adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jul 28, 2022 7:48:32 GMT
BT were trying to remove the phonebox in our village a few years ago. The parish council asked them to reconsider. BT produced the call logs. Not one inbound or outbound call for at least three years. TBH, there wasn't much could be said to that...
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jul 28, 2022 9:46:52 GMT
A few points: - What's being discontinued is the old PSTN telephone exchanges, all of which are being replaced by digital.
- VOIP does not require FFTP. It just requires broadband. When the switchover to VOIP is completed many homes will still have a copper connection to the cabinet (but will need broadband to use it).
- Nobody will have to pay more.
More info here. The rollout of VOIP was paused in March 2022 following customer complaints, and the storms which left many remote communities (with no mobile signal) without electricity for days if not weeks. AFIAK it remains paused while the issues raised are properly dealt with, but I could be out of date. As others have said, It's cheaper for BT so we should get a reduced bill What about people without broadband The "medic Alert" necklaces with a push button don't work over VOIP Burglar Alarms with auto dial won't work during a power cut ! the Battery backup being supplied by BT for some people lasts less than 2 days thats not enough during a major outage
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Post by moonraker on Jul 28, 2022 10:22:06 GMT
I'm a bit confused about much of this, mixing up 5G with FastFibre. But a few weeks ago I got an email from TalkTalk setting a date for them to instal FF for free into my house. I was happy enough with my existing landline as I usually only watch old films on a free streaming service, but then I realised that the landline would cease to work in three years time, so I went ahead. Luckily I'm a member of the TalkTalk Community Forum and when I asked some basic questions there I got the offer of a free new router. Only I couldn't access the Internet. The Community Forum suggested some tweaks that didn't work, thenTalkTalk played around with my router remotely. So now is OK. But I get only 31Mbps, almost certainly because I remain on a cheapo tariff.
My youngish neighbour next door is far more tech-savvy than I and works from home and had TalkTalk FF installed a couple of weeks before me but still can't access the Internet. He can't be bothered to get it sorted - yet - and is content with his landline.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jul 28, 2022 10:30:43 GMT
My youngish neighbour next door is far more tech-savvy than I and works from home and had TalkTalk FF installed a couple of weeks before me but still can't access the Internet. He can't be bothered to get it sorted - yet - and is content with his landline. Get something else if you want a reliable Fibre, ie, not openreach. But it will take a long time before you get connected by other community fibre
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Jul 28, 2022 10:34:43 GMT
A few points: - What's being discontinued is the old PSTN telephone exchanges, all of which are being replaced by digital.
- VOIP does not require FFTP. It just requires broadband. When the switchover to VOIP is completed many homes will still have a copper connection to the cabinet (but will need broadband to use it).
- Nobody will have to pay more.
More info here. The rollout of VOIP was paused in March 2022 following customer complaints, and the storms which left many remote communities (with no mobile signal) without electricity for days if not weeks. AFIAK it remains paused while the issues raised are properly dealt with, but I could be out of date. As others have said, It's cheaper for BT so we should get a reduced bill What about people without broadband The "medic Alert" necklaces with a push button don't work over VOIP Burglar Alarms with auto dial won't work during a power cut ! the Battery backup being supplied by BT for some people lasts less than 2 days thats not enough during a major outage From the Which? article I linked to: What if I don't have or want a broadband connection?
Those who currently only have a landline won't be forced to pay for broadband services that they don't want or need. Their digital phone service will work using a special dedicated broadband connection and shouldn't cost any more than what they pay now. BT has made a specific commitment to telecoms regulator Ofcom that its customers will pay the same amount, and Virgin Media says its voice-only customers will get the hub necessary for its digital phone services at no additional cost.
The other issues are why the rollout's been paused but are supposedly being worked on. That said, battery backups will only ever have a finite life. With regard to careline / medical alarms specifically, all providers should be on top of the change and helping their customers with the switchover. I don't know if they all are, but these two seem to be: www.careline-cs.org.uk/digital-shift/#:~:text=The%20new%20system%20uses%20Voice,t%20carried%20by%20physical%20wires. www.telecare24.co.uk/digital-switchover-for-careline-alarms/
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jul 28, 2022 11:53:35 GMT
...and it's not VoIP. It's a POTS landline, but carried digitally over fibre rather than analogue over copper. Different things entirely.
The router acts as the interface, and the consumer hardware side is exactly the same - so, yes, things like burglar and oldiewonk alarms certainly should work so long as they plug into a BT socket, and you can bet suppliers will be on top of that.
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Post by crabbyoldgit on Jul 28, 2022 12:48:51 GMT
truth is as ex bt exchange engineer, we were running i think 17 different platforms at one stage , speach , telex , private wires it went on and on. Our compeditors are running one platform carrying all services. 17 sets of spares ,17 sets of trainning , yes BT could keep out of date services going but at at a cost that would leave us with 17 customers. I well remember trying to keep isdn2 going a predecessor of isdn2e, a rack of old in every exchange for one customer ,1 line per exchange, the fire brigage who had ancient equipment which would run on nothing else. In the end we just ran out of spares and were unable to fix it, having warned the customer for years we were unable to garrentee service.
