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UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 12:37 pm
by kiloran
This sounds like a big infrastructure change, in just over 3 year's time:
https://business.bt.com/insights/digita ... witch-off/All phones will then be VOIP over the internet.
--kiloran
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 12:41 pm
by swill453
Is there an equivalent link/FAQ for current home landline users?
Scott.
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 4:58 pm
by bungeejumper
So I'll need to junk all the phones in the house? Including not just the cordless ones but the old corded one that I keep in a drawer for use in power cuts?
Oh yes, power cuts.
No juice in the house, no router, no telephone service?
BJ
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 5:03 pm
by Hallucigenia
You can keep all your regular phones, you'll just be plugging them into the phone socket on the back of your router rather than the phone socket.
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 5:10 pm
by kiloran
bungeejumper wrote:So I'll need to junk all the phones in the house? Including not just the cordless ones but the old corded one that I keep in a drawer for use in power cuts?
Oh yes, power cuts.
No juice in the house, no router, no telephone service?
BJ
An Analogue Telephone Adapter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_telephone_adapter will allow existing analogue phones to be used. I believe the plan is to have a 1 hour battery backup in case of power cuts.
--kiloran
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 6:26 pm
by UncleEbenezer
bungeejumper wrote:So I'll need to junk all the phones in the house? Including not just the cordless ones but the old corded one that I keep in a drawer for use in power cuts?
Oh yes, power cuts.
No juice in the house, no router, no telephone service?
BJ
Keep your mobile adequately charged!
Wot, no signal?
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 6:55 pm
by bungeejumper
UncleEbenezer wrote:Keep your mobile adequately charged!
Wot, no signal?
LOL, you're ahead of me. No 3G here, and 2G coverage is only intermittent. Can't send a text with a graphic attached, cos the technology isn't up to it. Oh, the joys of living six miles from Britain's third biggest tourist centre.
BJ
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 7:30 pm
by kiloran
bungeejumper wrote:UncleEbenezer wrote:Keep your mobile adequately charged!
Wot, no signal?
LOL, you're ahead of me. No 3G here, and 2G coverage is only intermittent. Can't send a text with a graphic attached, cos the technology isn't up to it. Oh, the joys of living six miles from Britain's third biggest tourist centre.
BJ
Try this:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoon ... 17_low.jpg--kiloran
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 8:00 pm
by AF62
It isn’t domestic phones where the biggest issues will be, as those are relatively easily solved -
- Most people will just throw their landline phones in the bin as the fake pricing difference of ‘pay this for line rental and this for broadband’ vanishes as there is only broadband so even those who have a phone but never use it might realise it is pointless to plug it in.
- If you actually do need and use a phone line, which most don’t, then as already mentioned it will just plug into the back of the router. For those who don’t need broadband only a phone line then a minimum bandwidth broadband will be offered which will just have enough bandwidth to support VOIP calls.
- The expectation is most people will have mobile phones if there is a power cut, or will be supplied with a battery box to power the dedicated box for minimum bandwidth lines if they don’t have a mobile or there is no coverage.
The bigger issues are all those devices that use a phone line such as burglar alarms, emergency call alarms, etc. Likely lots of systems will need to be junked for new versions that use SIM cards. Elsewhere everything from lifts to traffic lights will need to be updated.
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 9:38 pm
by SalvorHardin
A lot of people in the more rural parts of the UK are going to lose their phone connection as a result of this. There's no broadband where they live, and unlikely to be any for the foreseeable future, and they also have terrible or non-existent mobile phone coverage.
These places do exist. I have a friend, living on Exmoor, who can barely get ADSL and mobiles generally have no coverage within 100 yards of his house and garden. Same for his neighbours. Text messages can get through if his Wi-Fi booster is working, but mobile voice calls require walking to the main road to get a signal.
For the rest of us it'll be no landline when there's a power cut (we generally average three power cuts a year for up to 4 hours), or when broadband goes down (twice a year for me, invariably BT's fault).
Where I live mobile phone coverage is pretty poor for voice calls, though great for data. Generally for every mobile phone call I make, I make five landline calls.
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 9:59 pm
by tjh290633
One solution to being in a not-spot is to use Wi-fi calling as offered by EE. Not sure how fast your broadband has to be, but it works very well.
TJH
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 10:07 pm
by Infrasonic
Satellite services like Starlink (Spacex) are already present in the UK and will ramp up capacity over the next few years. From what I've seen on YT with USA users it looks quite impressive, plug the dish in and away you go - decent bandwidth and relatively low latency.
If you've got weak 2/3/4/5G signal at home get an aerial...
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 10:10 pm
by Alaric
SalvorHardin wrote:A lot of people in the more rural parts of the UK are going to lose their phone connection as a result of this. There's no broadband where they live, and unlikely to be any for the foreseeable future, and they also have terrible or non-existent mobile phone coverage.
Internet connections existed before broadband, ADSL wasn't it? Presumably that can continue so the traditional phone is replaced by VOIP plus ADSL for places where there's only a copper wire. If that's not the case, the changeover hasn't been thought through properly.
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 17th, 2021, 11:49 pm
by Hallucigenia
SalvorHardin wrote:A lot of people in the more rural parts of the UK are going to lose their phone connection as a result of this. There's no broadband where they live, and unlikely to be any for the foreseeable future, and they also have terrible or non-existent mobile phone coverage.
These places do exist..
I know some of them well - and it's changing rapidly. I know places in the Highlands where as recently as 10 years ago the sum total of the multimedia experience was Radio 4 Longwave and a payphone. Now there's 40Mb internet, courtesy of microwave links paid for out of the community benefit from offshore windfarms.
