Time for a re-re-think about PSTN/POTS?

[John J]

I wonder if Strowger knew what the future held?

[charles]

Indeed, My feed is on an overhead cable

[Tim+]

Possibly. Happy to sit tight and employ the “wait and see” strategy.

There is no end date on my Zen contract though.

Tim

[Tim+]

Surprised to hear that. In my home town and up in Glasgow fibre has gone in new ducts despite the presence on Virgin ducting. (Open Reach and City Fibre respectively).

Tim

[David Wade]

The BT Target is 2030 and they are aggressively pursuing it. I guess there may be some copper left in 2030, but how much?

My Exchange, Altrincham, has not been mentioned in any rollout plans I can find yet in the post codes I tried the only broadband products available for new supply are FTTP.

So any one moving ISP in the next seven years will end up on FTTP. Any one installing new services will end up on FTTP. Any one moving house will end up on FTTP. Ordering a phone line - BT Digital Voice...

The GPON structure allows multiple splitters and up to 20km in length. Openreach say with active repeaters they can deliver service up to 60km.

Folks are saying why not sweeteers, well I don't think they are needed. Nearly every one is on a two year fixed deal. I expect these to vanish on ADSL. As these expire users will find they need to move to FTTP or face a huge increase in bills.

Dave

[David Wade]

Not sure when they changed the rules, but the guy who installed my fibre said that both Virgin and the "challenger" ISPs can use the BT poles and ducts.

Dave

[Robin]

Virgin Media ducts (installed by Cable London) everywhere here but Hyperoptic have stuck to their use of Openreach ducts and poles.

[David Wade]

So its an old contract with a "price fixed for life" contract? If so they say:-

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

From time to time, we do make changes to our customers’ products to ensure they are getting the most from their Zen connections, but without asking customers to sign up for a new contract. With this in mind, if you signed up with our Price for Life, then we will honour this for any migrations made by Zen. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

so definitely worth staying put...

Dave

[Andy Burns]

Three exchanges where I have a vested interest in broadband are not on the list at all, along with huge swathes of the map

Just enquired for plusnet at my late parents' house (where I disconnected FTTC a couple of years ago) and they are offering 68Mbps FTTC. There is a "local" gigabit altnet on poles in the street.

plusnet ... digital voice not offered.

[Theo]

Virgin ducts are privately owned by Virgin, who don't want anyone else sharing their infrastructure. Openreach was forced by Ofcom to open up their infrastructure to competitors, Virgin wasn't.

(The Virgin ducts were installed by 1980s/90s private money, many of Openreach ones were installed with public money in the nationalised era)

Theo

[Andy Burns]

I watched an altnet "technician" stringing up a fibre to the top of a BT pole, he raised his cherry picker (no ladder) with no regard to where the existing drop cables were, they hit his shoulders, he didn't stop, just carried on going up until they pinged off his arms.

[alan_m]

BT/openreach no longer have the monopoly. There are other players, possibly cherry picking the larger towns and cities, but I guess that inte next few years City Link will have cabled much of my town. Virgin (Telepest/NTL) cabled the same streets decades ago. So, even if OpenReach don't meet any targets in my area I already have the choice of Virgin and all the other ISPs offering a FTTP via City Fibre. The ISPs in turn don't have to offer anything else in my area.

I think my ISP Zen still are still advertising a FTTC, and presumably copper to the premises, via Openreach infrastructure BUT at the same price as a same (lower capped) speed service via FTTP.

+1 If still available, the legacy type services will be priced out of the marketplace. The likelihood is that FTTC/copper will just disappear and the ISPs will just inform you that your legacy service will terminate at the end of your contract.

This is already happening with the transition to the digital phone system. With some ISPs if you have/had a broadband and a landline phone type contract with them the landline phone part may just disappear into thin air with no alternative offered by the ISP themselves.

Zen internet offer an extra Digital Voice service at £6/month (incl.

1000 minutes of calls) and their supplied Fritz Box routers have an inbuilt DECT base station and the also facility to plug in your existing home phone or DECT base station/answerphone (replacing the BT master socket).

With Digital Voice and the Fritz Box router I can also configure my mobile phone to receive or make* calls on my "landline" number as long as the mobile is in wi-fi range of the router. My landline number was transferred to digital voice.

*when making a call this way person receiving will get a caller ID of my landline number (if enabled on the router).

Many people have ditched their landlines phones in favour of mobile so a loss of the equivalent of a landline phone may not be too much of a problem.

In some areas mobile 4/5G may be a viable option. As I mentioned before, friends of mine in a rural area with a poor quality land line use the BT Internet EE mobile backup as their primary source of internet connection.

When FTTC appeared in my area Zen started to market faster speeds on a higher priced contract. After a few months Zen transferred me over to their FTTC at my existing contact price. However, this is when they offered a lifetime guarantee of no price increases as long as you didn't change the service. They now only offer no price increases during the initial 12/18/24 month contract. After a 12/18/24 month contract you are on a rolling 1 month contract which previously counted as no change in service.

[alan_m]

Hmm. If I put my post code into this page. "We don't have any plans to build in this exchange"

I have FTTP in my house !

Don't make the mistake that BT/Openreach* are the only players. My FTTP comes from an ISP that uses the Citylink infrastructure that doesn't use a BT/Openreach exchange. It seems that my ISP will use whatever fibre supplier (except Virgin) that has cabled the area (including Openreach if the have done so)

My ISP also offers Digital Voice.

Pulsenet are BT owned so possibly unlikely to offer are service from a rival.

[Andy Burns]

Until recently all the other players want their own captive audience.

I realise things are changing with the likes of city fibre, where you can get service from several ISPs, regardless of whose cable enters your building.

[alan_m]

In your case yes. Zen in the past have honoured this type of contract and where a transfer instigated by them alone has been required the price has remained the same. When the time comes you may be transferred to an equivalent, or better, speed FTTP and your original contract price stays the same.

I'm not sure what will happen with a landline phone where you pay them line rental.

Requesting digital voice when analogue goes may trigger a new 12 month broadband contract at current prices and with no price guarantees (except during the initial 12 months)

[SH]

Never heard of Pulsenet as an ISP...... will have to google for them.....

[SH]

City Link delivery parcels in person..... so have they started deliveringand collecting data in person?

:-D

[alan_m]

When I say installed the cable in less than a day I actually meant in a long road less than a few hours. The CityFibre gang of Eastern Europeans(?)* spent most of their time sitting in their vans or standing around holes either smoking or eating.

I believe that the only thing running down the pavement in which they dug a few small holes was virgin cable (or maybe BT/Openreach cables between cabinets?). All the other utilities have required the road to have been dug up

*The banter between workers was not in English

[alan_m]

My overhead fibre cable from Citylink comes from the same pole as my previous copper bt/openreach connection. The copper cable was not removed.

[SH]

Eh? Citylink are a parcels deliveru firm..... have they managed to work out a way of delivering parcels within glass fibres?

:-D