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keitha
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Post by keitha on Jul 28, 2022 13:16:19 GMT
Interestingly had similar issues with F&R services
Software designed for DOS still being used a few years ago ( less than 10 ) Hardware that needed Serial Ports using specific IRQ ! One that piece of mission critical hardware that wouldn't work on a Baud rate > 2200, the insistence on using dot matrix printers so they had 2 guaranteed identical copies of call out documents etc
The chaos when an old PC running NT failed ( part of motherboard went pop ) and a large part of the comms went down with it, when I spoke to the supplier and he said it was NT only and I pointed out NT no longer available and many of the drivers would not work on Windows 10, the answer I got was "well get hold of an older PC that will run NT then"
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Post by bernythedolt on Jul 30, 2022 23:38:55 GMT
...and it's not VoIP. It's a POTS landline, but carried digitally over fibre rather than analogue over copper. Different things entirely. The router acts as the interface, and the consumer hardware side is exactly the same - so, yes, things like burglar and oldiewonk alarms certainly should work so long as they plug into a BT socket, and you can bet suppliers will be on top of that. Can you elaborate? Forgive me, but surely the protocol over the fibre is VoIP? If not, this particular oldiewonk has misunderstood something fundamental about our current service at home! BT call their landline replacement offering 'Digital Voice'. The Which? article and other sources confirm Digital Voice uses the VoIP protocol... - Digital voice services are the future of landlines – they work using broadband connections rather than copper phone lines. Digital Voice is the name BT, the UK's biggest landline provider, uses for its digital voice service. You may also hear digital voice services referred to as 'VoIP', 'IP voice' and other branded versions such as 'Sky Voice' or 'TalkTalk Voice'
- Digital phone services work using something called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Your broadband/landline provider might also call it IP voice or Digital Voice.
- VoIP converts your voice into a digital signal, so that it can be sent between computers and other devices on the internet. It's the same technology that's used by popular video and voice messaging services like FaceTime, Skype and WhatsApp.
My understanding is our analogue voice down our old analogue phone is packetised into digital VoIP datagrams by the router (in our case BT's Smart Hub 2) and all the way from the router out to the cloud. Which obviously includes the fibre.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jul 31, 2022 8:00:32 GMT
...and it's not VoIP. It's a POTS landline, but carried digitally over fibre rather than analogue over copper. Different things entirely. The router acts as the interface, and the consumer hardware side is exactly the same - so, yes, things like burglar and oldiewonk alarms certainly should work so long as they plug into a BT socket, and you can bet suppliers will be on top of that. Can you elaborate? Forgive me, but surely the protocol over the fibre is VoIP? If not, this particular oldiewonk has misunderstood something fundamental about our current service at home! BT call their landline replacement offering 'Digital Voice'. The Which? article and other sources confirm Digital Voice uses the VoIP protocol... - Digital voice services are the future of landlines – they work using broadband connections rather than copper phone lines. Digital Voice is the name BT, the UK's biggest landline provider, uses for its digital voice service. You may also hear digital voice services referred to as 'VoIP', 'IP voice' and other branded versions such as 'Sky Voice' or 'TalkTalk Voice'
- Digital phone services work using something called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Your broadband/landline provider might also call it IP voice or Digital Voice.
- VoIP converts your voice into a digital signal, so that it can be sent between computers and other devices on the internet. It's the same technology that's used by popular video and voice messaging services like FaceTime, Skype and WhatsApp.
My understanding is our analogue voice down our old analogue phone is packetised into digital VoIP datagrams by the router (in our case BT's Smart Hub 2) and all the way from the router out to the cloud. Which obviously includes the fibre. VoIP isn't a protocol. VoIP is simply "Voice over IP". The usual endpoint connector protocols involved are SIP or H.323. Yes, I s'pose you could call it VoIP - but it's not what's usually referred to as VoIP, where you have a digital handset connected directly to and communicating directly onto an IP network. If you do want to call it VoIP, then your landline has been VoIP for probably north of a decade, maybe nearly two - since the actual carrier backbone has been digital since BT's "21CN" project, which ran from the early 00s to the late 10s converted almost every exchange in the country to digital. The point at which the analogue phone becomes digital is simply moving from the exchange to your router. The actual handset is still analogue.
