Telephone line USO

Not sure which part to post this in, but does anyone have the 'latest' on how the BT (and KCom) USO for the provision of telephone services will be changed with the move to VOIP?

Particular queries at the moment are for those customers who do not have (or need) broadband, and how much 'copper' is going to disappear from where, or will it just be disconnected at the cabinets?

I believe that for BT customers that don't want broadband BT would provide a basic DSL/FTTP service that just carries the digital voice connection and would be provided with some form of router that allows the phone to be connected to it (but not deliver usable broadband to them).

However, it may well be that as we get further along that the industry might create new ways to do this (ie might have a basic box that just has a telephone port on it that deals with the DSL/FTTP connection - but that might not be worth their while for the relatively small number of people without broadband that want a phone line.

There will still need to be a broadband connection, ian, It is this connection I am unsure of.

It'll be FTTP if available or DSL if not. It will just be provided as a connection that the user cannot use and will only be for digital voice.

So, you are saying the existing copper/aluminium lines to properties will remain in place? How will they connect to broadband?. I assume FTTC cabinets will eventually be phased out.

Not to confuse WLR (aka PSTN) retirement - that is effectively no more public dial-tone, for another way of describing it, at the end of 2025 with the removal of copper to the premises.

The latter is likely to be with us into the 2030’s or until FTTP is much more broadly deployed. A long way to go yet.

Yes, copper will stay until FTTP is finished which is definitely going to be later than the digital voice move. This is about removing the BT back end exchange equipment that manages the old voice network and moving it to a fully IP based digital phone system (VoIP but in BT Retails case a closed system VoIP that you cannot use as a standards based VoIP system).

So, how will broadband be connected to properties via copper until 2030 (ish)? Same as now, via cabinets? Presumably lines will be disconnected in the cabinet when FTTP exists. When does that start?

In my village, which is extremely unlikely to have any FTTP by 2025, that presumably means a lot of extra FTTC connections. Where will the capacity come from?

Can I ask where the two of you are getting your info from since I have not found this stuff on any OfCom site?

Edited by mikejp (Fri 11-Feb-22 13:51:40)

There is No scheduled plan yet to recover the copper network. If there is no FTTP by 2025 then existing broadband will still be available to provide telephone, either from the exchange or FTTC.

So, thousands, if not millions of new FTTC connections? All planned in?