Oh no Mr S, TBB does a brilliant job on content and it's so refreshing to find any site or printed publication that is not full of PR puff and advertorial. I was referring to the problem solving that used to be a regular requirement, I found TBB posters very helpful when I went to ADSL from dial-up. For the past few years my Plusnet package has been faultless and I suppose other people also benefit from greater reliability. Now if anyone could fix the Plusnet billing system ...

In reply to a post by binary:

Of course not everyone has mobile reception where they live, though - in theory at least - coverage should be gradually improving all the time.

My mobile has native wi-fi calling, which means I can make calls over the internet which are then billed to my mobile phone. No app required. A great feature for people in mobile not-spots.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Could it be that they are trying to scare up some revenue to fund all this fibre they are rolling out ?

I remember a friend who told me the fees were going up where he parked his car as they were promising big improvements, rather than moving his car he paid the increased fees and looked forward to the improvements. A year down the line the improvements were finally complete and he got a new message from the owner thanking him for his patience during the upgrade of the car park but also advising the fees were going up (again) because of the improvements to the car park.

The moral to this story is people often pay toward upgrades and often pay more after because of the upgrades.

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Oct-19 15:25:57)

How many landline providers ban the use of prefixes?

I haven't used a landline to make calls in several years.

In reply to a post by hk11:

How many landline providers ban the use of prefixes?

BT, Plusnet and at least some other Openreach WLR providers allow it.

However 18185 and some others also provide an alternative 0800/0808 freephone access number, albeit at different (generally slightly higher) call rates - they label this Mobile Rates but as they make clear on that page it can be used by "all non-BT landline" customers.

I must admit I can't recall if the Gigaset phone systems allow for an 11 digit 'prefix' to be saved.

The other issue with the Gigaset phone arrangement is that it only catches numbers dialled with a full STD area code (e.g. starting 01, 02, 03, 07 etc) - at least that's how I managed to set it up - so anyone dialling locally without the area code will have their call charged by BT or whoever the line provider is. (Obviously you can add in the prefix for any numbers saved as speed dials or in the phone's address book.)

And prior to that the major providers all offered femtocells (and probably still do) to get around the poor reception issue. I had one for years because due to the construction of the house (some sort of ferrite based material in the bricks) reception indoors is very poor.

In reply to a post by binary:

The other issue with the Gigaset phone arrangement is that it only catches numbers dialled with a full STD area code (e.g. starting 01, 02, 03, 07 etc)

Under 'Management>Local Settings' you set a Local area code and use 'Telephony>Dialling Plans' to manage where its used or not used.

Edited by deleted (Tue 29-Oct-19 11:41:58)

Another query please: I'm familiar with the pair of wires in every electrical circuit, be they positive or negative, live or 'neutral', one out and one back. I've recently looked inside the Virgin connection point outside my house and there appears to be only one hair-thin fibre. Presumably this carries both upload and download, and traffic is converted by the modem within the router?

Fibre carries data as light and by using different frequencies the same light pipe can carry multiple signals in either direction.

Virgin Media for the areas where the fibre extends to the customer (only 2% of customers) terminate the fibre on the outside of the property and a small fibre to coax converter lives on the outside wall. The other 98% there is coax cable from the cabinet to the property.

So customer sees no difference they still have a piece of coax cable going into the virgin modem/router.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

It's many years since I discovered this excellent site so please forgive the nostalgia. Time was that posts were filled with all sorts of fascinating problems, usually swiftly solved by TBB's willing enthusiasts who shared their body of knowledge. Some of them (eg Bob) even put up informative websites to help solve our frequent problems.

Then came fibre and the tech queries seem to have disappeared apart from those poor folk still stuck on ADSL, and instead the most popular subject (apart from prices of course) seems to be how to decipher the weird squiggles on roads around the cabinets, how soon fibre can be connected, and how even faster speeds can be attained. Is fibre that much more reliable, as I am finding for myself?

I would argue (and I�ll be shot down for this I�m sure) that Openreach have successfully invested in the network and there�s less faults and problems in general.

Of course getting most people off standard ADSL/+ products will help, as you get rid of the E-side. But I saw a huge amount of investment in new cables in the ground, new types of DP, new types of tool-less cabinets etc. All helps.