PSTN switchoff "could be delayed by up to two years..."

Article in today's Telegraph: Digital landline switchover delayed amid emergency alarms crisis

It can be read for free (today at least) via MSN here:
www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/digital-landline-switchover-delayed-amid-emergency-alarms-crisis/ar-BB1kQa7N

Plans to rip out traditional landlines and replace them with digital alternatives have been delayed after emergency alarm outages sparked a health crisis.

BT has warned the Government it will not meet the target of moving customers from copper landlines to a new digital network by the end of 2025.

Ministers are currently in discussions with the telecoms giant about a new timeline, but sources said the process could be delayed by up to two years for some vulnerable people.

BT and rival Virgin Media have paused their rollout of digital phone lines amid fears the technology update could put elderly people at risk.

[... continues ...]

Hat-tip to Big Dave over on ISPreview for posting about the Telegraph article in the comment underneath today's ISPr news article.

I note the time-stamp of The ISPreview article.

The problem with the PSTN switch-off and emergency alarms for vulnerable people was raised by the Telegraph in December . Your links are basically to a copy of that, updated to report that BT have now said they can't meet the end of 2025 date.

Only took four months to realise.

Edited by pluralist (Mon 01-Apr-24 12:56:27)

No real need to visit MSN at all: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/31/digi...

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

No real need to visit MSN at all: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/03/31/digi...

The reason to visit it via MSN is because going straight to Telegraph may be blocked if you have accessed too many articles in a timeframe without paying.

In reply to a post by burble:

The reason to visit it via MSN is because going straight to Telegraph may be blocked if you have accessed too many articles in a timeframe without paying.

Ok, in my case I could read the whole article on The Telegraph with no issue. I believe some articles, like this, are intentionally not paywalled.

Why should Openreach customers have to subsidise care alarm providers who have sat on their hands for close to ten years?

In reply to a post by jpm:

Why should Openreach customers have to subsidise care alarm providers who have sat on their hands for close to ten years?

Completely agree.

That this switchover was coming has been knowledge for a decade.

Are the alarm providers customers of Openreach? Or are they customers of the retailer providing the phone service to the end user?

Openreach customers are the ISPs. If you were an ISP that engaged with industry plans for PSTN shutdown, made test CPE hardware available for alarm providers to test with (bear in mind the majority of these devices will work absolutely fine if you plug them into an ATA), invested a lot in staff training and communication to your customers to ensure the changeover was as smooth as possible, only for care alarm providers to not uphold their end of the bargain and then cry to the press about how nothing is ready, I'd be pretty annoyed if a proportion of the cost of the products I bought from Openreach was going into extending the PSTN network beyond the date that everybody had agreed it would be gone by.

Companies who are not ready for the service to be withdrawn in 2025 will not be ready in 2027 either. In that Telegraph article there are care alarms described as life critical when they have a single path to communicate over - if they are critical devices then ones built in 2010 should have had 3G modems in and battery back-up so that they continued to function in the event of a phone line fault. It seems like the people who build them and sell subscriptions are only considering them to be life critical now that they're required to do some work.

I agree. My brain had earlier blanked out the word "customers" in your previous post . My apologies.

I have a relative who has several times had to rely for rescue in her house on the device on a lanyard round her neck. Now, thankfully, she is in a care home. In the days when these devices didn't exist, my mother was a few times found on the floor in her flat by the lady from the flat above who used to check on her twice a day. Nearest relative 80 miles away.

There's no real excuse for this potentially life-saving gear not to be guaranteed to work in the case of power failure.

As an aside, as you will know but some readers may not, BT Business already have a phone service that switches to mobile if the landline goes down. (Maybe also the broadband? It's years now since I came across that when upgrading a club's provision). So the technology is there, but where it is needed then yes, it's up to the alarm provider to arrange something one way or another for their service.

Edit: Maybe 4G, as 3G is to be phased out by 2033?

