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New landline alert issued to UK homes as switch off deadline gets closer

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philb2

2[H]4U
Joined
May 26, 2021
Messages
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Wouldn't surprise me if it is the same as you see in the US: Phone companies wanting to discontinue analog service... but not actually upgrade their shitty infrastructure and then want you to buy slow ass DSL and get VoIP over that.

I wish they'd force them to roll fiber. Like I get it is expensive, I know the costs better than most, but fuck me you can roll out new infrastructure once every century.
 
Have not had a landline for 15 years. Currently I have fibre to the premises, 900 Mbps, and no other media service, as it's not needed. Not sure why people still need landlines when mobile phones exist.
 
Sounds like a lot of people in the UK don't know what will happen when the switch off occurs. Wouldn't shock me if none of their providers sent them VOIP devices that needs to be hooked up.
Sycraft said:
Wouldn't surprise me if it is the same as you see in the US: Phone companies wanting to discontinue analog service... but not actually upgrade their shitty infrastructure and then want you to buy slow ass DSL and get VoIP over that.

I wish they'd force them to roll fiber. Like I get it is expensive, I know the costs better than most, but fuck me you can roll out new infrastructure once every century.
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US companies are definitely wanting to do this. They definitely need to roll out fiber first before disconnecting copper. It should be a requirement.
pioruns said:
Have not had a landline for 15 years. Currently I have fibre to the premises, 900 Mbps, and no other media service, as it's not needed. Not sure why people still need landlines when mobile phones exist.
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I have it for a few reasons. One is just in case something happens to my cell phone. It's good to have a backup. Second reason is long distance phone calls. Like most carriers it isn't cheap to make long distance phone calls. I use Vonage and I pay $22 a month for landline with unlimited long distance calls. Third reason is to use it as a dummy scam number. I don't always use my cell phone number when I sign up for stuff. Let them call a landline.
 
pioruns said:
Have not had a landline for 15 years. Currently I have fibre to the premises, 900 Mbps, and no other media service, as it's not needed. Not sure why people still need landlines when mobile phones exist.
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i'm in the same boat, i think i ditched the landline 12 years ago, pretty close. i was getting daily telemarketing so it was time. i ditched my tv service too, very little use for that if you're not a sports nut. 500mb cable connection is all i have and need besides the cell phone.

the landline only still exists for baby boomer paranoia excluding unusual circumstances such as lack of coverage. everyone i know that has one is because they're worried about how will i ever use the phone if the power goes out? forget the fact that most cell towers these days have some sort of backup. you can't argue with FUD any more than you can argue with stupid.
 
pioruns said:
Have not had a landline for 15 years. Currently I have fibre to the premises, 900 Mbps, and no other media service, as it's not needed. Not sure why people still need landlines when mobile phones exist.
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Ditto, I got my first phone when my wife was pregnant, I was kind of anti-technology in that regard but considering the circumstances I decided I'd cave. And between the standard landline costs and the abundant number of fees, and then if I happened to make one long distance call and got hammered with a massive monthly long distant bill (I mean $30 ... ) I had had enough, figured a cell phone with even a cheap carrier like MetroPCS more than made up with, only two calls were ever incoming on my landline, 1) my mother, and the other 98% telemarketers of some sort, despite being and the national do not call registery. Needless to say, the decision was not hard.

Now with 10Gbps* fiber (*realistically 7) and a cell phone plan where I'm not paying more than $30 a month... I feel like I won. If an emergency happens, and cell towers go down, who am I realistically going to call?
 
THRESHIN said:
i'm in the same boat, i think i ditched the landline 12 years ago, pretty close. i was getting daily telemarketing so it was time. i ditched my tv service too, very little use for that if you're not a sports nut. 500mb cable connection is all i have and need besides the cell phone.

the landline only still exists for baby boomer paranoia excluding unusual circumstances such as lack of coverage. everyone i know that has one is because they're worried about how will i ever use the phone if the power goes out? forget the fact that most cell towers these days have some sort of backup. you can't argue with FUD any more than you can argue with stupid.
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I do wonder how good the backup is on the towers though. A modern cell tower draws a lot more power than you'd think. Like 10kW+. So if it is batteries, it is only going to be enough for a short outage, it would need a generator for anything sustained.

