TalkTalk Trial Free Automatic UK Upgrades to FTTP Broadband

goiong on from my pushing FTTP post, I see here that Talk Talk is doing the same thing, but they are doing it in normal Talk Talk fashion.
how that provider is still going I have no idea.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/07/talkta...

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

goiong on from my pushing FTTP post, I see here that Talk Talk is doing the same thing, but they are doing it in normal Talk Talk fashion.
how that provider is still going I have no idea.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/07/talkta...

Sadly some are simply out of touch with the future.

Could just say 'no thanks'. Just a trial after all.

I don't see much wrong with TalkTalk's approach - they've made it clear that they are testing out different ways of saying this (presumably some groups get an opt in letter, others get an opt out, and then some people get the one in the article where it's phrased like you have no choice.

I'd rather they were proactive about this.

In reply to a post by dect:

Sadly some are simply out of touch with the future.

Like i said in my other posts, it should be up to people, maybe they want a mess or holes drilled in their walls. I have seen a few photos of fibre installation that look like a disaster, more so since ZZoomm started doing around here and also some from what open reach have done. i was not that keen on fibre anyway, I think over the last few months I have been put right off it.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I don't see much wrong with TalkTalk's approach - they've made it clear that they are testing out different ways of saying this (presumably some groups get an opt in letter, others get an opt out, and then some people get the one in the article where it's phrased like you have no choice.

I'd rather they were proactive about this.

Talk Talk will say anything to stop them looking like the bad ones. People should not be made to look like they have no choice, like I have posted on ISPreview, they are acting like energy providers who want to install a smart meter.

The letters should be something like, we can update your broadband to fibre to the premises, same price, same speed and then tell the customer about the advantages and then say if you want further information, then phone or email.

No one should feel like they are being pushed. I am really fed up with being pushed to do things by different companies and the government.
If I stay with plujsnet and we are getting openreach fibre around here, I'm dreading the time when/if plusnet starts pushing fibre.

It is up to people. They can choose to have Internet access through full fibre or they can choose to have no Internet access in the near future through anything other than mobile or satellite.

Same kinda story Hull will have in 2023.

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

It is up to people. They can choose to have Internet access through full fibre or they can choose to have no Internet access in the near future through anything other than mobile or satellite.

Same kinda story Hull will have in 2023.

I think there are going to be some very annoyed customers who will fight with everything they have not to have Fibre if they don't want it.

It is the wording of the letter that gets me, like my council emailed me about the electoral register, and they put You must take action, so we can check who is eligible to register to vote at your address. Excuse me, but we are their customers as to speak, I pay them money to run this city, I was the one that voted them in, they don't tell me what to do.

I am fed up with being told what to do all the time. Go into a shop, and you get a handset chucked at you or directed to self scan, energy companies telling us we must have a smart meter, thankfully nine don't, yet. now we have internet providers who seem to think we work for them, they work for us.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It is the wording of the letter that gets me, like my council emailed me about the electoral register, and they put You must take action, so we can check who is eligible to register to vote at your address. Excuse me, but we are their customers as to speak, I pay them money to run this city, I was the one that voted them in, they don't tell me what to do.

I'm afraid you are shooting at the wrong target here. The Registration Officer who sent you the form is required by law to conduct an annual canvass in order to update the electoral register by adding new electors and deleting those who are no longer resident in the area. The Officer has powers under the law to set a date for you to return the information and then impose a civil penalty (such as a fine) if the information is not returned. If you don't like that as a system you will need to lobby your MP about getting the law changed rather than having a rant at someone who is only carrying out the legal requirements of their role.

Edited by GonePostal (Tue 26-Jul-22 10:36:23)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I was the one that voted them in, they don't tell me what to do.

The Electoral Registration Officer and the ERO's team in the council and the STAFF at the council are not elected they are employees whom you should not treat as elected representatives. Only the councillors themselves are elected.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I think there are going to be some very annoyed customers who will fight with everything they have not to have Fibre if they don't want it.

At some point the ISP will just cancel their account. It may be soon, it may be a few years, but once fibre is in the street outside, the older copper network will become more costly to run, and the network operator (be it Openreach, or Hull telecoms, or Virgin media) will choose to stop service.

I am fed up with being told what to do all the time. Go into a shop, and you get a handset chucked at you or directed to self scan, energy companies telling us we must have a smart meter, thankfully nine don't, yet. now we have internet providers who seem to think we work for them, they work for us.

