BT Digital Voice.

[GrumpyPenguin]

Apologies is this has been covered elsewhere.

 

The rollout continues & our phone line has been converted to Digital Voice (DV)as part of installing full fibre.

 

One of the issues with DV is that in a power cut you telephone will not work !

 

I raised this issue with BT (as Mrs Penguim is disabled & we have other vunerable people in the house) & was told to "make sure that we had a fully charge mobile phone for emergencies". That's all very well I told them but we are on EE (surprise, surprise now part of BC or is it the other way round ?) & we only get a signal in cerain rooms.

BT do provide small battery backups for the modem but it's quite clear that they will only provide them after a fight to the death.

I gave them a choice, provide a batter back up or install the modem in my office which has a 2.2kw UPS for the computers.

Installing the modem in my office (the other side of the property that the existing service was) involved 4 x visits, 5 x engineers, 1 x surveyor & 1 x cherry picker - that mustr have cost them more than a small UPS.

 

Anyway, the real point is that BT should make the fact that phones will not work during a power cut crystal clear to their customers & provide the UPS/battery backup without a fight.

 

AFAIK there have already been a couple of preventable deaths due to phones/alarms not working through lack of power.

 

As an aside we had a short (maybe less than a minute) power cut yesterday & just after it came back on recieved a recorded message on the landline from UKPN tlling us ! A bit late but it did show that UKPN are on the ball.

[Metr0Land]

BT do (or did) provide a very basic mobile on demand when you go DV.  I got one for a friend of mind who's not tech minded.  It was very basic and very limited but did work to some extent, though of course you have to remember to keep it charged as you don't know when the next power cut will be.  In the end she sent it back and could live with outages, though by that time I'd got her quite a good basic 2G phone which I prompt her to use every couple of months so she's ~proficient with its use.

[kevinlms]

2 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

BT do (or did) provide a very basic mobile on demand when you go DV.  I got one for a friend of mind who's not tech minded.  It was very basic and very limited but did work to some extent, though of course you have to remember to keep it charged as you don't know when the next power cut will be.  In the end she sent it back and could live with outages, though by that time I'd got her quite a good basic 2G phone which I prompt her to use every couple of months so she's ~proficient with its use.

The last 2G service in Australia was turned off in 2018. Later this year 3G will be turned off - one provider already has.

Some models of 4G phones won't work on voice calls, as they can't use VoLTE - they use 3G for voice.

 

So be wary of acquiring older tech phones, which MAY themselves need replacing in a short time scale.

In short, check with your mobile suppliers, as to when the dates are for turning off, for various tech.

 

REMEMBER, they don't have the full system working one day, the next turned off completely. What they do, is as the date gets closer, they don't repair faulty equipment (maybe a restart, beyond that, they won't spend cash), and so you might end up with localised outages

[woodenhead]

This is an article on a couple of recent deaths where the health care pendants had failed in the days leading up to their death.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/deaths-spark-concern-over-digital-phone-line-rollout/

 

I think it's a little difficult to attribute their death to the switch off, especially as in these cases the service that had switched over was not linked to the telecare provision.i.e no direct link to the performance of the pendant.  It would also suggest in these cases the Virgin service was still operating and it was the pendant that failed.

 

It's easy to use rumour to fuel concerns and whilst no doubt there is a lot of work for BT to do to mitigate much of the valid concerns for people who depend on a landline we cannot pin every incident on BT and other providers who are migrating away from copper wire.  If anything throwing everything in muddies the water where real incidents might become buried under a storm of unrelated matters and get missed by the media.

[TheQ]

We can only get a mobile signal up at the top of the stairs in the bathroom. Not a good place to be in a fire.

 

 

[Metr0Land]

49 minutes ago, kevinlms said:

The last 2G service in Australia was turned off in 2018. Later this year 3G will be turned off - one provider already has.

Some models of 4G phones won't work on voice calls, as they can't use VoLTE - they use 3G for voice.

 

So be wary of acquiring older tech phones, which MAY themselves need replacing in a short time scale.

In short, check with your mobile suppliers, as to when the dates are for turning off, for various tech.

