Just be interested (out of nothing more than nosiness) to find out how much the ISPs not offering voice have allowed in their business case for customer loss.

For BT Group getting rid of PSTN will save them hundreds of millions. Considering the upkeep/maintenance for a vastly diminished user base, it’s a burning platform they want to be rid of.

Of the hundred or so AltNets building networks they are fairly evenly split as to whether they include a native voice service in their offering.

So my read of it, it’s incidental to their overall business case.

Thanks for the insight. As I said, only nosiness.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Just be interested (out of nothing more than nosiness) to find out how much the ISPs not offering voice have allowed in their business case for customer loss.

For BT Group getting rid of PSTN will save them hundreds of millions. Considering the upkeep/maintenance for a vastly diminished user base, it’s a burning platform they want to be rid of.

The point was not about getting rid of PSTN - that's happening regardless. But you'll still be able to make phone calls, digitally.

The point was that some providers are forcing existing customers to give up their *landline phone numbers* by not providing a digital voice solution *and* not allowing the number to be ported to someone else's phone service.

I have a landline, but the phone is never connected to it, but I have also got as VoIP, that I have had for a few years and to be honest, I have no plans to get rid of it, there are some people that I prefer not to give my mobile number to, my work for a start.

If i did not have VoIP, the fact that plusnet don't offer a landline for FTTP would put me off.

So you know mine. What are your thoughts ?

I think many people still want want a landline number especially to receive calls.

I agree volumes/minutes have fallen considerably but a lot of that is as providers pricing calls/packages uncompetitively vs mobiles.

One could hope with the move away from the PTSN such prices may come down.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

So you know mine. What are your thoughts ?

I think that a significant minority are still attached to their landline phone numbers - perhaps mainly in the older demographic, but there is a lot of those. And the vast majority of people of all age ranges are non-technical.

I think it's going to cause annoyance if people are told that they'll lose their phone number on (forced) migration to FTTP; but it will be worse if they lose their phone service without realising it in advance, and on top of that find their number can't be recovered. Many people will assume that their phone number will remain as part of the service, because, isn't it obvious that it should?

At very least then, these providers must make it *very* clear in advance that this will happen, and what the available options are.

From the service providers point of view: the big winners here are likely to be BT, because the simplest solution for many in that situation will be "switch to BT". It will be harder for the likes of Sky and Vodafone to get the message across that migrating to *them* will also solve the problem.

Of course, Plusnet doesn't really care about losing customers to BT. That really leaves only Talktalk out of the major providers that don't yet do voice with FTTP, and I believe they have some solution under development. if they get it ready in time, then most of the problem is gone.

Voice has never really been a priority with Talktalk though. Some years ago, I knew someone who worked for Talktalk (actually quite senior in network operations), who moved house within the same area and for whom keeping the phone number was important. His line was with Talktalk, but they were unable to move the number to the new property; they simply didn't have the process in place to allow this. So he was forced to move his line to BT, then move house, and then at the end of the BT contract move it back to Talktalk.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

Voice has never really been a priority with Talktalk.

Oh, the irony !

In reply to a post by kasg:

I hadn't really considered the possibility of losing the landline number (which I've had for 42 years) but there are only two people that ever call on it, apart from the inevitable junk/scam calls and they could probably be persuaded to call a mobile number. It is many years since I have used the landline for outgoing calls, so I don't think losing it would be a big deal.

Same with me, I've just signed up with Sipgate Basic, and got a 35 quid Grandstream VoIP phone. I was expecting to take forever to configure and get it all working, but it took less than 10 mins !

So now I have a 'local' VoIP number. Perhaps when FTTP comes for me I might be able to port our POTS number to it, but if not it'll just require a change of phone number card to be sent to the three or four relatives that still call us on the land line.

They are in the same tiny set of people we still send physical Christmas Cards to, so it could all be rather convenient !

In reply to a post by broadbandjockey:

Same with me, I've just signed up with Sipgate Basic, and got a 35 quid Grandstream VoIP phone. I was expecting to take forever to configure and get it all working, but it took less than 10 mins !

So now I have a 'local' VoIP number. Perhaps when FTTP comes for me I might be able to port our POTS number to it, but if not it'll just require a change of phone number card to be sent to the three or four relatives that still call us on the land line.

I too have joined Sipgate Basic, a bit of a no-brainer really, and will port my landline number to it at some point.