Of course there are over 1.3 million people missing in the workforce, and retail and hospitality worst affected, so they are trying to keep your business with lack of staff. Lots of restaurants are closing, some due to prices, but many due to inability to get staff.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It is the wording of the letter that gets me

Some people need to be herded otherwise the world would still be in the dark ages. I blame the fact that people already believe they have fibre this is not their fault but technology does need to move forward.

In reply to a post by dect:

I blame the fact that people already believe they have fibre this is not their fault but technology does need to move forward.

The ASA failed the population, and the word "fibre" became an alias for "fast", and I have colleagues whom think they have 3Mbps "fibre"

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I was the one that voted them in, they don't tell me what to do.

The Electoral Registration Officer and the ERO's team in the council and the STAFF at the council are not elected they are employees whom you should not treat as elected representatives. Only the councillors themselves are elected.

i know what they are, just the way they word it, you Must. Should be please. Stuff it, I will wait until they send me a form and I will do it by post, I did not give them permission to use my email address for that purpose anyway. The same with the last census, they wanted it done online, not that I did it at all. I forgot and for some reason I did not get a follow-up to it. Only when I found the form I remembered about it and it was too late then

In reply to a post by jchamier:

At some point the ISP will just cancel their account. It may be soon, it may be a few years, but once fibre is in the street outside, the older copper network will become more costly to run, and the network operator (be it Openreach, or Hull telecoms, or Virgin media) will choose to stop service.

I think it is going to be a while here, I am pretty sure that openreach being around here is something to do with zzoomm and not openreach fibre. I am still not sure what zzoomm is doing on open reach poles as zzoomm goes underground, but i saw Zzoomm on a cherry picker mucking around with something on the pole in a road on the way to work, and this road have Toby Boxes outside each house as I walked down there a couple of weeks ago when my bike was in for service.

I have just seen another complaint about zzoomm on their facebook page, the more i see the more it puts me off.

Of course there are over 1.3 million people missing in the workforce, and retail and hospitality worst affected, so they are trying to keep your business with lack of staff. Lots of restaurants are closing, some due to prices, but many due to inability to get staff.

I work in retail, i know what it is like, I have just come home from an 8 hour shift in the warehouse of a supermarket, having a drink of water and winding down before bed, so I know full well what it is like in retail., But I don't see what that has to do with trying to chuck a handset in our hands.

In reply to a post by dect:

Some people need to be herded otherwise the world would still be in the dark ages. I blame the fact that people already believe they have fibre this is not their fault but technology does need to move forward.

If they are happy to be in the dark ages, who are we to say they should not be? It was not that many months ago that a couple I know was still using dial up, they have now gone to onto mobile broadband, they were not pushed, they asked me about faster broadband, so they can chat with their son via video. There is now FTTP where they are, but for the amount of use they would get out of it, mobile broadband is a better choice and cheaper.

People think they have fibre because openreach stuck fibre is here on all their cabinets when FTTC first came here.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

i know what they are, just the way they word it, you Must. Should be please.

Please take the time to read my earlier post properly. The Registration Officer must canvass all addresses each year and you must respond or face a civil penalty. Should the Registration Officer not carry out their duties correctly just to satisfy someone with a bee in their bonnet?

Adrian - don’t ever be tempted to emigrate to Oz. For one thing compulsory voting (with escalating fines) would drive you berserk!

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It is the wording of the letter that gets me, like my council emailed me about the electoral register, and they put You must take action, so we can check who is eligible to register to vote at your address. Excuse me, but we are their customers as to speak, I pay them money to run this city, I was the one that voted them in, they don't tell me what to do.

They are using the words You must not on some personal whim. You are legally required to complete/respond to the annual voting registration form. You could theoretically receive a £1,000 fine/criminal record for not doing so.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

It was not that many months ago that a couple I know was still using dial up, they have now gone to onto mobile broadband, they were not pushed, they asked me about faster broadband, so they can chat with their son via video. There is now FTTP where they are, but for the amount of use they would get out of it, mobile broadband is a better choice and cheaper.

I wonder how many of your associates who are using mobile data are demanding they are left on 2G? I wouldn't be surprised if they still live in caves and still have square wheels instead of round ones 🤣

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Adrian - don’t ever be tempted to emigrate to Oz. For one thing compulsory voting (with escalating fines) would drive you berserk!

You are not 100% correct, voting is not compulsory, turning up at the voting station is, they do postal voting now as well.

In reply to a post by andynormancx:

They are using the words You must not on some personal whim. You are legally required to complete/respond to the annual voting registration form. You could theoretically receive a £1,000 fine/criminal record for not doing so.

