General Chat

I read an article that has said landlines will be eventually phased out in 2025.
Instead the phone will run off the internet!
In a powercut these new phones will not work and in areas where the internet is unreliable...rural areas, it may mean that you wont have a good reliable phone service as a landline provides.
Also for those elderly people who do not have internet or want it or even understand it, their alarms that they have connected to a call centre incase they fall will not work either in a power cut. I live in an area where power cuts are common place and lots of elderly have these alarms systems in place.

BT were quoted as saying that these people should contact their care providers to make alternative arrangements yet what exactly is available.

My mother is elderly, does not have a mobile phone which was suggested as a back up! Again in rural areas, mobile network is patchy and some places here unavailable in the remotest parts.

Some older people here have the new handsets that dont work in a power cut but they have an analogue handset which they then plug in so still have contact but if these go, then they will have nothing. My mother will not get internet, she can just about work the remote control and many others like her.

BT are already suggesting to burglar alarm companies, fax machine users to think about an alternative system.

Is this progress?

Florence in the hebrides

Hmmm
my internet IS a landline (although part fibre)

wonder how that will werk?

I am sure we needed a landline to receive our Wifi/internet. But where did you see this Florence.

Neither my internet, nor landline worked when I moved here, in January 2021.
The reason? There wasn't a physical line to the nearest telegraph pole! :-(
I live on the outskirts of Winchester, not in a remote village.

My brother who DOES live fairly remotely, in Somerset, has just been connected to the Internet - this has taken 2 years to achieve.
His 'landline' phone runs off the internet - they refused to connect him to the pole across the road, as 'internet phones were the future'
More often than not, it doesn't work. He paid thousands of pounds for this privilege.
His mobile doesn't work there either - it never has.

I have full fibre internet and landline. The landline is now part of the the internet connection and is called Digital Voice rather than through the old copper connection. The fibre runs from the telegraph pole to the house just like the old telephone wire but in this case the fibre supplies the property with internet through which you have access to a phone line ie Digital Voice should you want one.

Around here, outskirts of London, a lot of people do not have a landline as they use their mobile.

However, I do see what Florence is getting at :-)

BT 'talked ' us into changing to internet phones - the engineer arrived, switched on his phone and said to forget it - not a hope in hell of it working as we are out in the wilds of Cornwall and our cottage has 3ft thick cob walls. We have to go to the end of the garden to get a very patchy mobile signal and did tell BT that.
He added that he is spending most of his time now trying to reconnect people who have been convinced to try it by fast talking operatives in London who have no concept of what it is like to live elsewhere. Although we were obviously never transferred it took a week of phone calls to BT to untangle everything and get us back on our old tariff.

Yes LondonBelle, its called Digital Voice. I was just browsing on the internet news items when i saw the article.

Yes RTR when the power goes off, mobiles work for around 45 mins. Up here in the islands, the power goes off for hours and mobiles are useless! Even with power my internet when its windy like today goes on and off.

So what about older people with care lines then?
An 80 year old is not likely to have a mobile or internet, my mother wouldnt understand how to even use a mobile.

It cannot be one size fits all as there are far too many areas where internet and mobile signal will never be good enough to reply on!

Florence in the hebrides

Well how canny. My local news web site has just given out a storm 10 warning for later on and says that this may cause power cuts and cut off mobile coverage!
I rest my case

Florence in the hebrides
Edit: if i dont come back on later, you will know why. Off to fill a flask now!

Whattsapp calls are useless here and always freeze and cut off! i have unlimited calls on mobile and landline anyway.keep up when younger! I am not old RTR but not all areas are suitable for the latest technology .I am very comp literate and have a mobile, tablet, laptop. Its not lack of knowledge but the infrastructure to make these things work properly.

So my poor mother who is 85 and has no clue about the internet,mobile etc will be completely cut off when her landline goes. Are people of that age supposed to be keeping up with technology?

Florence in the hebrides

No need to contact any company or whatever when we have our own "font of all knowledge" on here.

CornishSusie - Cob walls - may partly explain why my brother's phone doesn't work.
He lives in an old Smithy, with very thick walls.

Don't forget peeps - the 'font' reckons it's all our fault technology is cr*p - nothing to do with, say BT initially giving my brother the wrong phone - you NEED the phone with YOUR number, not some random one the idiot picked up before he left.

Nothing to do with Open Reach not knowing what in hell they're doing.
First they need to dig up the road, then put in more poles, oh no, give us some more money - we've got it wrong.
'Get stuffed' said sister - who was the intermediatory.

Sister had to intervene as BT were confused when they couldn't contact my brother by phone - that's true - BT 'couldn't work out why, my brother, who was waiting for a phone connection, couldn't be contacted by phone, But, apparently, it's OUR fault! :-D :-D :-D :-D

If this is the standard of 'those in the know', there's not much hope.

All the options need power somewhere. Mobiles are no use if the tower has gone down.

For many people who ‘keep up when younger’ are quite likely to find that technologies outstrip their abilities as they get older and mentally frailer.

This, of course, won’t affect the ‘font’. ;-)

It's all very well having backup power at your home but not much use when locally the whole area is out and therefore so is the wifi signal for the area.

Quite a few areas in mainland England still don't have the internet, or a decent internet.
Shame they're ignored, isn't it?

And when Openreach are stumped by 'normal' connections, goodness knows how they'll cope with something new.

They took at least 5 visits before they worked out how to connect me.
They even tried connecting me to a SKY plug that was here - which isn't the internet - it was a TV connection.

Who did say that cellphone masts use Wi-Fi?

Thankfully my power has managed to stay on with the storm but 20 miles further south they are without power and many others in the southern isles.

When the electric is off and the elderly alarms wont work, do you know that night carers and others drive round villages all night checking on the most vulnerable incase someone has fallen in their house? That is the system we have in place here, good old fashioned systems which never fail!

It's also a large area and when power goes, its usually a main network and many villages and hundreds affected not just one village. That means there are no other masts to get a mobile signal off as the whole area will be down. It only reached about 60-70 mph here so not too bad considering. But its still a gale here and that will hinder the engineers repairing the faults as not all cables are underground.

Florence in the hebrides

The problems encountered by rural communities with their fancy new digital phones during Storm Arwen seem not to have made any difference to those planning to get rid of the landlines. Presumably they all live in nice warm homes and have never had to deal with prolonged power loss.

Yes Names absolutely agree with you. Many of the same homes are again without power in Aberdeenshire & surrounding areas. My heart goes out to all of them as if one storm wasnt enough.

Yes those people should try to manage for a week in a cold house with no lights or heat. My son was 4 months only in Dec 1995,we had no power for 4 days.wrapped him up in a carrycot on the sofa whilst I slept on a blanket on the floor infront of a coal fire...well didnt sleep as had to keep one eye open on the fire incase it spat out anything! Was no joke and didnt even get any compensation whatsoever!

Had to boil a pan of water on the grate to make up bottles of milk.

Florence in the hebrides

My apologies for the slip-up.....see it's easy to admit you typed something wrong isn't it shame others don't ever do it.....

What I know is that when there's a power outage I lose my cell phone coverage and I have a backup generator for my home.

Never notice your slip up Caroline tbh....dont worry about it. But good for you admitting your mistake.