In the UK 3G is being switched off first.  2G is remaining for some time (up to 2033 latest but maybe earlier, but certainly not as fast as 3G)

[DaveF]

I live near the edge of a Northumberland town.  In the house near the windows I can sometimes get 4G or 5G.  Most people near me go outside to use a mobile so we do not look forward to Digital Voice if there is a power cut.

 

At the moment my current provider (Talktalk) locally offer either traditonal phone plus up to about 60mbps or full fibre and no landline.

 

The last power cut near me was a problematic cable fault, after about a day the power company brought in a generator for over a week while they sorted it out.  In many parts of the county long power cuts (several days) in very bad weather are common so many people, but not all, have generators.

 

Then are are still several hundred houses in the county with no mains power at all, at the moment they can have a standard phone line, what happens to them?

 

I can understand the problems of old technology but I get the feeling that once again it is the easiest, cheapest solution probably thought up by people living in London and who have a really reliable mobile signal and no overhead power cables to get damaged in bad weather.  The rest of us simply do not matter.

 

David

Edited April 28 by DaveF

[Hroth]

I was converted to VoIP a couple of years ago, when the BT exchange for the area was being switched off and everyone still with BT had to shift.  At the time the sweetner was two basic cordless handsets, one fancy cordless handset or a converter box that would connect a conventional cordless handset system to the BT full fibre router. I went with the cheap cordless handset offer and picked up a converter box on ebay for less than BT wanted for one.  If you wanted, a basic UPS with a few hours support was on offer for about 70 quid extra, which wouldn't be much use if the problem happened in the early hours of the morning and took longer than 4 hours to fix!

 

If you had a health care system, you were advised to contact your provider...

 

I've not had any problems (so far) with the VoIP system going off.  I've got a mobile phone as it is, but as I'm not glued to it at all times, I have to remember to occasionally put it on charge.  It'd be my luck for it to be flat if ever the VoIP connection went down!

 

Edited April 28 by Hroth
spelin

[kevinlms]

1 hour ago, woodenhead said:

This is an article on a couple of recent deaths where the health care pendants had failed in the days leading up to their death.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/deaths-spark-concern-over-digital-phone-line-rollout/

 

I think it's a little difficult to attribute their death to the switch off, especially as in these cases the service that had switched over was not linked to the telecare provision.i.e no direct link to the performance of the pendant.  It would also suggest in these cases the Virgin service was still operating and it was the pendant that failed.

 

It's easy to use rumour to fuel concerns and whilst no doubt there is a lot of work for BT to do to mitigate much of the valid concerns for people who depend on a landline we cannot pin every incident on BT and other providers who are migrating away from copper wire.  If anything throwing everything in muddies the water where real incidents might become buried under a storm of unrelated matters and get missed by the media.

We had an incident at my club today, involving a medical pendant.

 

I answered the phone at the clubrooms and it was a rather anxious wife of a new member. Apparently his pendant kept going off and it was ringing all the default contacts in turn and none could speak to him.

 

So she rang the club, because that was where he was going, but had he crashed the car or something on the way?

What made it tricky, was that because he was a new member, I didn't recognise the name, nor did the first person I asked!

However we did find someone who knew him and his location at the club grounds.

So all good in the end. It turned out that the pendant was under several layers of clothing and he had been bumping the button and not realising.

 

So that raises the question about new members and medical conditions, because we also had another member have a seizure today and ambulance call out, so not an entirely happy day.

[DaveF]

Another issue with only having a mobile phone during a power cut is what happens when the mobile's masts stop working?

 

Again that has happened in parts of the county during long power cuts, it seems that not all masts have a back up generator - or if they do they don't always work.  Then you have no way of contacting anyone in an emergency.

 

David

Edited April 28 by DaveF

[ColinK]

Our house was converyed to digital voice by BT last year.  We didn’t ask for it, just got a letter from BT saying they were converting our area and info on when it would happen.  On the appointed day an engineer came it switched it over very quickly.  Possibly helped because we had recently upgraded our BT broadband when the contract expired.  The new contract provided a new router and a backup box that uses the EE signal if the BT line goes down.

 

A while later I askec all the neighbours, none on them gad been switched to Digital Voice - just us, so it wasn’t our area being converted as we had been told.  That said, it works fine, although sincevit was convered I’ve never had any messages on the answerphone.

