Has Bt Just Made A Terrible Mistake?

[renegadefm]

With the current storm my Mums house and surrounding areas have been left without power since 11.53am, and its still has no power at the time of writing this.

 

One of our neighbours, who is a vulnerable lady on her own lost the use of her only connection with family etc. 

Her landline has been cut off as it recently went digital and is connected to her broadband router. 

I only found this out as I went to see if shes ok, but shes in tears as shes in darkness and can't contact anyone. 

 

My point is when landlines were still analog they remained active despite a power outage. 

 

Surely BT should recognise this has a mistake? 

[barry1010]

I remember the old phone lines getting cut off quite often in bad weather, or for no apparent reason at all. Went days sometimes with no phone service.

[barry1010]

Maydup, I meant keep the phone 'docked' - the phones I'm thinking of have docking stations.

OG, a mobile phone would work out much cheaper per month than any landline, even social tariffs.  £4 a month would be more than enough for phone calls, compared to £15 a month for BT's social tariff.

[ubasses]

Once all the other countries started to go digital manufacturers stopped making the parts required to repair.  Telecoms Co's were having trouble sourcing them and people were without their phones for much longer. No doubt soon there will not be any avaiable at all.

[Boto]

When I changed to a digital landline it was made clear that it wouldn't work in a power cut and told me about the options.  BTW Storm Darragh was forecast well in advance, enough time to get a torch, cheap mobile and for lessons on how to use it.  

[davebro3]

I have a smart phone with talktalk that does all I need - costs £3pm. I don't think that is available now but I see similar deals at £5pm.

[Rosetta]

Again we dont have a mobile signal here. A fire and a blanket arent much use in windy or wet weather

[New Judge]

"Here we go again, public service privatised and service no longer matters, it's profits before people."

It has nothing to do with privatisation.

If BT had not been privaised it would still have had to embarke on "Digital Voice" (or something very similar with perhaps a different name).

The reasons have been made clear above but the single most significant reason is that the Public Switched Telephone Network (PTSN) relies on global manufacturers to make the switching equipment that resides in each telephone exchange. In short, they are not making it any more because nobody wants it.

Switching voice calls by Internet Protocol (VOIP) is far more flexible and efficient and it does not require service providers to provide what is essentially a duplicate network used just for voice traffic and not much else.

As soon as VOIP became feasible and practical it was always going to be that the PSTN was eventually going to be abandoned. I'm surprised it has taken so long.

Possibly BT could do better with their programme for vulnerable customers but tthe two choices are to either rely on the mobile network for these (very infrequent) outages or arrange some form of power back up for the phone.

But it has nothing whatsoever to do with "...a public service being privatised." In fact if it was a normal commercial company not subject to rigorous regulation, customers would simply be given notice of what was happening and told to make contingency plans for power outages.

[davebro3]

// A fire and a blanket arent much use in windy or wet weather//

I woulda thought they would be comforting in such conditions? More so than a phone chat!

[DDIL]

No they have made a necessary decision 

[renegadefm]

perseverer, 

But she has an old style phone in her bedroom, that doesn't work either.