This is not really the correct place for this, but if they just sent a letter/email, saying if nothing have changed, then ignore this, that would be better. They can send me a form, I am not doing it online.
Not that i am voting anyway, all a waste of space.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I wonder how many of your associates who are using mobile data are demanding they are left on 2G? I wouldn't be surprised if they still live in caves and still have square wheels instead of round ones 🤣

They stayed on dial up because they had little choice, they did look at ADSL, but no provider would even try. The reason they went for mobile broadband is that they don't want to pay £30 a month for something they will use once or twice a week.
I am fine with 4G on my mobile, i don't see any need for anything faster on a mobile phone.

Not everyone wants to go with the latest and greatest, some people don't need to show off with the latest greatest phone, with features that they will never used, just to say, look I got this, or I got that. I work with someone like that, just got himself a new Samsung phone that cost stupid amount of money and then show everyone what he has got and yet it does the same thing as my cheap oppo.

The same with broadband, I have broadband because it is required these days, but to be honest it is just another bill i rather not pay, so if I can get it cheaper I will, and I am certainly not bothered about super fast speeds, what the hell do I need 150Mb/s for? I have been using this service at around £6Mb/s for 7 years, i still does the job.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I am fine with 4G on my mobile, i don't see any need for anything faster on a mobile phone.

Only 8 years ago people said that about 3G.... unfortunately when you are talking about multi-billion pound infrastructure it isn't about what people want, it is about what the service provider can provide. Nobody now wants 3G, and the same will happen with 5G given time. (and with FTTP, given time).

Individual consumers have no clue at the rate of increase of usage, so don't understand why change is happening. It also appears once people reach a certain age, sometimes as low as 30, we become resistent to change. Human nature, and one we have to work with.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 27-Jul-22 10:40:14)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

all a waste of space.

You have summed up your opinion on most things

This is continuing to go completely off topic…But I can assure you (as an Aussie citizen) voting is most certainly compulsory. You’ve been able to vote in absentia for years.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Only 8 years ago people said that about 3G.... unfortunately when you are talking about multi-billion pound infrastructure it isn't about what people want, it is about what the service provider can provide. Nobody now wants 3G, and the same will happen with 5G given time. (and with FTTP, given time).

Individual consumers have no clue at the rate of increase of usage, so don't understand why change is happening. It also appears once people reach a certain age, sometimes as low as 30, we become resistent to change. Human nature, and one we have to work with.

To be honest 3G is fine for me, I went for weeks with 3G when we had a problem with some masts around here, and it did not make any difference to how I used my phone. One day I may get a 5G phone, but I am certainly in no rush, even if we had decent 5G here, which we don't. I really don't care if it s a multi-billion pound infrastructure or not, If it comes to the point that people have to be pushed then it proves that people don't really want it and are fine with what they have got.

You really think that change is happening for us the consumer? If you do then maybe you should take the blinkers off, everything is about making more money for companies, they don't care about us the consumers.
They push people onto services they don't need, just to get this little more money.

It is not about being resistant to change, it is about paying more for something I don't need. i have no need for 150Mb/s so why would I pay more for it. The service I have works fine, it is a pretty good price considering and it works, it does everything I need., so why on earth would I have the hassle and the extra cost per month just to have a faster Internet speed?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

This is continuing to go completely off topic…But I can assure you (as an Aussie citizen) voting is most certainly compulsory. You’ve been able to vote in absentia for years.

I have relatives in Aussi land, and they tell me that you can spoil your vote if you don't any of the idiots are worth voting for, their words, not mine.
if voting because compulsory here, which it never would, then that would have to happen here, they can force people to vote for anyone, all they can do is force people to turn up.

"they tell me that you can spoil your vote "

That is still a vote!

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

To be honest 3G is fine for me, I went for weeks with 3G when we had a problem with some masts around here, and it did not make any difference to how I used my phone.

I think you mean "upto 20 Mbps is good for me, and I only use two way roads, never dual carriageways and never use motorways".

I have no problem with that, but that doesn't mean 3G is still the right thing for the networks to supply in 2022. 3G was circuit switched, and so there was a maximum number of connections. This meant as more and more people bought mobile devices then some would get no connection at all. Not even a notification about a text, or Whatsapp message could get through. 4G and later solved that by using packets.

Phones don't generally last 10 years, so 4G started in 2012/2013, and by 2020 majority of people had 4G phones. By the end of 2024, 3G will be switched off in the UK.