 

Somewhat ironically, although the BT broadband has never gone down. the EE signal used for the backup has gone down many times.

 

I have a ‘Jackery portable power station’ which is really a big battery with 5v, 12v and 240v outputs. While bought for camping, it could provide quite a few hours of backup power to the router, and charge mobile phones (and run the model railway) if we had a mains power cut.

[ColinK]

3 minutes ago, DaveF said:

Another issue with only having a mobile phone during a power cut is what happens when the mobile's masts stop working?

 

Again that has happened in parts of the county during long power cuts, it seems that not all masts have a back up generator - or if they do they don't always work.  Then you have no way of contacting anyone in an emergency.

 

David

We had exactly that problem several years when Lancaster was hit by major floods.

 

Quite amusingly, I was down to drive a rail replacement coach during the floods.  Got told by the rail company to wait at our garage and they would phone if I was needed.  At the depot the mains electricity was off because of the floods, and the mobile signal was off because it had no power. So at the depot there was no way of contacting me.

[kevinlms]

6 minutes ago, DaveF said:

Another issue with only having a mobile phone during a power cut is what happens when the mobile's masts stop working?

 

Again that has happened in parts of the county during long power cuts, it seems that not all masts have a back up generator - or if they do they don't always work.  Then you have no way of contacting anyone in an emergency.

 

David

But don't make the common mistake that PSTN phone lines 'always worked', that wasn't true either.

If the cables in the street were damaged, or the exchange lost power for too long, then they would fail, too.

 

The world employed many 1000's of people repairing/replacing faulty phone lines. Or I know of a major exchange, which had a serious fire and took everything out for weeks, in the surrounding district.

[RFS]

And many people overlook the fact that cordless phones will not work in a power cut either, as they rely on a pwered base unit. It also does not need a power cut to take out PSTN lines, for example, if they travel above ground on poles for part of the way. A big storm could take the pole out etc..

[kevinlms]

1 minute ago, RFS said:

And many people overlook the fact that cordless phones will not work in a power cut either, as they rely on a pwered base unit. It also does not need a power cut to take out PSTN lines, for example, if they travel above ground on poles for part of the way. A big storm could take the pole out etc..

You can actually buy cordless phones, that reverse charge the base in the event of power loss. It does of course reduce the effective life until the batteries go flat.

But of course without power to the modem etc, it's useless!

[woodenhead]

We've always kept an old style corded phone simply because it will work as long as the land line is working.

 

The problem is that the landlines require switching equipment and whilst that is also digital now, it still requires power and it also can wear out and need replacing.  Perhaps the issue is not so much that BT want rid of it, but that the Government don't feel the paying BT to retain a network of copper wires.  At the end of the day BT are a private company, they see the usage of landlines going down but are expected to manage their upkeep and network, if we want to keep the landline we need to petition the government to invest in it and I don't see that happening.

[kevinlms]

19 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

We've always kept an old style corded phone simply because it will work as long as the land line is working.

 

The problem is that the landlines require switching equipment and whilst that is also digital now, it still requires power and it also can wear out and need replacing.  Perhaps the issue is not so much that BT want rid of it, but that the Government don't feel the paying BT to retain a network of copper wires.  At the end of the day BT are a private company, they see the usage of landlines going down but are expected to manage their upkeep and network, if we want to keep the landline we need to petition the government to invest in it and I don't see that happening.

As someone whose been in the industry for many years, I agree with most of what you say. 

 

However I don't bother with a corded phone on standby, because the infrastructure required is no longer available. 

[Bob83a]

The trouble with 'new' technology is that when things go wrong then it can be a big problem.

My broadband and digital voice has been down for 4 days so far and the estimate is for it to be down for another 3 days. Most people can manage for a couple of days but when it is more than a week then it is a different matter. BT have a scheme to send out a mini hub containing a mobile SIM. A hassle to reconfigure everything to use that instead, but because I have a mobile on the account then no mini hub, they just change the limit for data. Trying to reconfigure everything to use the mobile as a hotspot is a big issue and of course the mobile is no longer very mobile.

[uax6]

1 hour ago, Bob83a said:

The trouble with 'new' technology is that when things go wrong then it can be a big problem.