Edited by pluralist (Mon 01-Apr-24 16:17:45)

A functioning "landline" can be important in other instances too. I received routine safety advice from my energy supplier the other day regarding gas leaks: don't use a mobile phone within the house to report a gas leak but use a "landline".

Unlikely perhaps that there would be a simultaneous failure of a "landline" service and a gas leak occurring but I guess it could happen. VOiP equipment and other mains electricity powered devices would obviously be unusable. However perhaps a UPS backup might be feasible for the vulnerable in similar circumstances...

That's interesting, as it raises the question as to what danger would a mobile phone be in a gas leak? What about a DECT phone which is what most(?) now have?

Another thought. In your "unlikely event", wouldn't a UPS kicking in be dangerous?

In reply to a post by pluralist:

That's interesting, as it raises the question as to what danger would a mobile phone be in a gas leak? What about a DECT phone which is what most(?) now have?

https://www.york.gov.uk/IfYouSmellGas#:~:text=If%20y...

If you smell gas, don't:

turn any electric switches on or off (this includes lights) - this can cause a spark, which could cause an explosion if there is a gas leak.
use your phone indoors as it could cause a spark
smoke
use naked flames
use the door controlled entry system from your flat

Some sites specify not to use a mobile phone, but most places correctly mention only "phone".

Even an analogue phone has voltage that could cause a spark.

Edited by j0hn83 (Mon 01-Apr-24 16:54:00)

In reply to a post by pluralist:

That's interesting, as it raises the question as to what danger would a mobile phone be in a gas leak? What about a DECT phone which is what most(?) now have?

I can only assume that a mobile phone creates a spark (rather like other electrical switches that should not be used) that might cause a gas explosion.

My energy supplier didn't mention DECT phones - perhaps its prudent to use a corded phone?

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

Some sites specify not to use a mobile phone, but most places correctly mention only "phone".

Even an analogue phone has voltage that could cause a spark.

Thanks for that, it seems my energy supplier was totally irresponsible in suggesting using a "landline" from within a property if there is a suspected gas leak.

Given a suspected tiny gas leak, which we had in the meter cupboard for many years in the days meter readers came into the house every quarter to read them but when asked if they could smell it all said no, I see no problem with a phone especially if in a different room.

(We gave up asking, but finally one did detect it, and the whole 1960s pipe from the street had the modern plastic insert fed through it to the cupboard).

Given a strong leak, get out of the house anyway! As well as opening the appropriate windows having previously opened doors to clear the worst.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

Another thought. In your "unlikely event", wouldn't a UPS kicking in be dangerous?

Crikey! Probably best to get out of the house and shout for help or use a mobile phone outdoors if one is not vulnerable and disabled.

Absolutely, use the mobile phone outdoors. It's what they were for originally,

In reply to a post by pluralist:

...in the days meter readers came into the house every quarter to read them

Vulnerable customers can still have their meters read - good thing since apparently approx 20% of smart-meters are not fully functioning. For safety reasons smart gas meters are battery powered but unlike a human they can not smell gas!

Because of the structure of this Forum it doesn't seem possible to add a post without tagging on as a reply to another post. Apologises to @DFScale as this post is not a reply to the post to which it is appended but rather a general comment about this topic.

Once again a thread studiously ignoring that part of the population that lives in areas without mobile reception!

iPhone, Pixel and Samsung phones to have satellite connectivity soon. Though geographically limited initially.

Also in 2022, Apple launched the SOS safety feature with the iPhone 14 series that allows users to connect to emergency response agencies through satellite connectivity. (I don't know how widespread).

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Because of the structure of this Forum it doesn't seem possible to add a post without tagging on as a reply to another post. Apologises to @DFScale as this post is not a reply to the post to which it is appended but rather a general comment about this topic.

I tend to read the forum as 'flat', so unless it's a direct reply like this it gets tagged onto the last dated post.

Once again a thread studiously ignoring that part of the population that lives in areas without mobile reception!

As per us, we rely on WiFi calling for mobile, when we lost all internet and phone, had to drive several miles to get signal to phone doc's.