Sometimes change IS for the consumer, to enable millions of more consumers to use the same service you are using. "concurrency". Yes, more concurrent users gives more money to the operators, but they also pay out a stunning amount for the infrastructure. And why do we dislike companies making money and employing people? Surely most of us are in jobs, and need to get paid to afford food, fuel, housing etc?

i have no need for 150Mb/s so why would I pay more for it.

I think you are lucky to have the reliability, but when FTTP comes past, why not pay for a 40/20 service at the lowest cost. As you know I left Plusnet at £37 a month to go to Virgin £53/month, because the uplink speed wasn't sufficient for home working due to copper degredation. I do not need 200 Mbps, but I needed faster than 3 Mbps uplink. That was my only option.

At some point you will have to swap from copper to fibre as the delivery mechanism when the network provider (most likely Openreach) cease VDSL services, which is likely a few years away yet.

Edited by jchamier (Wed 27-Jul-22 16:03:25)

Yep. Known as a “donkey” vote. There’s no law to say you can’t spoil or invalidate your ballot. As long as you turn up and cast a vote.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

"they tell me that you can spoil your vote "

That is still a vote!

Not really, it is more of a none of the above.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I think you mean "upto 20 Mbps is good for me, and I only use two way roads, never dual carriageways and never use motorways".

I have no problem with that, but that doesn't mean 3G is still the right thing for the networks to supply in 2022. 3G was circuit switched, and so there was a maximum number of connections. This meant as more and more people bought mobile devices then some would get no connection at all. Not even a notification about a text, or Whatsapp message could get through. 4G and later solved that by using packets.

Phones don't generally last 10 years, so 4G started in 2012/2013, and by 2020 majority of people had 4G phones. By the end of 2024, 3G will be switched off in the UK.

I never said 3G was the right thing to stay on and i understand why we changed to 4G technology wise, more than speed, I am trying to point out that high speed is not required on a phone. 5G is just about speed, in fact reliability wise it sees like 5G is worse than 4G and stops dead when it hit walls.

You are right, most phones don't last ten years, I do try and keep my phone for as long as I can, some people seem to change their phones as often as they change their socks , no wonder there is so much electrical waste. When the time comes to replace my phone, I will see what is available, I will not look for 5G, hopefully my phone will last for another 3-4 years. By that time we may have 5G here, but as i said, not bothered to be honest.

Sometimes change IS for the consumer, to enable millions of more consumers to use the same service you are using. "concurrency". Yes, more concurrent users gives more money to the operators, but they also pay out a stunning amount for the infrastructure. And why do we dislike companies making money and employing people? Surely most of us are in jobs, and need to get paid to afford food, fuel, housing etc?

Not bothered about companies making money, it is when they get greedy I have the problem

I think you are lucky to have the reliability, but when FTTP comes past, why not pay for a 40/20 service at the lowest cost. As you know I left Plusnet at £37 a month to go to Virgin £53/month, because the uplink speed wasn't sufficient for home working due to copper degredation. I do not need 200 Mbps, but I needed faster than 3 Mbps uplink. That was my only option.

To be honest, I am surprised at how reliable it has been, my main problem have been hardware, I am back to the Hub one now openreach have sorted out the compatibility problem, and it is working ok, at the moment. The zyxel for some reason still have Wifi problems, even after a mate got it working again after going pop.

i pay £24 a month for 3^Mb/s, more or less, it was £23 but they put it up by a quid. i only went to FTTC as the wireless service i was using went to pot and could not cope, also FTTC had just started here and was cheaper with a faster speed.
I went to the wireless service, because it was better than ADSL 3Mb/s service I got at the time and cost only a little more. When the wireless service was at it's peak I got 10Mb/s, then towards the end it was slower than my original ADSL and when I say original, i mean the 512Kb/s

FTTC was available and i went for it.

At some point you will have to swap from copper to fibre as the delivery mechanism when the network provider (most likely Openreach) cease VDSL services, which is likely a few years away yet.

I found out that my exchange stop sell is September 2023, I thought it was 2025. Oh my god, that is next year. Open reach will have to get a move on if they are going to do the whole city in fibre by then.
As I have said before, my plusnet contract ends in 12 months, I have said i will make up my mind what to do nearer the time, but thinking about it over the last few weeks and being happy with the service I have, if plusnet give me a good offer to stay with them, then I will. That will at least give me another 18 months of not being hassled to move over to FTTP, i hope.
i don't want the hassle, i don't want to pay the higher price, i have heard that some provider sell a lower speed FTTP package, but I have looked and found nothing, they are all 100Mb/s or more. But they must do lower speeds, because of when they move people from FTTC.

