digital voice and copper cease

Hi all
I had digital voice activated on my FTTP service earlier in the week and am now wondering when the old copper connection will be taken away. it is still there at present but do OR wait for a time tthen dis it?
I have a made up adapter to connect my fixed extensions to the smart hub when that happens.

There's no official, proactive removal 'programme' of the existing copper lines to premises that have been served by FTTP. In some cases the engineer will remove it if asked, but it's by no means a given.

Until your property is in a copper "stop sell" area then it's possible that you (or a future occupant) will want to switch back to a copper service - and Openreach would be obliged to provide it. So it's not in their interest to remove something that might be required in future.

My guess is that the copper to remain in-situ forever. The value of the copper in 1-pair or 2-pair drop wires is almost zero, not worth retrieving. And as for the big bundles of 50+ pairs, removing them from congested ducts risks damaging other services in there, including newly-laid fibre. That leaves only overhead copper cables to reclaim.

you mis understand. I realise the copper pair will stay in the ground but when will the service via that be removed now that digital voice is up and running. i assume the connection in the exchange will be removed at some stage

In reply to a post by threelegs:

you mis understand. I realise the copper pair will stay in the ground but when will the service via that be removed now that digital voice is up and running. i assume the connection in the exchange will be removed at some stage

Do you mean, you still have dialtone on it? If so, you can dial 17070 to find what phone number is currently assigned to it.

Again, they won't disconnect it from the exchange unless they run out of ports there (which is very unlikely), because you could always request service to be reactivated at any time.

What's more likely is that if there's a fault on someone else's line, they might switch them to an unused pair, and *that* could disconnect you.

I am sure I read somewhere that there is a transition period where is works on both but I assume after that period it will go to soft dial tone.

Hi candlerb
yes i still have dial tone
just rung 17070 from a phone plugged in to my old copper socket and my old copper line now has a new number !!! but if i ring it from a mobile it doesnt connect and just drops. stranger and stranger unless they connect all they digital voice transitions to the same number in the exchange

Edited by threelegs (Sat 12-Feb-22 17:08:35)

No surprise at all. The number is an ‘engineering number’ that became live when the PSTN DN moved to your digital service.

Thanks for that zarjaz. I will now move the fixed wiring in the house over to be fed from the smart hub.

Is this now standard? Why don't openreach just cease the line?

We have an AltNet FTTP and 6 months ago ported the landline number to a 3rd party VOIP supplier, but the old landline still has a dialtone and a "dead" engineering number.