Yes analogue PSTN is going. The only service up your phone line will be DSL. So none of your current telephone equipment will work.
You will be encouraged to go for full-fibre or, if that’s not available, a DSL only telephone line (i.e. internet only).
No, land lines are not going… they will obviously continue… what is changing is the fact your telephone service that is currently analogue from the exchange will be migrated to a digital telephone service using your appropriate broadband router.
So your old analogue exchange based service will be replaced by your current digital line that will connect to your broadband router. Your land line remains, but will be dedicated to data, (now called SoGEA) and will not be shared with an analogue telephone circuit from the exchange any more. If you have a fibre only connection, you may have this already.
The old PSTN core which has slowly been replaced anyway will cease, and telephony will cease to be provided from exchanges… but that will be transparent to you… as indeed you have probably not noticed much of the core changing to date. The new core better integrates telephone based services from various networks such as mobile, VoIP, and international… and uses modern session based technology rather than the old inefficient channelised technology. Indeed 999 services are already using the new core.
Your phone number etc should remain with your migrated digital phone service.
You will/should also find that DECT phones will be supported… so you can continue to use your land line based phone service in the way yo do at the moment if you do use DECT. However you may find analogue based DECT answering machines may cease to work, and I understand BT will be offering alternatives if you use that capability… and I am certain other providers will do likewise.
Oh yes if like me you like the old fashioned rotary dial phones with a bell … one can get a little adapter for those to work as well… other than I don’t think pulse dialling will be supported anymore… unless you find an ATA converter that does.
Haven’t had a “landline” phone for over a decade. The only folks that used it were my Mum, and annoying cold callers.
Another area that might need addressing are alarm systems that use your telephone lines for dialup to a security firm. Hopefully most of these systems use Mobile networks by now (which would be more secure as you can’t simply cut the telephone wire), but I bet there are a few landline connections still going
But, for old analogue devices to work, you will need a PSTN port on your DSL router. Most routers don’t have a PSTN port.
e.g. my Zyxel router doesn’t have a PSTN port.
This link gives some very good info
Please tell me you have a picture you could share.
One effect of the switch is that you will lose the telephone in the event of a power cut. BT will provide a UPS which gives you a bit of extra time (this may only be available if you have a suspect mobile signal).
Actually I’ve been using a UPS on my key comms equipment for years (router, server, &c.). With overhead mains ours often dies. The problem is battery life. Typically the batteries in a UPS are knackered after a couple of years.
Sure - you need to have an ISP router that supports voice and acts as an ATA. Those ISPs offering VoIP will almost certainly be providing the appropriate routers. Yes after market / third party devices may not be appropriate unless developed for those services.
Hi - this is the BT analogue phone port on their new version of the SH2 (The green phone socket on the left)
Other quality ISPs almost certainly will have something similar.
Look forward to Digital as it will hopefully stop the spam calls and spoofing of numbers. Question is what cost will line rental be?. Like most landline only exists these days for the broadband and hardly if ever make landline calls. Why pay for landline and mobile charges
Not sure how ‘digital’ (voip) will stop spam &c.
The problem is, some years ago Ofcom relaxed the rule on what the callers presentation number (caller ID) could be. Before the number HAD to match the line source. Nowadays you can change it to anything you want! We’ve (our office/business) have even been spoofed by a caller (from India) that was using OUR number as the presentation number (caller ID)!
Doesn’t matter whether the call is coming from a PSTN line or voip (and most spammers are on voip).
Ah sport. I obviously wasn’t clear. I meant the “old fashioned rotary dial phones with a bell”.
That’s not strictly true. If you have a Dect landline phone it should work. Just have to plug into the router rather than the wall
It will only work when the ISP has started the service.
In the case of BT, it being released in stages in different areas, they tell you when.
Presumably this means that if you use your own router like I do then you won’t have anywhere to plug your phone in?
I expect that’s the case now, but as the service rollout & changeover is not planned to be completed until 2025, the various router brands have time to get it done.
I bet my trusty Draytek will be out of support by then.
I use my own router as we have 2 internet connections, one is Virgin Media which uses the Virgin router in modem mode and the other is a backup ADSL connection on a Plusnet Business connection which the Draytek fully manages. The Draytek being dual WAN deals with any failover between the 2 connections.
We have this arrangement as we run a small IT business and have customers connecting to us for backup purposes. I also now work from home permanently so the dual WAN adds resilience to this arrangement.
LOL… this one is pretty similar to the phone I have that I referred to
Mrs SinS found one for me in an antique shop… I stripped it down and serviced and replaced some of the components (REN resistor and lightning limiter as well lubricate all mechanisms) and it works a treat… it sounds superb when ringing and in use….
Donkeys years ago we put together a little circuit to convert pulse dials to DTMF. It’s 30 years ago now and I can’t, honestly, remember why we designed this.