That said, they have another advantage in that the coverage is normally overlapping so if a tower goes down, you should still get signal from another one.


As for why people would still want them, inertia mostly but they do have reliability advantages depending on where you are. Like at work, I don't get good cell service in our building (and none at all if I'm below ground). Voice over WiFi works... most of the time. However sometimes there are reliability issues. My VoIP desk phone never has issues though, all wired there, unless the network is out in which case, well WiFi is out too. Also useful as a backup. Your cellphone works great, until it doesn't. If the hardware dies or you lose it, then what? You'll get a new one, when you can, but if that isn't possible right away? Now for those of us who live with someone else, that's not a big deal, but plenty of people live alone.

Also, not really for VoIP, but for old school analog lines there is the reliability of simplicity. It requires no infrastructure on your side, just a very, VERY simple analog device that is all powered from the telco's end. So long as they have power, and they basically always do because they have generators and batteries, it will work and there's little on your side to go wrong.


I don't personally have a land line, but I can see why they are a thing. In general the over reliance on cellphones is something that I think about and try to mitigate in my life though. Not because I'm anti-cellphone, but what happens if it gets stolen? It's your voice, your e-mail, your 2-factor, your credit card, everything these days. Hell, how do you even get in to your cell provider's account site without the phone to do 2 factor? For that reason I have as many accounts as I can backed up with a Yubikey, or other 2FA option.

DukenukemX said:
US companies are definitely wanting to do this. They definitely need to roll out fiber first before disconnecting copper. It should be a requirement.
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I don't know of any that want to just disconnect the copper, but they want to not offer phone service. However they will then try to get you to buy DSL, sometimes as slow as 3mbps. Even in areas with newer hardware closer to your house they still usually offer a max of 100mbps and often less.

It annoys me that they keep trying to milk it. The tech is too old to handle the speeds we need these days, it needs to be replaced. The other good thing is fiber is exceedingly reliable. Short of something cutting the cable, it'll easy last 50-100 years. So they need to stop whining and just lay it to the house, and then it's done. Thankfully they have where I live and it is great, but there's a LOOOOT of places that don't. Even in dense areas where you'd think it would make sense. Last time I visited London the place we stayed in only had DSL. I don't remember the precise speed, but it was only double digit mbps. No fiber optics, despite being a very dense area. The telco just didn't want to bother with the expense of replacing the cable. Big problem in older areas.

I'm actually not sure how we got fiber where I live as it is all older construction (neighborhood was build in the 50s-60s even though some houses have since been replaced) and it is pretty spread out. I'm not complaining, but it is surprising given how shitty the telcos are about spending money on anything.
 
THRESHIN said:
i'm in the same boat, i think i ditched the landline 12 years ago, pretty close. i was getting daily telemarketing so it was time. i ditched my tv service too, very little use for that if you're not a sports nut. 500mb cable connection is all i have and need besides the cell phone.

the landline only still exists for baby boomer paranoia excluding unusual circumstances such as lack of coverage. everyone i know that has one is because they're worried about how will i ever use the phone if the power goes out? forget the fact that most cell towers these days have some sort of backup. you can't argue with FUD any more than you can argue with stupid.
Click to expand...
Less than 8 hours of backup function in my experience. Get yourself in an emergency situation where the power is out for a few days or a week and you’ll be wishing you had copper. Been there, done that several times.
 
Sycraft said:
I don't know of any that want to just disconnect the copper, but they want to not offer phone service.
Click to expand...
Wouldn't be surprised if there wasnt an ancient agreement that have them right of way clearance in perpetuity as long as they have wire hanging from those poles where they can continue to lease space from the poles to anyone who wants it, hence they drag their collective asses about stringing up fiber.