My other problem is will ISPs keep emailing people to update to a higher speed, I have heard of people having emails and even phone calls from their ISP to try to get them to update to the next speed on FTTC. They can't do that to me as I can't get any faster.

As i said, still 12 months to go, i know it will zoom by, but it gives me a bit of breathing space. i may not even be here then.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

5G is just about speed,

Er no. It is, again, about capacity. Speed is one way of measuring capacity, and is the only topic the marketing depts understand.

in fact reliability wise it sees like 5G is worse than 4G and stops dead when it hit walls.

Only 5G at 3.x GHz is stopping at walls, some networks are transmitting 5G on lower frequencies as well. Its another 10/15 year transition.

By that time we may have 5G here, but as i said, not bothered to be honest.

In 5 years it should be everywhere 4G is, and most likely the 5G support will come in the chipset of your next phone.

Not bothered about companies making money, it is when they get greedy I have the problem

And trying to define that could take the rest of the year, certainly off topic for TBB.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Er no. It is, again, about capacity. Speed is one way of measuring capacity, and is the only topic the marketing depts understand.

but if they keep on about speed, then people like me who is not bothered about speed is not going to jump at it, the same with FTTP. While i know it is not all about speed, that is all, as you said marketing say, speed, speed and more speed. Not interested in going faster.

In 5 years it should be everywhere 4G is, and most likely the 5G support will come in the chipset of your next phone.

Well again i have read and hear stories about the reliability of 5G, and it is not, some people are getting slower speeds than they do with 4G. I know the council refused permission for a 5G mast, something to do with it being too close to a school, so even our own council have some problems with how safe 5G is.
So far we have one mast and it is on top of a hotel in the centre of town.
My next phone may support 5G, but i am not going to look for it, 5G is not on the list of what I want from a phone, to be honest I want to pay as little as I can and still get a usable phone, which is why I went for an Oppo.


It seems like Out of reach is doing their fibre here as well as ZZoomm as I spoke to a Zzoomm bloke this morning, and he said they are still going underground and out of reach is doing their own network.
spoilt for choice, we have none, now we will have two fibre networks.

But the ballot paper was used in one way or another and it is classed as a vote.

So yes really!

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

but if they keep on about speed, then people like me who is not bothered about speed is not going to jump at it, the same with FTTP. While i know it is not all about speed, that is all, as you said marketing say, speed, speed and more speed. Not interested in going faster.

Which is why ignore the marketing, read the technical information sites, and wait and see. Generally if your phone has the right radio chip, most of the networks now include 5G capability for no extra cost. (Not all PAYG yet).

Well again i have read and hear stories about the reliability of 5G, and it is not, some people are getting slower speeds than they do with 4G. I know the council refused permission for a 5G mast, something to do with it being too close to a school, so even our own council have some problems with how safe 5G is.

The councils sadly don’t have any scientific advisors, and many just reject based on ‘hearsay’ which is not how the UK should be working. It is likely a “new 5G mast” would be one of the Poles of Wonder from the Three network, which they need because their existing mast density is low, and it also carries 3G and 4G signals.

5G is seen as unreliable so far as the frequency allocated originally by Ofcom is very high so has poor distance and poor indoor coverage. The networks are allowed to use other licensed frequencies, and one of the benefits of 3G shutdown next year will allow the networks to choose to deploy more 4G capacity or 5G capacity.

which is why I went for an Oppo.

I have a OnePlus Nord (original), which like Oppo is owned by BBK, and all their handsets include 5G support for no extra cost.

spoilt for choice, we have none, now we will have two fibre networks.

Quite likely in most built up of the UK, and something our government wants, competition. It is also possible that Zzoom are paying Openreach to fix issues in the ducts they discover when trying to use the Openreach infrastructure.

Toob in my town is having to install poles in areas where the OR cabling is concreted into the ground (no duct) and some are complaining. No sign of OR doing their own network here yet. We need some competitors to VirminMedia, whom don’t seem able to fix their failing infrastructure.

Changing topic a bit. How do you feel about the new posts going up?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Changing topic a bit. How do you feel about the new posts going up?

None in my estate, fingers crossed our ducts are accessible when they get to us. The other side of town? I’d put up with them for reliable broadband, given the hassles I have with VM !

In reply to a post by broadband66:

But the ballot paper was used in one way or another and it is classed as a vote.

So yes really!

Surly it will ba classed as a spoilt vote, so not a vote. Not that i agree with forcing people to go to vote, up to people at the end of the day.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Which is why ignore the marketing, read the technical information sites, and wait and see. Generally if your phone has the right radio chip, most of the networks now include 5G capability for no extra cost. (Not all PAYG yet).

