But �telecoms providers� didn�t make that person live in that location did they ?

If I chose to go trekking off into the jungle, should I be taking telecoms companies to task for not providing a service I deem sufficient there ?

There have always been special provisions for "vulnerable" people. No doubt in a few cases BT will end up installing a home UPS at BT's expense.

I'm not sure that's the same as the situation previously raised: it was an area where

1. power lines are frequently cut by the weather (although apparently not comms lines); and
2. mobile coverage is non-existent; and
3. it is visited by walkers who need rescuing.

Remove any one of those three conditions and the problem goes away. I suspect that condition (2) will be gone in a few years. If not, then installing a home UPS solves (1). If BT provides the payphone specifically for rescue callouts, then I would expect they would install a UPS when they switch it to digital.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

But �telecoms providers� didn�t make that person live in that location did they ?

If I chose to go trekking off into the jungle, should I be taking telecoms companies to task for not providing a service I deem sufficient there ?

Totally different situation and not at all relevant to what we are discussing here regarding degradation of an existing service and whether that should merit a possible reduction in the charge for the service.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

1. power lines are frequently cut by the weather (although apparently not comms lines)

Not surprising; comms lines are underground from exchange a couple of miles away to the edge of the village while power is on overhead lines for several miles into the village.

Have you ever driven along country lanes?

One of the tips I was taught when learning to drive in the 1960s was that on unfamiliar roads, even many main roads, you could get a good idea of hazardous bends ahead from a glance at the path of the telegraph poles.

So more information now available at https://www.bt.com/broadband/digital-voice-learnpage/
QUOTE: � If you choose to keep your existing home phones we�ll need to send you some extra equipment, to ensure they work with your Digital Voice service.�

I wonder what �extra equipment� is needed to get an existing phone to work? There�s a phone socket on the Smart Hub 2, so presumably that doesn�t work?

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Have you ever driven along country lanes?

You may have guessed from some of my posts that I live in the country. I have to drive several miles on country lanes before reaching a main road.

In addition to "We recommend that you use our Essential or Advanced Digital Home Phones, which have been specially designed to use with our Digital Voice service." it does say "You can continue to use your existing phone by plugging it into the phone port on the back of the Hub.", so possibly a VRI faceplate and BT plug to BT plug patch cable to feed the Smart Hub2 output into the extension wiring.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

You may have guessed from some of my posts that I live in the country. I have to drive several miles on country lanes before reaching a main road.

Sorry, but no. I have no idea where you live. (Though I now see by back-tracking through the thread that it is a poorly served area for "wireless" links).

But that's largely irrelevant. Despite your situation:-

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Not surprising; comms lines are underground from exchange a couple of miles away to the edge of the village while power is on overhead lines for several miles into the village.

� there are a lot of other such areas where the lines are overhead for considerable distances.

The thread is discussing the general policy, not your particular village.

For anyone interested, and who live in areas like mine where the power seems to cut out for brief periods (but quite a few times per year). The National Grid have told me quite a few times over the years that it's highly likely to be birds as they cause many of the problems within the network. Birds can cause the short term 'tripping' of the power. They say it's satety switches registering supply blips on the very high voltage network and this causes the temporarily cutting power. The result of this is power downs for a couple of seconds up to around a minute whilst the network checks itself the re-energises.