Infrasonic wrote:Satellite services like Starlink (Spacex) are already present in the UK and will ramp up capacity over the next few years. From what I've seen on YT with USA users it looks quite impressive, plug the dish in and away you go - decent bandwidth and relatively low latency.
Having used c2015-technology satellite broadband in Scotland quite a bit in the last few years - it's OK, it's usable. You're probably not going to be playing Fortnite on it, but you get a couple of Mb/s, fairly lazy pings but not terrible. The real killer is that it gets very expensive as soon as you want any kind of decent GB quota.
It's also worth having a look at the Ofcom mobile checker, even if you think you "know" which mobile networks work best near you. The position has changed quite a lot recently with the introduction of 4G, often the 4G coverage can be much better than the 2/3G, even from networks that historically haven't been great near you. Obviously needs a 4G-capable phone though!
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecom ... om-checker
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 18th, 2021, 12:12 am
by Infrasonic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spD4FLfi2a4SpaceX's Starlink Reviewed: How is it after 4 months?
I installed Dishy four months ago. Does it really get 300 Mbps down? Yes, sometimes. But what about the long term averages? How much power does it use? How is latency and jitter?
All that and more in this comprehensive review of Starlink after four months installed at my house in St. Louis, MO, in the USA.
00:00 - Starlink Overview
01:33 - Caveats
02:15 - Dishy
06:45 - Starlink Router
09:08 - Power Consumption
11:20 - Performance - subjective
13:07 - Performance - objective
15:27 - Pricing and Contract
16:20 - Drawbacks
17:02 - Verdict
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 18th, 2021, 12:56 am
by Hallucigenia
Thanks - but that's another world away from the kind of "need enough to support a phone" kind of provisioning. Assuming it's the usual 1:1 ratio of pricing as it crosses the Atlantic (VAT covers most of the exchange rate difference) then you're looking at maybe £700 installation and £100/month for 300Mbps unlimited. Which is great, and would suit hotels etc, but is frankly more than most people need, certainly if they are used to next to nothing at the moment. The real requirement is for something that can get 10-20Mbps to everybody, at a price that everyone can afford.
The microwave service I experienced is this mob :
https://www.highlandwireless.co.uk/plans/£35 inc VAT for 50Mbps unlimited and £200 installation fee - and we were certainly getting in the low 40s. Through a combination of those kinds of schemes and improving 4G coverage (which I see is now quite good on one network nearby), I'm not sure how much demand there will be for the premium stuff outside hotels and the odd super-rich landowner.
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 18th, 2021, 1:33 am
by servodude
Alaric wrote:SalvorHardin wrote:A lot of people in the more rural parts of the UK are going to lose their phone connection as a result of this. There's no broadband where they live, and unlikely to be any for the foreseeable future, and they also have terrible or non-existent mobile phone coverage.
Internet connections existed before broadband, ADSL wasn't it? Presumably that can continue so the traditional phone is replaced by VOIP plus ADSL for places where there's only a copper wire. If that's not the case, the changeover hasn't been thought through properly.
Yeah if the cabling already exists for the switched network it can be used for the new scheme
What they are doing is swapping the machine at the exchange for stuff that's less 1880s (which makes providing the service much simpler from their point of view)
Commercially it looks like they will be pricing a 500kBaud connection (
) to replace the existing voice only and they'll probably find a way to persist the idea of "phone rental"
- sd
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 18th, 2021, 7:51 am
by Infrasonic
Hallucigenia wrote:Thanks - but that's another world away from the kind of "need enough to support a phone" kind of provisioning. Assuming it's the usual 1:1 ratio of pricing as it crosses the Atlantic (VAT covers most of the exchange rate difference) then you're looking at maybe £700 installation and £100/month for 300Mbps unlimited. Which is great, and would suit hotels etc, but is frankly more than most people need, certainly if they are used to next to nothing at the moment. The real requirement is for something that can get 10-20Mbps to everybody, at a price that everyone can afford.
The microwave service I experienced is this mob :
https://www.highlandwireless.co.uk/plans/£35 inc VAT for 50Mbps unlimited and £200 installation fee - and we were certainly getting in the low 40s. Through a combination of those kinds of schemes and improving 4G coverage (which I see is now quite good on one network nearby), I'm not sure how much demand there will be for the premium stuff outside hotels and the odd super-rich landowner.
Yeah it's not something I'd look at given the current prices (I've been 2 mobiles/2 networks 4G/wifi hotspot only for years at around £30 a month total cost) - but in a world where 'online' has become so important it's going to be highly subjective and case dependent. I'm sure as it develops and low earth orbit competition increases the installation/monthly costs would decrease.
One of the things I noted from the recent flash floods in Europe (especially the German devastation around the Eifel region - again from boots on the ground YT videos) was how the entire ground based utilities infrastructure got taken out, including all the mobile networks. At the very time people needed that emergency comms facility it failed.
I'm sure many will now be investigating backup generators/UPS'/redundant infrastructure options including things like satellite provision.
The US 'prepper' brigade may not be so tin foil hat after all
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 18th, 2021, 8:09 am
by AF62
servodude wrote:Commercially it looks like they will be pricing a 500kBaud connection (
) to replace the existing voice only
- sd
So almost ten times more bandwidth than my first broadband connection, which was NTL’s 64k broadband!
Re: UK analogue landlines to end in 2025
Posted: August 18th, 2021, 8:30 am
by servodude
AF62 wrote:servodude wrote:Commercially it looks like they will be pricing a 500kBaud connection (
) to replace the existing voice only
- sd
So almost ten times more bandwidth than my first broadband connection, which was NTL’s 64k broadband!
Indeed
-sd