Smarty who i use is now doing 5G with no extra cost.

The councils sadly don’t have any scientific advisors, and many just reject based on ‘hearsay’ which is not how the UK should be working. It is likely a “new 5G mast” would be one of the Poles of Wonder from the Three network, which they need because their existing mast density is low, and it also carries 3G and 4G signals.

i have no idea, there is a strange mast over the road from a pub i go to now and again, it belongs to O2 Link is to Google maps. Street view. it is not 5G as o2 still don't do 5G here.

5G is seen as unreliable so far as the frequency allocated originally by Ofcom is very high so has poor distance and poor indoor coverage. The networks are allowed to use other licensed frequencies, and one of the benefits of 3G shutdown next year will allow the networks to choose to deploy more 4G capacity or 5G capacity.

That is going to annoy a few people who still have older 3g only phones, companies, once again, not really giving as monkeys and doing everything to cut cost and make more money for their shareholders. They say it is what people want, the company I work for says that when they make changes.
Not everyone wants a super-duper smart phone, so just want one to make calls and with bloated toad and out of reach knocking out analogue phone lines, people will have little choice but to have a mobile phone just in case they have a power cut and no phone. Again, not really giving a monkey about people, but just profit.

I have a OnePlus Nord (original), which like Oppo is owned by BBK, and all their handsets include 5G support for no extra cost.

The phone I have is still available at around £176, if i wanted to get a Oppo phone with 5G, I think the cheapest one is the OPPO A54 5G at £199, so not the same price, is it?
I presume it may reduce in price, I got my oppo a72 for a very good price, Huawei p10 lite went belly up, so I had to get a phone quickly and I vowed a few years ago that I am never going to go about the £200 for a phone. I got my A72 for around £150.

Quite likely in most built up of the UK, and something our government wants, competition. It is also possible that Zzoom are paying Openreach to fix issues in the ducts they discover when trying to use the Openreach infrastructure.

I really don't know, because a few days ago I saw a zzoomm person on a cherry picker doing something to a pole and i have also seen openreach. So I am still confused. The bloke I had a quick chat to today, was pulling, a draw rope from a GP manhole and up the road there was what I presume was fibre on a roll being pulled into another GP manhole. So they are certainly using openreach ducts, I bet openreach loves that

Oh yeah, competition is good and from what I have heard about and read about zzoomm's network in theory it should be more advanced than Openreach. The one advantage about openreach is that it uses overhead fibre. No digging up gardens and driveways. If i was going for fibre and I needed the higher speed, then i would no doubt go for Zzoomm, but they need to get the bugs out of their system first. But at around £30 a month for 150Mb/s, it is paying more for something I would not use. i have looked at prices of providers that use open reach FTTP and they all around the same price.
That is another £6 a month from what I pay now.

Toob in my town is having to install poles in areas where the OR cabling is concreted into the ground (no duct) and some are complaining. No sign of OR doing their own network here yet. We need some competitors to VirminMedia, whom don’t seem able to fix their failing infrastructure.

i was shocked when i heard zzoomm was coming here, I wonder how much they are being paid and by home, because Hereford is not really a city where any company in their right mind would come to.

I do think that if openreach are forcing people to digital voice, then they should be made to provide a battery back up system, they used to when they first started FTTP, now they don't, all about saving money.

I do think that if openreach are forcing people to digital voice, then they should be made to provide a battery back up system, they used to when they first started FTTP, now they don't, all about saving money.

They don't want to be in the voice game fullstop. Hence why as of 2025 they're existing stage left and leaving it up to the CPs/ISPs.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

They don't want to be in the voice game fullstop. Hence why as of 2025 they're existing stage left and leaving it up to the CPs/ISPs.

I thought it was the voice part that made the money, which is why they did not want people to have no phone.

i have just seen that this digital switch over for voice don't mean that copper cables will go, they will still be used for FTTC. I thought all dialling was done electronically anyway, no mechanical switch.

i remember the old exchange next to our cathedral, when I used to go past it and hear the activators dialling,, also remember when they moved the exchange, it is close to where I work, but most of it is now home to the transport police.

Moving the exchange meant that cables doubled back, and that was the reason why ADSl was so bad for me here, as the cables were twice as long as they should be.


I can understand fibre being better, more reliable, because it doesn't get affected by water and faster, also able to send more data. Plusnet leaves me alone at the moment as they know I can't get a faster broadband, but I do know of providers who bug people to update to the higher speed FTTC. I don't want that being done with fibre.
Also, i just can't be bothered with the hassle.

