PSTN/POTS retirement

[David Wade]

I understand that the the end date is the end of 2025 so they are ok selling this this now.

You are assuming the existing customers want voice. I think they are assuming that when they say to the customer "you can cancel the voice and save £10/month" many more will say "thank god, weren't BT rip off merchants" than will say "do we have to jump ship to get a landline"... (yes I know plusnet = BT but do its customers)

... its likely of course that many of the current John Lewis customers will want to keep their landline, but I am sure many will want to switch as:-

1. They are losing their John Lewis e-mail addresses
2. John Lewis's service was rated as a "avoid" by Which

so I can't see why anyone would stay

Dave

[alan_m]

Correction, previously it was a continuous tone when the caller hung up which my answerphone regarded as the end of the conversation or call. It is now a beep beep type tone which my answerphone will continue to record for up to 30 seconds.

[Bob Henson]

On my travels around Gloucestershire I can vouch for there being many places with no signal at all. When Vodafone 3G is switched off shortly and others in quick succession, there will be a huge number. When PSTN goes at about the same time as the last of 3G, many places in Gloucestershire will be back to using a runner with as message in a cleft stick. 4G is not adequate replacement for any kind of internet connection and 5G has barely started over most of the country so lets just hope that there are still copper and fibre for a long time or much of the country will have no internet at all.

[Theo]

The thing is they won't be saving any money, because the prices aren't going to decrease.

When on PN the regular offer was something like £19.99pm 'line rental' plus 'free broadband' for 12 months (after which it reverted to something like £8.99 a month plus the 'line rental').

People aren't going to be able to 'save' the £19.99, so the new deal will be £19.99pm broadband and no 'line rental'.

The 'line rental' has been used as a pricing trick for a long time, but I don't think anyone is going to think they're onto a good thing with exactly the same monthly price for less services.

I think PN misjudge their market here: they're BT's budget brand, but I think a good chunk of their customers just want a basic service: no fancy whizzy features like whole-house wifi or gaming features, just a connection for emails and maybe a bit of TV. Perhaps they skew older. That's the kind of customer who uses their landline.

PN going broadband-only may annoy a disproportionate number of their customers, compared with another ISP who has more tech-oriented customers who haven't touched their landline in decades.

Theo

[Joe]

I'm on Plusnet FTTC, and while all copper is owned by BT, I'm paying line rental to Plusnet and have no dealings with BT. I'm also paying for add-ons for unlimited UK non-premium landline and UK mobile calls. The router does not have a phone socket.

But routers cost peanuts compared to a few years' subscription.

[Owain Lastname]

Yet are more tech-friendly than many others; they freely allow use of a non-PN router, support SMTP, and I think still sypport Usenet?

Owain

[Mike Clarke]

Well they're not going to kill all the old PSTN accounts and rip out all the copper in 2025. It's going to be a phased migration and it will be a miracle if they complete it in the original schedule.

Rollout will be on an exchange by exchange basis and they'll start migrating existing customers to fibre when it's available for 75% of the subscribers in the area. At this point they won't provide new copper circuits to customers in the area if fibre is available for them.

The key points are summarised about halfway down the page at

[The Other John]

My Plusnet router has a phone socket but it's taped over. I'm still on copper FTTC getting 70/20Mb/s with the cabinet <100 metres away.

[Tim Streater]

Exactly what they sold me a few days ago as I got off JLB.

[Rod Speed]

For some, certainly. Not sure about many tho.

Depends on how well 5G handles peak demand like with footy finals etc and everyone streaming for entertainment.

That's far from clear yet with so few using just 5G yet.

Pity about fiber which is nothing like FTTC,

[Rod Speed]

Yep. I have been doing that for more than a decade now with my voip service which I had in parallel with my original PSTN phone service which was later moved to its own voip service when I changed from ADSL to FTTN. Using a pair of Panasonic KX-TCD735ALM

It works perfectly.

Correct.

[Joe]

I moved to them when Vodafone finally killed Demon, as they were one of very few ISPs offering a fixed IP address, and I couldn't afford Andrews and Arnold. I dare say BT still does but only on a 'business' account, and as soon as the word 'business' appears in a service name the price quadruples. Also, a previous client's experience was that BT don't have any interest in staying off email blacklists.

And maybe a mail server...

People using PAYG mobiles, and there are more than you think.

Those who use broadband have only recently had the option of FTTP at a reasonable price, and of course there's Virgin... anyone on FTTC or ADSL has a landline by necessity.

[Max Demian]

Is there a website which explains how to do this easily, i.e. not just loads of different options. And don't you always have to pay by the megabyte? If you visit a webpage, it's hard to avoid all the accompanying videos I don't want. I like unmetered.

Well I only get 2.5mbps for ADSL2+

Hard in a block of flats with (I think) reinforced concrete floors and structural walls.

[Andy Burns]

I was previously on VirginMedia (which piggy-backed on O2) who didn't recognise my grey-imported Pixel 5A as VoWiFi compatible.

As part of the VMO2 merger, I've been moved direct onto O2, and they have provisioned my SIM for VoWiFi, the reliability of mobile calls at home is now *so* much better.

[Andy Burns]

I think turning off dial-tone on all PSTN lines *will* happen by 2025, getting the unused copper (between exchanges and green cabinets) out of the ground can then be done at BTs leisure.

[Andy Burns]

What David *meant* to say was that Plusnet are not offering telephone services to FTTP customers.

[Andy Burns]

Will Plusnet still exist by 2025? Rumour has been they'll convert us into EE customers ...

[Andy Burns]

Until recently (April?) there was a catch-22 that if you ported you PSTN number to a VoIP provider in advance of upgrading from xDSL to FTTP, that would cancel your xDSL broadband.

OFCOM now have a "right to port" article 106(3)

"Right to keep number after termination

Where an end-user terminates a contract, Member States shall ensure that the end-user can retain the right to port a number from the national numbering plan to another provider for a minimum of one month after the date of termination, unless that right is renounced by the end-user"

[Jeff Layman]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm also with Zen and have a Fritzbox

7530. I can put up with the sorts of minor issues you've experienced with your DECT phone answerphone function. It'll probably be quite some time before I change from FTTC to FTTP.

[Theo]

What I don't understand about that is how it works without ceasing broadband.

In other words you have broadband and phone with Provider A. You switch to broadband from Provider B, and want to move the number to VOIP Provider C. How do you extract the number from the landline, ideally with as little interruption as possible. How does that work without interrupting either the broadband or the phone?

I can see a route where you port out the number from Provider A to Provider C, which ceases the broadband. Then you start a new broadband contract with Provider B. But here there's a gap of a week or two when you don't have broadband (or VOIP phone), which is unacceptable for many people.

I'm not sure the 'right to port' helps there?

Theo