The deadline may get pushed back a little, but I think BT’s plans remain the same. The existing analogue PSTN provision will be withdrawn in stages across the country. Instead they’ll offer VOIP with a port on the broadband router to connect old handsets.
Or go to a different provider. I ditched BT long ago because of their attitude problem and their Indian call centre. I have since been with PO Phones and am currently with UNO.
I seem to be always moving my master socket around. The job is trivial. An Open Reach wireman once commented to me that as long as it was wired properly they wouldn't care.
I would view this with extreme suspicion. There should be no need to sign-up for anything, nor should there be a need for a new contract.
Not a viable alternative living in an 18th century building where reception is dodgy at the best of times.
I am in pretty much your position, but I have chosen to take up the offer, because the monthly direct debit ought to be cheaper than the quarterly bills I am paying now. At 74, I don't do much translation business any more, but still do some as long as it's not urgent (28 jobs invoiced in 34 weeks this year), enough to keep claiming the phone bill as a business expense. I am due to be "ported" to my new provider at 11 a.m. and am keeping my fingers crossed that I've connected the new phone up correctly and that everything will go smoothly. I made it clear that what I wanted was a phone that looked and felt as much like the old landline as possible.
Was this call really from BT?
The process was fraught, and the porting did not go as planned, so that my email and internet were put out of action, probably because the old Plus Net router would not accept the new system (I had been assured that it would). I have been away for a few weeks and only got it finally sorted out this afternoon when a more technically savvy friend connected up a new BT router. The process of registering the new account, without which the Yealink deskphone won't work, was not easy even for him. Fortunately, the OnePhone package included a deskphone and 5 SIM cards, and a kind neighbour gave me an old Samsung smartphone, so that I was at least able to make and receive calls; as a stopgap, calls to my landline/deskphone number have been diverted to this phone. I think I will keep this facility, as it allows me to use the smartphone as an extension in the living room, while the deskphone lives in the office. I don't propose to use the 5-year old smartphone for anything but calls. Both phones ring simultaneously when someone calls me. Of course the mobile can also receive calls to its own number, which I've only divulged to one person so far. There were times when I wished I had never started the process, but it should be cheaper in the long run.
Would anyone with the most up-to-date BT router face less of a problem? If a BT customer is over 75 years of age, would they send an engineer free of charge to perform any required upgrading matters? The Halo 3 packages allow for one annual engineer visit.
They certainly used to where age or infirmity meant that the phone was a lifeline, but that was some time ago so things may well have changed.
This was one of the things that was not made clear to me; I was sent a router (which arrived while I was on holiday, so I had to get a taxi out to the sorting office at Wight Moss Lane, Kew on the edge of town to collect it when I got back), and assumed that an engineer was coming on Monday the 26th, as I had understood, in a slot of 1p.m. to 6 p.m. But in fact I was expected to connect the router myself while the engineer activated the line from the cabinet or exchange. I only found this out after a call to BT. It was at this point that I called in the guy whom I rely on for IT support. It was money well spent! Broadband and email were working in no time, once the router was connected, but it was the process of registering the OnePhone account that took ages, even for an IT professional. We agreed that if all landlines are to migrate to VoIP, it needs to be made simpler. What anyone without broadband can do, I can't say; but broadband is almost at the stage of being an indispensable utility like water or electricity already and will no doubt become so very soon.
There are still worries amongst the more elderly of the population about "digital voice" and the lack of the emergency service call availability currently available in the analogue system. I recently attended a meeting of elderly retired professional people (I am 77) in which that particular item was one of the two points of discussion and the invited guest from the telecommunications industry seemed more concerned with "the other benefits" that would so accrue and was most uncomfortable to be pressed on that particular matter.
If your device has a battery backup (UPS) then a power cut is irrelevant (unless it also takes down the service itself).
The phone does the BT router doesn't although i don't know if the more modern ones have been equipped with batteries as it must be obvious to BT that this is a potential issue for people in emergency situations.
As a minimum you need a battery backup for both the Optical Network Terminal and the internet router. BT does not normally provide either. If you have a cordless phone its base station needs backup as well. A UPS capable of powering all three for several hours is quite a costly bit of kit.
Depends on your definition of expensive. I’ve got an older APC 700VA powering my router, network switch, NAS, and PVR. That’s going to be considerably higher power draw than just a router and a phone, but the UPS is reporting it has 50 minutes of runtime.
That is true, but is highly inefficient as you'd be taking DC in the battery, inverting it to AC and then rectifying it back to DC to power the router/ONT/phone base with losses of as much as 15% at each stage. Much better to get a device like this (a DC battery backup) as long as it has an output of the right voltage to power the requisite equipment.
The linked device has a claimed battery capacity of 98Wh, presumably with a new battery. A BT Smart Hub 2 consumes about 10W and an Openreach ONT about 5W. A DECT base station might typically be another 5W, so say 20W total. After conversion losses of maybe 10% (3.7V battery to 5/9/12V outputs) something like 4.5 hours autonomy - good for a short power cut but not if you are cut off for several days due to storm damage.
I said a device "like this", not "this device". Obviously, for longer outages a larger battery capacity would be required.