No it’s not profitable and hasn’t been for 15 years or more. Shrinking fixed line volumes/minutes, shrinking customer base + increasing costs to maintain end of life switching infrastructure in thousands of sites. VoIP costs a fraction of legacy switched/TDM voice,

Basically burning platform that is costing BT Group a fortune. They want out.

"Surly it will ba classed as a spoilt vote"

You've answered your own question. " Spoilt vote" the word vote gives it away.

If the voter puts the ballot slip in the box then it is a vote whether they put anything on the slip or not.

Not sure how voting on-line works as not sure if one can tick more than one box or not.

Edited by broadband66 (Fri 29-Jul-22 13:37:44)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

No it’s not profitable and hasn’t been for 15 years or more. Shrinking fixed line volumes/minutes, shrinking customer base + increasing costs to maintain end of life switching infrastructure in thousands of sites. VoIP costs a fraction of legacy switched/TDM voice,

Basically burning platform that is costing BT Group a fortune. They want out.

I realise that fewer people use landlines now for calls, but it was not that long ago when BT was saying they were not making a great amount on broadband, and yet their profits keep rising.
I also realise that VoIP is cheaper to run, no mechanical parts for a start, but openreach need to provide some sort of battery back, certainly for alarms and like. They did at first, but it seems as if greed and more profit have got in the way of that.

BT had the infrastructure for peanuts when the government sold it off, and they did very little with it for years, it surprises me that we are able to get the speeds we can over the cables we have. So I certainly don't feel sorry for them paying out money.

I have read that while they are changing people to digital voice, which don't affect me anyway as i already use VoIP and no phone is connected to the landline. I have also read that they are still keep the copper cables and FTTC infrastructure, If that is the case then I can stay on it.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

You've answered your own question. " Spoilt vote" the word vote gives it away.

If the voter puts the ballot slip in the box then it is a vote whether they put anything on the slip or not.

Not sure how voting on-line works as not sure if one can tick more than one box or not.

Still nto really a vote, just because it is called a spoilt vote it is not a vote, a vote is if you put a name down on the slip of paper.

Anyway, I don't live in Australia, I live here, so it is irrelevant.

The problem usually with battery backups is if they are powered all the time then the batteries tend to run out more quickly (seen often with laptops). And the other issue is if your battery has degraded the first time you may know that is when it cuts out 30 seconds into a power cut - the maintenance of ensuring batteries are still in good working condition could cost significant amounts for ISPs if they are required to give any level of commitment of length of up time in the event of a power cut.

In reply to a post by ian72:

the maintenance of ensuring batteries are still in good working condition could cost significant amounts for ISPs if they are required to give any level of commitment of length of up time in the event of a power cut.

Someone should ask Openreach as I understood most FTTC cabinets have UPS batteries in.

I expect so - and the cost of maintaining them is built in to that. The cost of maintaining batteries at every single premises I would guess could be pretty significant.

In reply to a post by ian72:

. . . . the maintenance of ensuring batteries are still in good working condition could cost significant amounts for ISPs if they are required to give any level of commitment of length of up time in the event of a power cut.

Against what level of significant amount they are saving by coming away from copper? Presumably there could be some sort of automated monitoring if the battery was part of the supplied infrastructure minimising the day-to-day cost of the task.

In reply to a post by ian72:

The problem usually with battery backups is if they are powered all the time then the batteries tend to run out more quickly (seen often with laptops). And the other issue is if your battery has degraded the first time you may know that is when it cuts out 30 seconds into a power cut - the maintenance of ensuring batteries are still in good working condition could cost significant amounts for ISPs if they are required to give any level of commitment of length of up time in the event of a power cut.

Most decent UPS will monitor the battery and use some sort of battery conditioning.

The thing is it is all about money, let's see how much more millions of pounds we can make for our rich shareholders, and it doesn't matter about the consumers.
this country has gone to pot, services in this country is pathetic.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Against what level of significant amount they are saving by coming away from copper? Presumably there could be some sort of automated monitoring if the battery was part of the supplied infrastructure minimising the day-to-day cost of the task.

Probably not that much, and given PSTN is ending over copper (in most of the UK long before full fibre arrives) there is no connection.

In reply to a post by ian72:

I expect so - and the cost of maintaining them is built in to that. The cost of maintaining batteries at every single premises I would guess could be pretty significant.