Practically zero risk.
There was a piece on Mythbusters about using Mobile phones in petrol stations.
They tested it in multiple ways and could not get the phone to cause ignition.
The most extreme test involved putting a phone in a clear perspex case filled with petrol vapours and calling it, they did this in a low signal area so the phone would send a more powerful signal.
The result was nothing happened.

Thanks
Dan

I found that most of the hardware was available - BUT the service providers, ether a Local Authority or their sub-cons, are not. When I spoke to them there were various excuses for not installing the appropriate solutions in their monitoring centre. One comment was "we are planning to look at it in 18 months time" or "there is no requirement at present" ...

In reply to a post by danielhyde:

Practically zero risk.
There was a piece on Mythbusters about using Mobile phones in petrol stations.

However there are cases of mobile phone fires due to spontaneous combustion of batteries in some circumstances. Possibly not "practically zero risk?"

In reply to a post by danielhyde:

The result was nothing happened.

They tested the obvious, and it was a good test (I watched it).

However the other risk is that the mobile affects the pump so it doesn’t measure how much you discharged.

Given the EU directives in the 1990s that should no longer be an issue, and one of many reasons the ban in hospitals was reversed. (That never made sense, senior surgeons/consultants always had their phones, and many hospitals have cell sites on the roof!)

In reply to a post by 4M2:

However there are cases of mobile phone fires due to spontaneous combustion of batteries in some circumstances. Possibly not "practically zero risk?"

Galaxy Note 7 the most famous, and a complete design fault. Battery larger than the case it fit in, so the battery was constantly squashed.

Watch the airlines, if they ban something you know its more than ‘practically zero’ and they haven’t yet banned tablets, phones, and laptops from flight. (Rules on laptops due to weight etc).

I think the hospital phone ban was more to do with protecting revenue on the expensive patient service consoles, where you call in and out using a premium rate number, and you also pay for TV by the day.

Airlines did ban use of mobile phones for years, supposedly because of risk of interfering with flight systems. But since planes gained on-board wifi, and more recently micro cells, magically those worries have evaporated.

Airlines banned the use of mobiles on aircraft beacuse there was no proof they did not interfere and the potential risk was too high. Plus the operators wanted them banned until onboard pico cells were operational to stop interference with serveral cell sites. They are still banned during critical flight phases for two main reasons, still the potential for an issue and that they want passengers to not be distracted in an ememrgency.

There is proof that some interferencce does occur with the audio systems on the flight decks with breakthrough. Something the pilots do not want during take off and landing - I've been there and heard it many times.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I think the hospital phone ban was more to do with protecting revenue on the expensive patient service consoles, where you call in and out using a premium rate number, and you also pay for TV by the day.

those crazy systems came in later, weren't at the start of the ban.

. But since planes gained on-board wifi, and more recently micro cells, magically those worries have evaporated.

The change to smart phones is that you can have WiFi and internet services in aircraft with the cellular modem disabled. This wasn't the case with the original feature phones.

In reply to a post by MHC:

Something the pilots do not want during take off and landing - I've been there and heard it many times.

The unmistakable 'chatter' of a GSM phone on an RF system is quite obvious and irritating... especially if the radio auto-squelch and you miss an important transmission.

On final approach to a major European airport, on te flight deck of a B744 when all hell broke loose ... not one but many GSM handsets started breaking through resulting an a go-around and a real snotty AP announcement.

In reply to a post by MHC:

On final approach to a major European airport, on te flight deck of a B744 when all hell broke loose ... not one but many GSM handsets started breaking through resulting an a go-around and a real snotty AP announcement.

Ugh... yeah; general public just doesn't realise what is going on. A local in aircraft cell that the phones connected to would stop this and reduce their transmit power - but not cheap for the airlines to deploy. Cheaper to yell at passengers

Maybe 4G, as 3G is to be phased out by 2033?

3G is already gone in many areas - EE finished its 3G decommissioning nationwide a few months ago, other networks are not far behind.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

Maybe 4G, as 3G is to be phased out by 2033?

