Landlines are nearly dead. Long live landlines

[daytonavrs]

So who is really going to be paying EE, BT etc the prohibitive new costs for what is literally just call routing VOIP which could be done via mobile?

My old landline cost was 28.99 then 30 with provider INCLUDING Broadband originally, then has shot up recently to over £60 as no longer in contract so now forced to assess my options, and what do you know, they are so limited they barely are worth thinking about ( already have full fibre but no the fastest by any stretch)

Think I will extend until Jan 2027 when all lines die and then go for as cheap BB deal as I can and screw your money for old rope relaying calls over existing broadband for a fortune, whilst you don't have to maintain any infrastucture as its already over braoadband ??

Which my wife for instance does on such messenger apps. Personally I will regret the demise of old style ability to call, but sod them and what they are doing to it I'm not going to be funding the thin option they replaced it with at a fat wedge of cost.

Amazingly I found out that Zen are still going and quite affordable. Might be one to return too and sod this BT based lot, although obviously Zen will also be having to use their infrastructure but at least are independant.

[Sheepshanks]

I don't mind the line rental, but the call costs are insane per minute. We have an inclusive call package but they've messed about with that now.

I've held on to it as mobile service is iffy at home, although Wi-Fi calling seems more reliable now - incoming calls often used to go to voicemail.

[WH16]

daytonavrs said:

So who is really going to be paying EE, BT etc the prohibitive new costs for what is literally just call routing VOIP which could be done via mobile?

This is assuming you have a mobile signal - we don't. When our landline is disconnected we will have no contact with the outside world in a power cut (which are all too frequent during winter).

I understand the infrastructure is expensive to maintain, and that we are an edge-case, but there should be some sort of better contingency than VOIP, which obviously requires electricity to run. The beauty of landlines was that they were powered from the exchange which had it's own battery backup, so even in an outage, the chances are the land line still worked.

I shouldn't have to go down the UPS route as they are expensive and have quite a short useful life (like any battery).

Our solution now is Starlink, with an additional Starlink Roam (5V USB-C powered) we can run from a car as our backup. Once my contracts expire I will be completely biffing off our legacy communication providers.

[clockworks]

WH16 said:

This is assuming you have a mobile signal - we don't. When our landline is disconnected we will have no contact with the outside world in a power cut (which are all too frequent during winter).

I understand the infrastructure is expensive to maintain, and that we are an edge-case, but there should be some sort of better contingency than VOIP, which obviously requires electricity to run. The beauty of landlines was that they were powered from the exchange which had it's own battery backup, so even in an outage, the chances are the land line still worked.

I shouldn't have to go down the UPS route as they are expensive and have quite a short useful life (like any battery).

Our solution now is Starlink, with an additional Starlink Roam (5V USB-C powered) we can run from a car as our backup. Once my contracts expire I will be completely biffing off our legacy communication providers.

We recently switched to BT full fibre (fttp) and Digital Voice. I told BT that we had no mobile signal, and they gave us two UPS units - one for the fibre box, another for the router. No cost to us.

During the recent storm, we had a couple of 12 hour power cuts. The battery backup meant that we had phone and WiFi throughout.
The fibre box kept going for the full 12 hours.
The router UPS needed a top-up from our Jackery power bank after 8 hours.

We powered the coffee machine from the car via a 13A extension lead

[bigpriest]

If everyone abandons landlines then the money lost by providers will just be recouped by increasing other charges. A few older people I know seem to have more problems hearing via a mobile than a dect handset.

[WH16]

clockworks said:

We recently switched to BT full fibre (fttp) and Digital Voice. I told BT that we had no mobile signal, and they gave us two UPS units - one for the fibre box, another for the router. No cost to us.

Vodafone were supposed to provide a UPS, however I was told by them that it is only for rural properties, and despite essentially being a small farm surrounded by moorland, 10 miles from a town and an hour from a motorway, I'm not rural enough!

[clockworks]

WH16 said:

Vodafone were supposed to provide a UPS, however I was told by them that it is only for rural properties, and despite essentially being a small farm surrounded by moorland, 10 miles from a town and an hour from a motorway, I'm not rural enough!

That's crazy.
Were you "forced" to switch to digital, or was it your choice?

We are in in a village, 5 miles from Helston, Cornwall.
We can just about make mobile calls on Vodafone if we go outside and walk up and down the road, but no signal indoors. Other networks no signal at all.

Since they switched off 3g, there's no mobile data, just patchy 2g for SMS.

Local exchange is switching off the copper lines soon. BT wanted to switch us over when I renewed the contract. I said "yes, but only if you give us battery backup".

[Sheepshanks]

WH16 said:

Vodafone were supposed to provide a UPS, however I was told by them that it is only for rural properties, and despite essentially being a small farm surrounded by moorland, 10 miles from a town and an hour from a motorway, I'm not rural enough!

I got a flat "no" from BT. I already had a UPS for my IT stuff as we get fairly regular glitches so plugged everything into that. As it happens, only power cut we've had since fibre was installed was while having a smart meter fitted.

[WH16]

^^^ We were told the landline was to be disconnected in 2025, I know this has now been pushed back, but for whatever reason our handset no longer works. I'm not sure if that was due to a decision we perhaps unwittingly made, but either way it is going and we needed a solution.