Yes, batteries in a home will be much smaller, whereas in a large chassis such as the Huawei 288 line cabinets there will be maybe 3 or 4 car batteries, heavy old style lead acid type, which are predictable and give maybe 30mins power cut resilience.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

The thing is it is all about money, let's see how much more millions of pounds we can make for our rich shareholders, and it doesn't matter about the consumers.
this country has gone to pot, services in this country is pathetic.

Portugal, Spain and others have already switched off copper. They have the same challenges and have overcome them to their regulator's satisfaction.

The phone service over fibre won't be as resilient as POTS. The various reliability improvements should keep the difference minimal.

The current phone service operates on 5-9s reliability, 99.999%. 5 minutes, 15 seconds of downtime a year. Even taking that down to 99.99%, a low expectation of a battery backup operating service, with a mobile SIM, you're talking 52 minutes, 40 seconds of downtime.

I genuinely don't understand why you're wanting to die on this particular hill. At some point whether people want to move or not they're going to be compelled to. Ofcom have already given a forced move to VoIP a green light and money isn't a consideration for them.

TalkTalk and Sky are absolutely on board, they want to retire most of the kit they have in exchanges. It's getting on and isn't used anywhere near as much at it was. With them and BT Wholesale all getting rid that's basically the entire market. Virgin Media are trying to retire it on their cable network.

TalkTalk have stuck their head above the parapet and handled it poorly but you'll see letters with various tone going out across the board until, eventually, the last holdouts are given an ultimatum.

What then? Protest about companies wanting to replace in some cases pre-war cabling with modern cabling fit for purpose for the foreseeable future?

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

Portugal, Spain and others have already switched off copper. They have the same challenges and have overcome them to their regulator's satisfaction.

The phone service over fibre won't be as resilient as POTS. The various reliability improvements should keep the difference minimal.

The current phone service operates on 5-9s reliability, 99.999%. 5 minutes, 15 seconds of downtime a year. Even taking that down to 99.99%, a low expectation of a battery backup operating service, with a mobile SIM, you're talking 52 minutes, 40 seconds of downtime.

I genuinely don't understand why you're wanting to die on this particular hill. At some point whether people want to move or not they're going to be compelled to. Ofcom have already given a forced move to VoIP a green light and money isn't a consideration for them.

TalkTalk and Sky are absolutely on board, they want to retire most of the kit they have in exchanges. It's getting on and isn't used anywhere near as much at it was. With them and BT Wholesale all getting rid that's basically the entire market. Virgin Media are trying to retire it on their cable network.

TalkTalk have stuck their head above the parapet and handled it poorly but you'll see letters with various tone going out across the board until, eventually, the last holdouts are given an ultimatum.

What then? Protest about companies wanting to replace in some cases pre-war cabling with modern cabling fit for purpose for the foreseeable future?

as I have said before going to digital voice makes no difference to me, I have had VoIP for years, but i do feel for the older people that may get confused by it, and what happens to alarms and that sort of thing? As i have said in on here about someone I chat to being pushed to fibre, he has alarms that rely on analogue phones, and he has been told they will not work on a digital voice system, even if plugged into an adaptor. Not sure why, i thought surly, if these alarms are sending an analogue signal, then they should work. But saying that, some fax machines will not work on VoIP, I tried it a few years ago, not my Fax.

My thing is more to do with fibre and people being pushed to that and yes the way Talk Talk done it is wrong and disgusting, I don't care if it's trial or not. If a comp[an y done that to me, then I would just tell them I am going else where.

It seems by what I have read that FTTC will be with us longer.

A zzoomm van have pulled up outside my house a few minutes ago and some signs up, I can hear them digging up the road now. I am dreading how they will leave the pavements.

I have not seen openreach around here for a few days now, since they put the equipment on the poles, so I don't know when they are going to be doing theirs. If they don't hurry up, they will lose people as they will go to zzoomm.

when i first heard about fibre coming here, I thought great i will go for that, but thinking it over a few times i thought, what is the point, I don't need the speed, the quality of my connection is good and have been reliable for a couple of years or more now. So may as well stay as I am.

Alarms may use frequencies outside of the range supported by VoIP - VoIP is going to primarily deal with frequencies within human hearing ranges and faxes/modems/etc would use frequencies outside of these ranges. VoIP may also be implementing levels of compression on the line that could remove important frequencies for an analogue modem based connection - something the human ear wouldn't really notice but that analogue data traffic would be heavily impacted by.

For most older people the move will be pretty seamless - unplug the phone from the BT socket and plug it into the router. They won't care how it works. If they have wired extensions and the like then it could well be much more of an issue - not sure how much help BT provide in that scenario. My mum was moved over to BT Digital Voice and it made no real difference to her at all.