3G is already gone in many areas - EE finished its 3G decommissioning nationwide a few months ago, other networks are not far behind.

Vodafone and EE already turned off 3G. Three is due this year. O2 sometime in 2025.

What will run until 2033 is the small capacity left of 2G (Vodafone, O2, EE) for those industrial usages such as parking meters, and smart meters that aren’t 4G capable.

In reply to a post by pluralist:

There's no real excuse for this potentially life-saving gear not to be guaranteed to work in the case of power failure.

No technology is guaranteed to work forever. The equipment vendors need to update their products and provide a sensible upgrade path to their customers. This happens all the time, nobody had a free new car when 4 STAR leaded petrol ended… there were a few people whom used an additive for a while.

Human society is about change, in every aspect. With sufficient notice adjustments and changes can be made.

I read (on ISP review probably) that Openreach may have a solution for those phone lines that don’t have broadband to assist in this transition. One example was emergency phones in lift shafts.

This isn't very surprising to be honest. First, for the elderly people who aren't technically well advanced they need broadband set-up. This means if they aren't able to set it up for themselves, Openreach or the ISP need to come to set their router up and register their handset(s).

In the event of power outage this is going to be a problem not just for the elderly but for any person in a potentially vulnerable position. Of-course I have my own mobile phone. But imagine if a burglar or gang came to my house/flat and confiscated my phone and turned off the internet and I can't call the police or anyone for help, I'll be completely helpless. I can try to fight back but I may not succeed. It may even be risky to do so. The elderly are in a much more helpless situation. This will result in robberies being committed, rapes and assaults.

Battery back-up must also be included especially for FTTP. Because reliable internet connection without a reliable electricity won't be good enough either. It may be good for people in the big cities that rarely get power outages, but not for the most remote rural areas.

So, turning off PSTN of-course is inevitable but it should happen in a gradual step by step process. Of-course no doubt the newer generation of people won't have to worry much about it because I'm sure 40-50 years from now when I get to 75-80+ years of age things will improve rapidly.

Also, I can't really endorse PSTN switch off even for people on FTTC because not everyone on FTTC has a stable and reliable internet connection. For example, since the 8th of March BT Smart Hub 2 router firmware upgrade, my internet has been dropping out every single night between 1-5am! This seems to be programmed for whatever reason. I have not enquired much about this yet. Though I am thinking of switching to Community Fibre soon anyway. I myself won't care if I lose my home telephone number but there are others who will of-course care since they don't have good mobile phone coverage.

There are also people with cabinets that are up to a thousand meters away from their property. If Openreach can't guarantee a 100% reliable internet connection then such bold move would be incredibly unfair and even dangerous!

There are also people with cabinets that are up to a thousand meters away from their property. If Openreach can't guarantee a 100% reliable internet connection then such bold move would be incredibly unfair and even dangerous!

‘Up to a thousand meters away ?!?!? One kilometre is nothing, 2k is a guideline as to the limit for VDSL, but in practice I’ve seen sync at 2.5, even 2.8 k. Failing that there’s ADSL too.
Remember this thread is discussing a voice solution for panic alarm systems that the suppliers have chosen NOT to upgrade with 10 years notice that the move to VOIP based systems was coming.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

There are also people with cabinets that are up to a thousand meters away from their property. If Openreach can't guarantee a 100% reliable internet connection then such bold move would be incredibly unfair and even dangerous!

‘Up to a thousand meters away ?!?!? One kilometre is nothing, 2k is a guideline as to the limit for VDSL, but in practice I’ve seen sync at 2.5, even 2.8 k. Failing that there’s ADSL too.
Remember this thread is discussing a voice solution for panic alarm systems that the suppliers have chosen NOT to upgrade with 10 years notice that the move to VOIP based systems was coming.

