking; or you need more lines/numbers, then it's worth looking at a third party VOIP service. That is completely free of your ISP and un-constrained to their network (ie it'll work from laptops, from a mobile, anything that's capable of running a VOIP client, anywhere in the world).

Basically the ISP's digital voice offering is entirely 'legacy' at this point and there's no obvious benefits to it apart from inertia. It's quite possibly not the service you would choose if you were starting from scratch.

Theo

Not all ISPs offer a phone (copper) service at the moment. Mine doesn't but is about to start offering VOIP.

Same.

Bill

You are a keyboard warrior. Strangely aggressive.Learn to live in peace.

Bill

Unusual name for a child. Anyway, sorry to hear that.

Bill

The copper wires won't disappear for most, but the dialling tone will.

We are on Virgin here, with our phones plugged into their router. However we have their router switched to modem mode, simply passing everything on to our own router, which lets us configure our network and internet access exactly as it suits us.

We have now switched to Virgin, so have no POTS line, but when we still did and we had a fault, the OpenReach guy asked did we have a wired phone for him to plug in at the master socket. I was out and my wife didn't know where the old phone was stored away, so he was very surprised when handed the only other wired phone we have, normally in the living room - which was probably made in the late 1930s or the 1940s!

That's interesting - so the phones work when in modem mode?

I've not seen any Openreach VDSL providers offer a 'modem mode', where you can still use the port on their router for phones but internet goes to your own router. That would avoid some of the downsides of the 'digital voice' setup.

(For FTTP there's a phone port on some ONTs, but it doesn't seem to be used for digital voice)

Theo

I can't see that old 1930s-40s phone working on the virgin router as

(a) the phone would only support pulse dialling as used at the time by the Strowger rotary switches in phone exchanges and

(b) the router would use DMTF dial tones.

so at the very least making an outgoing call would be impossible.

Also the router may not have high enough REN to actually stimulate the electromechanical bell within the old phone to actually make it run.

Also the connector on the old phone would not be RJ11, but would require a soapbox connector.....

They certainly do.

That I don't know. When we were still on VDSL, the router that we use internally now was used directly on the VDSL line and the phones were just connected to the master socket filter.

I am happy to confirm that the Virgin system understands pulse dialling and outward calls work fine.

Again, it has no problem doing so.

It has been converted to a standard BT plug and the Virgin router comes with an RJ11 to BT phone socket adapter.

It therefore all plug and play.

I agree with you, but what you say doesn't invalidate my suggested short-term solution for the OP.

Incidentally, I've already gone down the VoIP route at my holiday flat, where I've got rid of the landline and wired internet and installed a 4G router - plus a PAT2T to support the analog phones, using Sipgate's VoIP service.

I'll have to phone my ISP. There's nothing on their website to indicate they do VOIP, but the router they gave me has ports marked Phone1 and Phone2. So plugging the base station into that rather than the existing phone line may be possible.

Otherwise, not sure what state my spare UPS is in, may have to get a new lead-acid for it. But that could power the base station for a while.

AFAIK greenbee are plusnet with a waitrose sticker slapped on, but plusnet don't do VoIP at the moment (presumably wait until they finally announce they're going to sell FTTP).