Battery theft is an ongoing issue

In reply to a post by Realalemadrid:

FTTC cabinets have batteries in them which are supposed to give several hours of backup, however I have seen posts where the battery backup only lasts for a much shorter time of say 30 minutes which is not much use. I guess that Openreach are letting the batteries degrade over a few years of use and not replacing them.

From personal experience (back in 2016) the batteries in our FTTC cabinet carried on for about 5 hours.
My understanding is line cards (or whatever they are called) inside the FTTC cabinets shut down ports if they don't 'see' a router at the other end ? Therefore, the power draw of the cabinet is affected by the number of dead routers that it's serving ?

If a power cut affects all the homes the cabinet is serving, than the whole cabinet effectively goes into standby ?

I get a lot of power cuts and can confirm the FTTC lasts around 5 hours. Whereas the telephone exchange usually has around 200 litres of diesel to burn. So the copper phone line is more reliable for me and I will resist the change.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

I get a lot of power cuts and can confirm the FTTC lasts around 5 hours. Whereas the telephone exchange usually has around 200 litres of diesel to burn. So the copper phone line is more reliable for me and I will resist the change.

The problem will go away when you have FTTP of course.

You can keep your existing DSL service, but come Dec 2025 you won't be able to change service provider or regrade the service (if SOGEA is available to you, SOTAP will not be).

So your best course of action would be to set yourself up now with a DSL provider who gives quality of service and out-of-contract pricing that you're happy with, and you're reasonably confident is not going to drop DSL as a product. That might be difficult.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

I get a lot of power cuts and can confirm the FTTC lasts around 5 hours. Whereas the telephone exchange usually has around 200 litres of diesel to burn. So the copper phone line is more reliable for me and I will resist the change.

The problem will go away when you have FTTP of course.

You can keep your existing DSL service, but come Dec 2025 you won't be able to change service provider or regrade the service (if SOGEA is available to you, SOTAP will not be).

So your best course of action would be to set yourself up now with a DSL provider who gives quality of service and out-of-contract pricing that you're happy with, and you're reasonably confident is not going to drop DSL as a product. That might be difficult.

That's 'Hobson's Choice' isn't it ? I think TalkTalk being an LLU provider are still doing 'analogue' landlines, but how long after Dec 2025 they will be able to continue that (without Openreach 'having a word') is open to question !

In reply to a post by broadbandjockey:

I think TalkTalk being an LLU provider are still doing 'analogue' landlines, but how long after Dec 2025 they will be able to continue that (without Openreach 'having a word') is open to question !

What you mean is, how long before OFCOM allows Openreach to withdraw the LLU product entirely (and the exchange space/power rental service).

I would expect this comes as part of the exchange closure programme - which is going very slowly indeed. Only 3 trial exchanges so far.

However, TalkTalk could decide to remove their MSANs earlier than that, when they get their own digital voice service sorted out, and when the customer volumes for ADSL are too low to be worth bothering with.

I have been on Full Fibre 900 and DV for 20 months with no problems whatsoever.

For some reason I was also provided with 3 digital home phones at no cost which work brilliantly together. Internal calls plus 3 external calls at once. I had 5 wired phones connected to my copper line and a simple £1.99 cable between the router and any copper line socket, means they all still work too.

A couple of days after that debate in Parliament, I had an unexpected phone call from BT - since I am 80 years old they consider me to be vunerable and needed 2 backup batteries for the system. A CyberPower Battery Back-up (BT1)for the smart hub and a C.P.B.P. (BT2) for the O.T.N. arrived by courier next day.

24 hours battery charging and 10 minutes installing and I have 3 hours backup for phone, internet and local WiFi for our iPhones and Ipads

What is not to like ?

Exchange closures will be interesting as to what happens to people on xDSL, you might say FTTP but many areas have no Openreach FTTP plans.

In FTTP areas its logical, but we fast heading towards a two tier internet divide bigger than before with large parts of cities with no coverage, and many MDUs unable to order FTTP.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Exchange closures will be interesting as to what happens to people on xDSL, you might say FTTP but many areas have no Openreach FTTP plans.

For those on a DSL service, the fibre that goes to the exchange now (that in my case is 75 metres from the cabinet) would be moved to an exchange/aggregation point further away...

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Exchange closures will be interesting as to what happens to people on xDSL, you might say FTTP but many areas have no Openreach FTTP plans.

In FTTP areas its logical, but we fast heading towards a two tier internet divide bigger than before with large parts of cities with no coverage, and many MDUs unable to order FTTP.

Only ADSL versions of broadband are affected by the mass exchange closures as they typically come from local (non headend) exchanges whereas both VDSL and FTTP come from headend exchanges which are not the target for these closures.