One kilometre is not nothing when it comes to FTTC! You can't get very high sync speed. You have seen posters on these forums with a 1000 metre distance cabinet from their home in some rural areas and they are achieving only around 20Mbps download, some even less. While a few lucky people get around 30Mbps! Those affected, rightfully question, "what was the point of upgrading to FTTC, if the download speeds won't be much better than ADSL"?
You cannot get 50-80Mbps on FTTC with a 1000 meter cabinet. Now I know most people do have shorter distance cabinets but this is just an example that I'm pointing out.

The longer the copper the greater there is risk to line faults, noise and speed re-syncs. This is why Full Fibre is essential especially if you want the connection to be reliable so that the phone service isn't disrupted!

Sure the panic alarm system is going to be a headache for those elderly people but this applies for digital phone services as well. An elderly might need to call the ambulance, GP, police, fire brigade, etc. If their connection drops in the middle of a call or they can't call because of internet outage then they are in trouble. The panic alarm will also not work.

Then some may have dementia/Alzheimer's disease and not remember to turn their handset phone on or know or forgot that they need to charge it. Others won't know where their router is and how to even turn it on! This is an ageing population with single elderly people living in homes, of which many people here don't have close family members to help them or live with them to assist them with things like that.

VOIP is a good thing and is the future but analogue phone service shouldn't be immediately turned off until the service and reliability isn't fully tested, especially when not everyone is upgraded to FTTP yet. Openreach are trying to save maintenance costs by not having to maintain analogue phone network side by side while having a budget to upgrade the country with FTTP. I can understand from an economical perspective this makes perfect sense but this disregards any feelings for the vulnerable people in society during this transition phase.

But imagine if a burglar or gang came to my house/flat and confiscated my phone and turned off the internet and I can't call the police or anyone for help, I'll be completely helpless.

Compare this to a house currently with only voice line (which is what is generally being discussed here) where they have a handset plugged in to the living room socket - maybe an extension lead to the bedroom. The burglar just has to either keep them away from the handset or unplug the lead from the socket - how is that any better than the situation you describe?

You have seen posters on these forums with a 1000 metre distance cabinet from their home in some rural areas and they are achieving only around 20Mbps download, some even less. While a few lucky people get around 30Mbps!

The broadband USO for a "decent connection" (Ofcom definition) is 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up. You are saying people have low speeds when 1000m from the cabinet but the numbers you quote are at least double the USO for what Ofcom considers "decent".

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

One kilometre is not nothing when it comes to FTTC! You can't get very high sync speed.

Correct, but it's what many people have to live with. The old definition of "superfast" was 24Mbps, and you'll get that at over a kilometre: old graph here.
https://www.increasebroadbandspeed.co.uk/chart-of-bt...

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

You have seen posters on these forums with a 1000 metre distance cabinet from their home in some rural areas and they are achieving only around 20Mbps download, some even less. While a few lucky people get around 30Mbps! Those affected, rightfully question, "what was the point of upgrading to FTTC, if the download speeds won't be much better than ADSL"?

Because even at those distances, it will be faster than ADSL. I think the crossover (when VDSL becomes slower than ADSL) is at about 2.5-3km. This is because VDSL doesn't use the lower frequencies that ADSL does, to avoid interference between the two.

And in general, people are closer to their cabinet than to their exchange. (They certainly can't be any further).

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

You cannot get 50-80Mbps on FTTC with a 1000 meter cabinet.

And nobody said you could. But you don't need anything like those speeds for VOIP. Around 0.2Mbps up and down is sufficient.

And, as I understood it, the IP based alarms have a "keep alve" so if that disappears the monitoring centre should know.

In reply to a post by MHC:

And, as I understood it, the IP based alarms have a "keep alve" so if that disappears the monitoring centre should know.

That provoked a few interesting thoughts.

Given we are taking about a power failure and panic alarms, all the monitoring centre knows is that the connection is down. If a single occurrence in the postcode, and bearing in mind that we can have selective power failures of only one phase, (roughly 1 in 3 of the postcode), what is the company supposed to do? (Ignoring the problem of adjacent codes on the same sub-station).

Ignore the disconnection, or notify all affected?

