"actually ask a company dealing with it all" Good idea. Who?

The telephone USO hasn't changed.
Openreach are still responsible for the 1st £3,400.
The customer only needs a telephone, just like before.

The rental from Openreach for the new low bandwidth product is 100% identical to the rental for PSTN.

Capacity is the responsibility of Openreach. Don't worry about cabinet capacity. Customers don't pay for that. The service can be provided from the exchange anyway.

The connection charge for FTTC is less than that of a new line activation. Providers often absorb this if taken with a broadband service.

For most people with an existing PSTN service their provider will migrate them free of charge to the new VOIP service.

For anyone taking a new voice only service the likes of BT already charge over £100 to activate a new line. The cost of activating a VOIP service will be more than likely be the same.

I understand people's concerns but you really are overthinking this.
It's changing from PSTN to VOIP, that's all.
There have always been hundreds of changes occurring in the background on the network that customers are unaware of.
What happens with Openreach's hardware is of no concern to the customer.
The use of landlines is dropping. I don't expect capacity to be an issue.

The customer may need to be provided some additional hardware to establish a connection. That's all they need to know and will be documented to them at the time. Pricing will likely be the same.

Calling a provider and asking is useless. Nobody is currently selling this.

Also my apologies to you Mike. It's just a decades-long bee in the bonnet I have and occasionally I still go on about it.

Thanks, John. Useful info

"There have always been hundreds of changes occurring in the background on the network that customers are unaware of." Indeed, John, but very few, if any, directly affect a customer, do they?

"The customer may need to be provided some additional hardware to establish a connection. That's all they need to know and will be documented to them at the time. Pricing will likely be the same." Same as what? - router all included in the 'line rental' or whatever it will be called?

"Calling a provider and asking is useless. Nobody is currently selling this." Indeed. Perhaps a useful note for one recent 'helper' on here.

Pricing will likely be the same for a voice only service, even with a router provided.
The Openreach pricing is identical. Routers don't cost the likes of BT much.

BT may choose to make a smaller/less capable version of their Smart Hub for anyone who wants a voice only service after PSTN is gone. It would save them money stripping out WiFi etc but they usually prefer to just have a single device in anticipation of the customer upgrading to a broadband service.

Some other providers will drop out of the voice only market completely.
Sky & Talktalk for example don't sell voice only.
I expect more to take that approach rather than develop solutions for a shrinking market.

In reply to a post by mikejp:

"Calling a provider and asking is useless. Nobody is currently selling this." Indeed. Perhaps a useful note for one recent 'helper' on here.

Mike

Its great you're raising this important topic but by your own admission if no one is currently selling it then information will be limited until they do and anything that is considered official is subject to change.

The only companies selling a Voce USO product are by definition BT and KCOM.

If you are in Salisbury and are not served at present for Voice service BT will provide you a voice only service on FTTP. There are other geographies ( not whole exchange areas yet) where this will also apply.

However most of these are not where most people think of when considering the Voice USO.

If you are miles from anywhere and unserved at present the cost is still likely to be above £3k and you will by definition not be in an FTTP area! So copper will still be the default choice. There may be a few places where other options will be looked at. eg Aultguish Highland NSALG 13-Oct-21 has been switched off for copper provision and is in the remote Highlands. ( Belsay, Bontddu, Crosthwaite are other instances in quite a long list)

Flattered you thought I knew that! I had no idea. It was 'John83' I think said it.

"Calling a provider and asking is useless. Nobody is currently selling this. "

I opened this topic to try and get as much information from the 'knowerati' as I could and it has been a great help.

In reply to a post by mikejp:

Flattered you thought I knew that! I had no idea. It was 'John83' I think said it.

"Calling a provider and asking is useless. Nobody is currently selling this. "

and you then added 'indeed' to his comment which to me implies you was already aware although as English isn't my first language I could be wrong.

In reply to a post by mikejp:

"Calling a provider and asking is useless. Nobody is currently selling this." Indeed.

Edited by deleted (Tue 15-Feb-22 14:41:35)

"Nobody is currently selling this."

Are we saying that all this is just speculation then? Best guess?