I know around here when Comcas just offered 20Mbps service AT&T was more than happy to stick with tiered ADSL service up to 6Mbps, it wasnt until Comcast starting offering speeds up to 400Mbps that that their Uverse product was suddenly available. And literally a week after a company hooked up 10Gps fiber for $50 a month to my house that AT&T was knocking on everyone's door in the neighborhood saying they're going to run 1Gbps fiber in the neighborhood for the low price of 90/month. And none of this technology was new to AT&T, but they only deployed it when others companies forced their hands
 
Sycraft said:
Wouldn't surprise me if it is the same as you see in the US: Phone companies wanting to discontinue analog service... but not actually upgrade their shitty infrastructure and then want you to buy slow ass DSL and get VoIP over that.
Click to expand...

Most likely yes, other countries are sometimes ahead of the USA when it comes communications and finance (eg paper bank checks) however I do expect many rural communities will be exempt.

On that note, I hadn't had a landline in almost twenty years. Luckily I have great cell coverage and fiber to my house. After we started a family I did add a VOIP line for back up or emergency communications but it was a waste of money for all that time and I ended up cancelling the service last year.
 
DukenukemX said:
I have it for a few reasons. One is just in case something happens to my cell phone. It's good to have a backup. Second reason is long distance phone calls. Like most carriers it isn't cheap to make long distance phone calls. I use Vonage and I pay $22 a month for landline with unlimited long distance calls. Third reason is to use it as a dummy scam number. I don't always use my cell phone number when I sign up for stuff. Let them call a landline.
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Valid reasons. I have my own solutions to these, though:
For problem with my mobile phone, my gf has another one, if I need to call somewhere urgently. Or I can pop into local used electronics shop and buy a replacement phone within 20 minutes of breaking my existing phone, if that ever happens.
For long distance calls with family, I use Telegram (free video and audio calls), saving $22 per month here.
For scammy telephone registrations, I am forced to enter my existing mobile, no solution for that. Often, verification comes by text message, so landline would not work anyway (in most cases, as I understand some landlines or phones can read the text message in audio voice).
 
sfsuphysics said:
Wouldn't be surprised if there wasnt an ancient agreement that have them right of way clearance in perpetuity as long as they have wire hanging from those poles where they can continue to lease space from the poles to anyone who wants it, hence they drag their collective asses about stringing up fiber.

I know around here when Comcas just offered 20Mbps service AT&T was more than happy to stick with tiered ADSL service up to 6Mbps, it wasnt until Comcast starting offering speeds up to 400Mbps that that their Uverse product was suddenly available. And literally a week after a company hooked up 10Gps fiber for $50 a month to my house that AT&T was knocking on everyone's door in the neighborhood saying they're going to run 1Gbps fiber in the neighborhood for the low price of 90/month. And none of this technology was new to AT&T, but they only deployed it when others companies forced their hands
Click to expand...
Even in places where their hand should be forced they ignore it. Around here, Cox is offering 2gbps basically everywhere, and they've offered 1gbps for a long time. They upgraded to DOCSIS 3.1 quite some time ago, and more recently added DOCSIS 3.1 upstream. So you'd think they telco would roll fiber everywhere... Nope. Still lots of slow-ass DSL everywhere. At my condo before I moved I had gigabit cable. Best the phone company would offer? 3mbps ADSL1. Wouldn't even upgrade their equipment or put a DSLAM closer. Or there's some apartments near our neighborhood. Newer place, built in like 2002. Surely this was a fiber run, I mean it is new construction, fairly dense, and these are relitively expensive apartments targeting more affluent people. Nope, DSL. The DSLAMs are on site, so they ran fiber to the property, but copper to the units. So like 50mbps in most units. Cox, of course, offers multi-gigabit speed.

The phone companies are just BAD with it. They just refuse to upgrade shit, and often even new shit is old ass copper.
 
Sycraft said:
The phone companies are just BAD with it. They just refuse to upgrade shit, and often even new shit is old ass copper.
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And at this point they actively seem to not to want to do fiber, preferring to sell you 5g to the home.
 
gtrguy said:
Less than 8 hours of backup function in my experience. Get yourself in an emergency situation where the power is out for a few days or a week and you’ll be wishing you had copper. Been there, done that several times.
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Depends on the towers where you live. Some have backup generators, some don't. We had a massive ice storm here a year and a half ago. Knocked out the power for 5 days. the cell towers kept right on going the whole time.

