8 November (Part 2) - The end of landlines
Hugh Neal’s Maggot Sandwich blog today carries information about the
switching off by BT Openreach of their Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) on 31st
January, or as it is frequently but inaccurately described, doing away with landline telephones.
As it happens my sister had hers taken away last week and it may be worth
describing her experience here as it was quite unlike what happened when fibre
was provided at my house a few years ago. As I think is fairly normal, FTTP
style fibre (Fibre To The Premises) comes to a termination point (ONT) in a convenient place next to my computer
from which an Ethernet cable connects to my router.
When BT sent my sister a warning letter I expected much the same would happen which was
a bit worrying because her copper line wriggles its way unseen from the front of
her bungalow to the back. I installed it using genuine BT materials and I
doubted Openreach would have the patience to thread fibre though the provided conduit.
My sister lives in the middle of nowhere with BT providing the telephone service
and my small ISP providing her with the internet. Despite their best efforts it
has never gone faster than about 36 megabits a second because she is at the end
of a long aluminium cable. Not copper.
BT’s letter was in my opinion dishonest. It said that unless she switched her
internet connection to BT she would lose the phone number she has had for 30
years. That is simply sharp practice.
My sister is at the centre of village life and the land line phone rings
frequently. Giving it up is not really an option.
Her (my?) ISP may be small but it enjoys the same legal status as BT with
Openreach. The thing I found a bit weird was that as far as anyone knew, Openreach had never installed fibre along her street as they have done in mine
and I assume most of Bexley.
I dug deeper and to cut a long story short, I was right. FTTP
allows much higher Internet speeds if you are prepared to pay for it and in
return Openreach can reclaim their copper cable. They call it progress.
Not so where my sister lives. Openreach is simply cutting the ability to provide
an analogue landline phone and provides absolutely nothing in return. The fibre
terminates at the street cabinet (FTTC) as it has for a long time and she
loses the landline because Openreach is switching the final leg to a system that
cannot carry analogue phone signals. They call it SOGEA, (Single Order Generic
Ethernet Access.)
My sister was quite worried by what was about to happen so I drove to Hampshire
to supervise the operation. The man came, put a tone generator on the master
socket to identify the line at the cabinet and flipped the switch or whatever
he had to do. The Internet reconnected and the landline stopped working as
predicted.
Openreach can close down their telephone exchange and the customer gets nothing
but inconvenience. No advantages whatsoever.
Fortunately I know enough about
landlines to avoid the worst of it. When
asking my ISP to get the SOGEA line connected to their system and not BT’s I
asked them to take over the telephone number too in a process known as porting.
A form had to be signed to authorise the take over which generated an
unintelligible SMS message from BT. From what I could gather it said to call
them to put a stop to the transfer. A long number was read out at such a
speed that no one would ever be able to note it. We didn’t want to stop the
transfer anyway.
Once the porting authority was signed the landline number was forwarded to my
sister’s mobile. There are no landline phones as such just yet but that can be put right.
The ISP is sending her three units and I will have to swap the old telephone
cable for Ethernet. I am expecting a two day job to get it all hidden.
The new phones require a POE (Power Over Ethernet) switch to power them so it
all works out to be quite expensive, No wonder people are giving up on landline phones.
The only advantage is that the new SOGEA line devotes all of its bandwidth to
the Internet so the speed has risen to the mid 40s and my sister can stop paying
BT £156 a quarter for her phone service. (Internet extra.) The ISP will provide everything for under £40 a month.
This may happen to your relatives if they live out in the sticks. They don’t have to lose their landline number.
I am glad I do not work for BT any more. Back then the customer was valued. Not any more.