Yes people have to request, but there comes a point in economics of running a service that it will make no sense. So you can expect in the next decade notifications of cessation of things like ADSL and ADSL2+ on SOME exchange. Exactly why Openreach is exploring massed migration to things like FTTP and am sure others like FibreNation and Gigafast will want to do similar for areas they cover too.

If people are saying ADSL2+ is going to be turned off en-masse in 2021 then they have drawn the wrong conclusions.

A question is this...if you gave ASDL customers a modem that plugged into the phone line but had a 4G modem hidden away would they be able to tell? Keeping other aspects such as unlimited and a speed cap at ADSL or ADSL2+ speeds they had in the past. Yes I know not everyone gets a good signal which can be handled other ways.

On the USO demanding, what we don't know yet is whether operators will only ever do single premises or clusters if they group themselves, or will one person requesting sometimes be enough to see others upgraded too? If its 4G then its single premises at a time, but VDSL2 or even FTTP might be used for some - we simply do not know until people start requesting.

The problem of the USO is namely that people have to request it and no doubt there will be lots with no clue they can request, so prediction is around 2024 Ofcom mandating providers need to tell people on slow lines about the USO and asking them to make a decision.

I think we are broadly saying the same thing about the long term, but the post I originally replied to seemed to be talking about what should be done ASAP, to force people to upgrade. To something they neither particularly want and may not get any benefit from anyway until "the planned future" arrives.

That post suggests a short-term impractical solution compared to Openreach/Other/Ofcom ones, though a way of speeding those up might be useful. G.Fast and VDSL2 infrastructures could well be consigned to history by 2025. They won't be worth the infrastructure maintenance costs.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The problem of the USO is namely that people have to request it and no doubt there will be lots with no clue they can request, so prediction is around 2024 Ofcom mandating providers need to tell people on slow lines about the USO and asking them to make a decision.

Heaven help us if Ofcom wait till 2024 to require ISPs to tell people they can claim USO!

Remember BT is the only USO operator outside of Hull, so TalkTalk, Sky et al are not going to race to tell people - oh you know that slow ADSL2+ line you have with us, if you switch to a 4G service with EE/BT you will get around 27 Mbps instead of your current 4.5 Mbps.

In reply to a post by Garlic:

Heaven help us if Ofcom wait till 2024 to require ISPs to tell people they can claim USO!

As Andrew says.

In fact quite a few people on these forums are switching to Three 4G from their landline broadband or adding that to their landline. I think I started the interest with this thread, but if you display the list of threads over the last 6 months in that forum you will get a good idea.

My downstream speeds are about the same as my 70Mbps FTTC connection and upstream higher than the FTTC. As well as having it on my phone I also now have it on "MiFi" to keep a new security camera system uploading to the cloud, and I'm still saving £27pm.