There, there is still a USO for a phone service.

In reply to a post by MHC:

The electronics will certainly be recycled and the metals extracted -

Of course, electronics comes under the WEE regulations.

As for exchanges disappearing I'd imagine like most things, their use has evolved. Once you needed a big room for a computer, now they really are miniscule. OR/BT usage isn't any different. Size matters. I would be surprised if the bean counters don't look at building costs all the time. Nothing special about exchanges.

But maybe what popped through my letterbox is a sign of why there will be a speed up of exchanges vanishing. Although I get 78Mb/s (FTTC), I see the 7 villages around these parts are to get FTTP (up to 1Gb options) with VOIP (if you need a phone) as the option for making calls. TBH I haven't made any calls via copper in years. Like ADSL, its old tech. And new equipment etc tends to be smaller, leaner.

How will that phone service be provided with PSTN closure?


4G?

heathrow

Most of these will have AIO cabs or FTTP provided. Those already miles from the exchange are likely to be provided with 4G service to meet USO and the voice will also run over the data path is required ( usually when someone wants a POTs only). In reality the voice is already over the data on 4G for the mobile service.

But most of the exchanges to close early on are big (valuable) city centre exchanges so they don't have lines miles from the exchange or cab. (The first 100 are all big city or London sites). The small rural ones are only likely to go when all lines are already FTTP / FTTC post 2030 they are also not worth much as only cost less than £1000 year in rent.

Heathrow

Yes, where there is no FTTC / FTTC the USO voice will be over Mobile. The BT VOIP system was being designed to use exactly the same call control as the mobile last I heard. So the service is agnostic to the transmission medium.

Telecoms is really no different to computing and the long term shift was to miniaturisation and now more recently to virtualisation. Voice ‘switching’ once a very physical thing requiring actual physical hardware can all be done in software often hosted elsewhere or virtualised itself. So the physical space and footprint required shrink massively.

At the same time the move to converged IP everything and smart personal devices, the general model has shifted from centralised to distributed or “peer-to-peer”. Voice and video is packetised and streamed and can be transported, stored, duplicated and manipulated like any other stream of data.

Finally the shift away from (lots of) copper to (a tiny relatively, fraction of aggregated) fibre in the last mile really means that a plethora of small local exchanges aren’t required. One exchange site can now serve a physical area covered by a dozen smaller exchanges.

I think a few of you are guilty of thinking far too much about BT as a residential broadband company only.

There’s tonnes of stuff going into exchanges and already there that has nothing to do with residential broadband or really even broadband. Large city centre exchanges especially so. You’d be surprised what connects into these exchanges, what’s on the rooftops etc, maybe you aren’t aware of what a lot of the kit is, but I am and it’s going to cause havoc to close some of the exchanges, really is.

In reply to a post by kitcat:

A lot of MUA kit is LLU so not BT equipment,

....and a lot of MUA kit is not LLU.

Edited by _Icaras_ (Sun 24-Jan-21 21:28:25)

The rooftops either have microwave links or macrocells for mobile networks.

BT faces the challenge that the Telereal leases end in 2030 - and no doubt the rents will reset upwards.

It starts to get very expensive - particuarly for exchanges which are in high value areas. I'm sure clearing an exchange isn't easy.

Particularly if mobile operators dig their heels in on code powers.

There’s more than what you’ve mentioned on the rooftops actually, and more going on rooftops soon.

In reply to a post by _Icaras_:

There’s more than what you’ve mentioned on the rooftops actually, and more going on rooftops soon.

Oh do tell