My broadband and digital voice has been down for 4 days so far and the estimate is for it to be down for another 3 days. Most people can manage for a couple of days but when it is more than a week then it is a different matter. BT have a scheme to send out a mini hub containing a mobile SIM. A hassle to reconfigure everything to use that instead, but because I have a mobile on the account then no mini hub, they just change the limit for data. Trying to reconfigure everything to use the mobile as a hotspot is a big issue and of course the mobile is no longer very mobile.

 

 I also have a Sim with BT, but sent out a mini hub when I explained that I don't have a smart phone (They couldn't actually believe that I didn't have a smart phone mind.....)

 

Andy G

[TheQ]

Some years ago here someone living well inland decided we no longer need flood alert sirens.

Texting/ phoning landlines / calling mobiles would work they said..

 

Along came the next storm, landlines were down, mobiles don't work on the coast, and several families were left in chalets hit by big waves...

 

[kevinlms]

In Australia, the Country Fire Authority stations had sirens to alert volunteer firemen to come. In their infinite wisdom, it was determined that the sirens weren't required anymore, as pagers/text messages would work better at lower cost.

 

The problem being, that they forgot that this meant dad left the shop when the siren went off, in turn that meant mum left home and went to take over shop duties and grandma, went to the daughters house, where the children had been left alone! All of which was easy, when the whole town could hear the siren.

 

They got reinstated!

[Reorte]

This'll be (hopefully only a minor) annoyance for me. Don't have a mobile anyway (and have absolutely no need or desire to have one), and the mobile reception's poor around my way in any case. Even if I did have a mobile if I'm going to need it maybe once every few years is it reasonable to expect me to remember to keep it charged?

 

I get why it's happening and to be honest I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it if the response to such issues wasn't little better than a shrug. Even just admitting that there are downsides would be fine, what isn't to me is pushing things in a mobile dependency direction and pretending there's nothing wrong with that.

[spamcan61]

On 28/04/2024 at 13:42, GrumpyPenguin said:

 

 

Anyway, the real point is that BT should make the fact that phones will not work during a power cut crystal clear to their customers & provide the UPS/battery backup without a fight.

 

Absolutely, they gloss over this potentially major drawback, and let us not forget that power backup needs to be end to end, not just your phone.

[phil-b259]

29 minutes ago, Reorte said:

This'll be (hopefully only a minor) annoyance for me. Don't have a mobile anyway (and have absolutely no need or desire to have one), and the mobile reception's poor around my way in any case. Even if I did have a mobile if I'm going to need it maybe once every few years is it reasonable to expect me to remember to keep it charged?

 

I get why it's happening and to be honest I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it if the response to such issues wasn't little better than a shrug. Even just admitting that there are downsides would be fine, what isn't to me is pushing things in a mobile dependency direction and pretending there's nothing wrong with that.

 

Don't bank on it - this "Digital Voice" is not just a BT initiative - its being encouraged by the Government because fibre cables can carry much more data than copper and thus can be spun as 'working with the industry to improve broadband speed / coverage'.

[kevinlms]

10 hours ago, Reorte said:

This'll be (hopefully only a minor) annoyance for me. Don't have a mobile anyway (and have absolutely no need or desire to have one), and the mobile reception's poor around my way in any case. Even if I did have a mobile if I'm going to need it maybe once every few years is it reasonable to expect me to remember to keep it charged?

 

I get why it's happening and to be honest I wouldn't have too much of a problem with it if the response to such issues wasn't little better than a shrug. Even just admitting that there are downsides would be fine, what isn't to me is pushing things in a mobile dependency direction and pretending there's nothing wrong with that.

As far as I'm aware, no one has said that owning a mobile is compulsory* anywhere in the world. So if you don't want a mobile, that's absolutely fine.

 

The point of BT (and others) recommending that you do have one, is so that you aren't caught out with an outage. The outage can of course be for many reasons, not just that the technology is inferior.

 

Remember the old PSTN phone line, was never a 100% guaranteed service, so nothing has actually changed.

 

* An employer might make it a condition of employment. As for being self-employed and not having a mobile, for would be customers to contact you - good luck with that!

I did come across a business in suburbia that worked without power, but still had a mobile! They previously had a generater, but someone knocked it off and they didn't bother replacing it.