Not that the cell companies are going to tell you anything like that so I do get your point.
 
I still have a landline, planning to keep it until they shut it off next year. It used to be my grandmothers number she got back in the 60s, and I took it over in the 90s and have had it ever since. It been active for over 60 years now.
 
I wouldn't mind seeing more requirements set as far as what occurs during power outages and other emergency scenarios. My cable ISP goes down after about an hour whenever we have a power outage. I guess that's as long as their battery backups last. But it's very annoying to know that regardless of how much backup power I have on my end, I obviously have no control over the stuff on their end. Thankfully we have Starlink as a backup also. I think that Starlink is the best backup honestly, because it's literally not reliant on ANY local infrastructure whatsoever. Even after something like a massive earthquake that might even take out landline phones, Starlink would still work as long as we have power to the dish phased array antenna.
 
gtrguy said:
Less than 8 hours of backup function in my experience. Get yourself in an emergency situation where the power is out for a few days or a week and you’ll be wishing you had copper. Been there, done that several times.
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It obviously is going to be very location specific, where I live I have never been without power for a few days, even after big incidents like a 7.1 earthquake in 1989. Longest outage I've had is about half a day from 9am to 4pm when the power company was replacing a pole in the neighborhood. Cell still worked because populated area with lots of towers, even if it didn't I could get into my car drive less than 5 minutes and be somewhere where there was power.

If you've had "several times" being without power for up to a week that is more of a lifestyle choice, which I'm not saying is bad or wrong, with where you wish to live. Most people ... in western nations, do not have that as a problem... outside of a major disaster that wipes out so much stuff you're probably not going to live there while it is fixed
 
sfsuphysics said:
It obviously is going to be very location specific, where I live I have never been without power for a few days, even after big incidents like a 7.1 earthquake in 1989. Longest outage I've had is about half a day from 9am to 4pm when the power company was replacing a pole in the neighborhood. Cell still worked because populated area with lots of towers, even if it didn't I could get into my car drive less than 5 minutes and be somewhere where there was power.

If you've had "several times" being without power for up to a week that is more of a lifestyle choice, which I'm not saying is bad or wrong, with where you wish to live. Most people ... in western nations, do not have that as a problem... outside of a major disaster that wipes out so much stuff you're probably not going to live there while it is fixed
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LOL, I live 25 minutes from the downtown of a city. Hurricanes are a bitch. Especially when you can’t drive five minutes to where there is power because A) there’s probably no power there either and B) you can’t drive anywhere because of the downed trees in the streets. Most of the people on my street have generators but that still doesn’t get you internet or cellphone service.
You’re lucky not to have had to deal with something similar.
 
Yeah, think my parents were without power for 2 weeks after one storm. They live in a subdivision off of I-49 in Louisiana, just north of i-10. There were downed lines and trees, a bit of flooding, but no major damage. The issue was there was so much damage in other areas, it took a while to get power up everywhere.
 
Nobu said:
Yeah, think my parents were without power for 2 weeks after one storm. They live in a subdivision off of I-49 in Louisiana, just north of i-10. There were downed lines and trees, a bit of flooding, but no major damage. The issue was there was so much damage in other areas, it took a while to get power up everywhere.
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This is it. When it’s that widespread it just takes a long time and a lot of manpower to get things up and running again. Doesn’t matter where you are really.
 
gtrguy said:
LOL, I live 25 minutes from the downtown of a city. Hurricanes are a bitch. Especially when you can’t drive five minutes to where there is power because A) there’s probably no power there either and B) you can’t drive anywhere because of the downed trees in the streets. Most of the people on my street have generators but that still doesn’t get you internet or cellphone service.
You’re lucky not to have had to deal with something similar.
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Alright, my bad... yeah didn't think of hurricanes because... well wrong coast. I would think whatever knocks out power would equally knock out phone wires too since they often share the same poles
 
Starfalcon said:
I still have a landline, planning to keep it until they shut it off next year. It used to be my grandmothers number she got back in the 60s, and I took it over in the 90s and have had it ever since. It been active for over 60 years now.
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Port it to a cell phone. You can still have the number.
 
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