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Post by bernythedolt on Jul 31, 2022 16:46:12 GMT
Can you elaborate? Forgive me, but surely the protocol over the fibre is VoIP? If not, this particular oldiewonk has misunderstood something fundamental about our current service at home! BT call their landline replacement offering 'Digital Voice'. The Which? article and other sources confirm Digital Voice uses the VoIP protocol... - Digital voice services are the future of landlines – they work using broadband connections rather than copper phone lines. Digital Voice is the name BT, the UK's biggest landline provider, uses for its digital voice service. You may also hear digital voice services referred to as 'VoIP', 'IP voice' and other branded versions such as 'Sky Voice' or 'TalkTalk Voice'
- Digital phone services work using something called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Your broadband/landline provider might also call it IP voice or Digital Voice.
- VoIP converts your voice into a digital signal, so that it can be sent between computers and other devices on the internet. It's the same technology that's used by popular video and voice messaging services like FaceTime, Skype and WhatsApp.
My understanding is our analogue voice down our old analogue phone is packetised into digital VoIP datagrams by the router (in our case BT's Smart Hub 2) and all the way from the router out to the cloud. Which obviously includes the fibre. VoIP isn't a protocol. VoIP is simply "Voice over IP". The usual endpoint connector protocols involved are SIP or H.323. Yes, I s'pose you could call it VoIP - but it's not what's usually referred to as VoIP, where you have a digital handset connected directly to and communicating directly onto an IP network. If you do want to call it VoIP, then your landline has been VoIP for probably north of a decade, maybe nearly two - since the actual carrier backbone has been digital since BT's "21CN" project, which ran from the early 00s to the late 10s converted almost every exchange in the country to digital. The point at which the analogue phone becomes digital is simply moving from the exchange to your router. The actual handset is still analogue. "your landline has been VoIP/carrier backbone digital since..." - Digital yes, as in Digital Subscriber Line and so on, but did that technology chop up the voice data into IP datagrams as (I believe) VoIP does from your shiny new BT router today? I'm far from expert, but if I understand matters, I think that's the essential difference between the previous simple digital voice signal and today's VoIP technology.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Jul 31, 2022 16:53:32 GMT
VoIP isn't a protocol. VoIP is simply "Voice over IP". The usual endpoint connector protocols involved are SIP or H.323. Yes, I s'pose you could call it VoIP - but it's not what's usually referred to as VoIP, where you have a digital handset connected directly to and communicating directly onto an IP network. If you do want to call it VoIP, then your landline has been VoIP for probably north of a decade, maybe nearly two - since the actual carrier backbone has been digital since BT's "21CN" project, which ran from the early 00s to the late 10s converted almost every exchange in the country to digital. The point at which the analogue phone becomes digital is simply moving from the exchange to your router. The actual handset is still analogue. "your landline has been VoIP/carrier backbone digital since..." - Digital yes, as in Digital Subscriber Line and so on, but did that technology chop up the voice data into IP datagrams as (I believe) VoIP does from your shiny new BT router today? I'm far from expert, but if I understand matters, I think that's the essential difference between the previous simple digital voice signal and today's VoIP technology. AIUI, the only difference is whether it's carried digitally between your house and the exchange. The only difference is where it becomes digitally encoded.
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Post by mfaxford on Jul 31, 2022 19:02:30 GMT
If you do want to call it VoIP, then your landline has been VoIP for probably north of a decade, maybe nearly two - since the actual carrier backbone has been digital since BT's "21CN" project, which ran from the early 00s to the late 10s converted almost every exchange in the country to digital. The point at which the analogue phone becomes digital is simply moving from the exchange to your router. The actual handset is still analogue. Probably longer, Prior to 21CN I think the backbone was ATM based so was still digital, but might have been circuit switched rather than packet based if I'm remembering what I was taught ~20 years ago properly. Larger organisations with an E1 or similar line had a digital connection into the BT network carrying the equivalent of 30 analogue lines (I think these were SDH based).
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jul 31, 2022 22:01:55 GMT
Pretty sure BT has nothing to do with killing off landline “phones” like those antiques, but they stopped “making” them.
B&O has also stopped making beocom
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Post by bernythedolt on Jul 31, 2022 22:35:52 GMT
"your landline has been VoIP/carrier backbone digital since..." - Digital yes, as in Digital Subscriber Line and so on, but did that technology chop up the voice data into IP datagrams as (I believe) VoIP does from your shiny new BT router today? I'm far from expert, but if I understand matters, I think that's the essential difference between the previous simple digital voice signal and today's VoIP technology. AIUI, the only difference is whether it's carried digitally between your house and the exchange. The only difference is where it becomes digitally encoded. We agree. And where it is carried digitally nowadays from your house to the exchange, AIUI the technology the providers are using is VoIP (which you said upthread is not the tech used, but POTS over fibre). The reason I'm labouring this is to fully understand the issues. A friend of mine is flapping that when his block of flats is turned over to Digital Voice (ie. VoIP), their bandwidth might be insufficient, and whereas a conversation over good old POTS was always crystal clear, with no discernible packet loss in speech, he's concerned that being forced onto VoIP will degrade his experience. I've tried to reassure him that mine works just fine, with no noticeable speech break up or delay.
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