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A comment on The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025.

Re:The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 by Thev00d00 on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @10:12AM (#34232324)
My wife's parents line recently had their PSTN turned off ready for this at renewal much to their surprise and displeasure, despite what is promised their equipment did not continue to work (this claim seems to come from DECT devices being compatible).

It took them about a week to get it enabled again with lots of complaining to the support folks.

999 is not even guaranteed to be routed by whichever VOIP provider you will be forced to use -- and it wont work in powercut like existing landlines which are powered from the exchange.

The reality is that there is a whole generation that rely on landlines that will be broken by this change for no real benefit to anyone other than BT.

Some reading on the technical side from Draytek: https://draytek.co.uk/information/blog/the-end-of-analogue-p... https://draytek.co.uk/information/blog/the-end-of-analogue-p...

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Re:The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 by msh on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @10:57AM (#34233081)
It's expensive to maintain a landline network that very few people use.

I don't think the replacement for normal people should be voip but instead mobile phones. It also solves the emergency calling problem.

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Re:The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 by pjsg on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @11:33AM (#34233667)
Mobile phones need charging and connectivity. As has been pointed out, existing landlines are powered by the exchange and so you can have a traditional phone that works whenever the circuit to the exchange is (mostly) working. In particular, a dodgy connection in the circuit probably still allows an analog phone to work (though it will sound crackly), but there is no chance of running data over the same circuit. This is based on my experience at my 98 year old mother's house where, whenever it rained, the internet would drop out and the phone line would be crackly. By the time that the BT person came by, it had stopped raining and they went away with "problem solved".

Now, I guess it would be possible to power the ATA from the network, but I doubt that that will happen.

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Re:The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 by BoorishBears on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @06:11PM (#34239486)
> but there is no chance of running data over the same circuit

Maybe true for top of the line fiber connections, but I honestly wouldn't underestimate the resilience of ADSL https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet...

Edit: Actually here's an exact case where the phone line no longer functioned due to a break, but ADSL soldiered on: https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/9yzp5wr3

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Re:The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 by fomine3 on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @10:50PM (#34241785)
No-battery AC-powered LTE-PSTN converter is used here in Japan. It should be no problem and more durable than PSTN for disaster. Adding battery backup would help for power lost situation.
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Re:The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 by daveoc64 on Tuesday January 03, 2023 @09:51PM (#34241357)
There are some solutions to these problems.

The typical hardware solution is for the phone provider to install a battery powered backup device.

In the event of a power cut, the backup device allows the landline phone to make calls to 112/999 using a built-in mobile SIM.

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Re:The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 by mike22 on Thursday January 05, 2023 @07:39PM (#34269270)
In the US, Verizon offers (sometimes includes for free) a battery backup unit for their ONT for FiOS service, in the name of providing only the phone services during a power outage. In general there’s nothing stopping any customer from using an off the shelf UPS.
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