What should happen when there is a fault - FTTP

I am a very recent customer of Swish - the only FTTP supplier available in my road. Installation was not straightforward due to a number of factors that are not too relevant to this message and took about three weeks. Eventually my fibre was installed, went live, and I had very good data rates and my telephone was also ported to fibre. After about two weeks my service suddenly stopped working on Friday morning. As we were expecting several important phone calls on my landline number the loss of my telephone was going to be very inconvenient I contacted Swish to see if my landline phone number could be diverted to my mobile, Their first answer was no - you have to this yourself on your phone.

How am I supposed to do this if my fibre connection has broken. The ONT indicator was showing a fault (it turned out that the fibre cable was not properly terminated). We are elderly (and have now registered with Swish as a vulnerable person due to age 82). There should be a way if the landline fails for a provider to be able to divert the line to an alternative number, Swish say this is not possible. I would welcome comments/advice on this topic.

To me this is a fundamental issue where inbound calls do not work and important calls are expected. We were trying to arrange a very important dental appointment and had given our landline number, not a mobile.

This appear to me a very important safety issue especially for those of us who are "elderly". It would be mitigated if the service provider could divert an inbound telephone call to a mobile phone when a fault occurs that stops all phone and broadband services. Are Swish correct in stating this is impossible to do unless from the telephone which is not working? Is this available form other providers?

The fault appeared on Friday morning while we were out and Swish were able to repair it today but we did actually have a medical emergency to cope with on Saturday.

The fault was in the newly installed fibre which was replaced today. it is only about three weeks since it was installed

Sorry that this has happened to you. Age complicates these things and it seems to me that in trying to avoid complexity by putting your phone with your ISP you have inadvertently put yourself in the path of low resilience.

While our age and our situation don't quite match yours, some of the same factors are in play. I made a different choice for the landline - I am using Voipfone, who are not supplying our internet. This leaves me to configure our landline rather than leaving it to the ISP [ie I added complexity], but leaves me able to configure an app on my phone to act as landline if ever our fibre went down [ie I gained resilience]

I also use Voipfone. If someone rings my home and there is no answer but they leave a message a text message is sent to my mobile with the number of the caller and I get an email with a sound file containing the message. Gigaclear supply my broadband which very rarely fails.

Your proposed solution relies on having a second phone service such as a mobile actually working, for many people who might use a 'landline' this means they must have a mobile, and that mobile must work without needing internet. The 'market' for this is exceedingly small as more people are using their mobile for all calls, we keep a 'landline' for a couple of rellies who insist on calling it, but we have 'upgraded' phones to ones which take wi-fi calling, if our internet goes down we have no calling facilities.

@burble is right. My wife and I are in our mid 70s and we had a 7 day outage when BT Wholesale’s systems inadvertently placed a cease order on our line. As BT Wholesale is not subject to OFCOM oversight there was little that our ISP, or any ISP, could do other than to press for a resolution. The system problem was resolved late on a Friday but reconnection was not possible until staff returned to work on the Monday.

We have VOIP via a third-party and rely on wifi calling to make a mobile call. It is frustrating to be cut off in this way; however, I am old enough to remember that calling emergency services used to require someone to go to to find a phone box. Standing out in the middle of the garden to get a mobile signal is a small annoyance compared to that.

You could mitigate the risk by using FTTP/FTTC AND a mobile internet service.

My grandparents had a phone, not many did back then, my mother refused to have a phone until my father had his first heart attack and she had to go to neighbours to use theirs. Not sure how we made dentist appointment when I was a child, the nearest the as 3/4hr bus ride away. Meanwhile must get move on gf just called to say pick her up from hospital front entrance, t'other year that went wrong when mobile network went down.

My parents had a phone long before I was born. I think they acquired one (the only one in the neighborhood) in 1937/8 when they were living in their own newbuild house. Apart from a few months when I was first married I have always had a home phone since mid 1966.

If there was a way of diverting the VOIP phone to a mobile if it is not answered that would suffice. I know I can set up a diversion if my phone line is working. It is when it fails that now concerns me. Is there any way of setting up an automatic diverti after say 8 rings to allow my answering machine to pick up the call if the line is operational? That would be a workable solution.

It would also be acceptable if Swish could divert the call on request if there is a fault on the line.

I was NOT expecting that the fibre would stop working withing three weeks of being installed and need to be replaced. Perhaps the problem will ever arise again.

I am shocked that when there is a failure that our provider cannot divert the telephone calls to another number - e.g. a mobile.. Our fibre outage lasted three days.

I have an answering machine at home which records messages. This cannot do anything if the communications line fails.

I would be willing to consider a method of central recording with a text message sent to my phone and then to be able to access the recorded message from my mobile phone. Is this possible?

I had not anticipated a total failure of the fibre cable within three weeks of installation.

If you buy a Fritz!box, it has 5 built in answerphones and all calls can be diverted to your mobile. However, it still requires an Internet or mobile internet connection to use VOIP.

You seem to be excited about something failing after 3 weeks. Everything has a failure rate. Civil passenger aircraft may have a component failure rate of 10 minus 6; however, this doesn’t mean that a major component will not fail on the aircraft’s first flight. There are lots of bits and people involved in getting a FTTP service to your home. Anything and anyone can fail.

In most cases, the ISP has no control whatsoever over the fibre etc that provides your internet connection. You will be on a standard service plan with your ISP. The standard repair time for residential connections is 72 WORKING hours. That said, some ISPs are signed up to a scheme which pays compensation for loss of service after 2 working days. Swish ISP does not appear to be signed up to this scheme.

As far as automatic call forwarding is concerned from your ISP after an Internet failure, , I know of no ISP that offers this service. If your router has failed say due to a home power cut, the ISP may not even know you have lost your connection until someone looks at your connection.

Edited by GoWest (Wed 19-Mar-25 08:35:05)