There would also be the problem of notifying any responsible person such as a nearby relative, who is possibly the quickest responder, if their power is also off. The relative's mobile is the obvious answer but that fails if the number supplied is their landline.

Social carers, if applicable, should still be easily notified but probably a slower response.

There will always be the "what if" and "when to respond" questions with whatever system there is. From experience seeing an old PSTN based system in use and information from manufacturers of IP based - the IP based is way better.

For example, several smoke detectors installed - but also fitted with a microphone and speaker allowing localised talk back to a patient, or even potentially a camera (subject to agreement/data protection/other rules).

In reply to a post by ian72:

You have seen posters on these forums with a 1000 metre distance cabinet from their home in some rural areas and they are achieving only around 20Mbps download, some even less. While a few lucky people get around 30Mbps!

The broadband USO for a "decent connection" (Ofcom definition) is 10Mbps down and 1Mbps up. You are saying people have low speeds when 1000m from the cabinet but the numbers you quote are at least double the USO for what Ofcom considers "decent".

Sure those figures may still be double than the USO figures.
But let's face it the 10Mbps/1Mbps are opinions of David Cameron back in 2015. It was in fact his words that got this figure to become an official Ofcom definition. We are almost a decade ahead of the decent broadband speed definitions. What was decent back then is no longer decent now.

Plus David Cameron cannot speak on the needs of behalf of everyone. I know YouTubers and video editors need high upload speeds! For some of them even FTTC is quite slow.

When I was on ADSL EO Line just when my dad was uploading a document as attachment on Hotmail I'd get disconnected from the FIFA servers. This was happening in online chess as well. I was wondering for a while why this was happening when I eventually identified that it was because of my dad's uploading that was causing this. The internet download service also paralyzes when uploading a big file and only got restored after the uploading was complete. The uploading was only 20 seconds for a couple of megabyte file but it was enough to cause a drop in the connection and webpages were only buffering.

So after discovering this issue, we had to make sure I'm not playing anything serious online that involves stats before any uploading occurs. So, no doubt 1Mbps Upload is not enough. Not just that but I had a problem where my noise margins would sometimes drop to 1dB and that was also stopping my download speeds. Router will show connected but webpage would fail to load with a white blank page.

Also in 2018 when we were still on ADSL just uploading a 10 minute video, which I recorded of the winter snowing conditions, that took more than 2 hours to complete!

Finally after being upgraded to FTTC from EO Line in October 2019 and I joined TalkTalk FTTC in February 2020 all these problems got resolved and I now get 20Mbps upload and 77-80Mbps download. This also resolved the connection freezes when uploading and the random dropouts due to line noise that we were experiencing under ADSL with all ISPs.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by BLaZiNgSPEED:

You cannot get 50-80Mbps on FTTC with a 1000 meter cabinet.

And nobody said you could. But you don't need anything like those speeds for VOIP. Around 0.2Mbps up and down is sufficient.

Yes, you are right and indeed 0.2Mbps is more than enough for VOIP calls!
But my argument is that if your connection speed is flaky and due to unstable noise margins it drops out then that will disrupt phone calls and any devices reliant on an internet connection.

The present ADSL/FTTC speeds are more than enough for VOIP/Alarms but if the connection drops then it can be a disaster!
I know a neighbour here who has CCTV camera installed on his front door and this is connected using Internet WiFi connection.

For example in our residential building there's no CCTV cameras installed on the floors except ground floor, which is kinda useless. This is a massive red flag. Although we have never installed a camera ourselves, we do feel sometimes vulnerable when we go out on a holiday abroad. Because I'm pretty sure that if someone did break into the apartment the neighbours might not intervene or call the police and that's Central London! Especially after Grenfell Tower fire disaster we are no longer allowed to have additional metal security gates installed at our front doors. We were all ordered to remove them yet no CCTV cameras are present on any of the floors, staircase or lifts.

For example you may go on a holiday and want to leave your CCTV camera on and for the peace of mind want to feel that everything is safe. You could potentially view what's going on while you are abroad. A loss of connectivity or downtime means you lose sight of what's going on.