My previous post didn't make clear I had VoIP rather than a PSTN land-line. PSTN would have worked, as that was designed to be resilient (and powered from the exchange, with backup power facilities).
The solution is for regulators to require resislence to be built in to any system replacing PSTN (i.e. VoIP and/or mobile) That won't happen as it would impact company profits.

In reply to a post by sheephouse:

My previous post didn't make clear I had VoIP rather than a PSTN land-line. PSTN would have worked, as that was designed to be resilient (and powered from the exchange, with backup power facilities).
The solution is for regulators to require resilience to be built in to any system replacing PSTN (i.e. VoIP and/or mobile) That won't happen as it would impact company profits.

I figured out you must be referring to VOIP normally if there is no profit then there is no business. May be the next Labour government will bring it back into public ownership so income tax can be used to pay for the resilience.

'Resilient' implies more than you had with PSTN, in my opinion. You had a copper pair that was powered from the exchange. You had no protection in the event of a tree falling through an overhead cable, or a car knocking a green cabinet off its base.

Legacy PSTN protected you against a local power outage, that was all. Openreach FTTP is equally able to deal with local power outages since there's nothing active in the network. There are other situations where VoIP is more 'resilient' than PSTN - say your local exchange burns down, with VoIP your number will still work.

Edited by jpm (Mon 23-Oct-23 18:19:25)

In reply to a post by jpm:

'Resilient' implies more than you had with PSTN, in my opinion. You had a copper pair that was powered from the exchange. You had no protection in the event of a tree falling through an overhead cable, or a car knocking a green cabinet off its base.

Legacy PSTN protected you against a local power outage, that was all. Openreach FTTP is equally able to deal with local power outages since there's nothing active in the network. There are other situations where VoIP is more 'resilient' than PSTN - say your local exchange burns down, with VoIP your number will still work.

But any measure of resilience has to take account of both impact and likelihood so although there is a lack of PSTN resilience if your exchange burns down there is a greater lack of PSTN resilience if your cabinet suffers a power loss since the likelihood of the power loss in many rural areas is orders of magnitude greater than the likelihood of the exchange burning down.

In the overall scheme of things that is all nit-picking anyway; the greater worry is the lack of resilience at the supplier level with some parts of the network just being left to fail (mobile phone masts, FTTC cabinets etc,) and other parts having the protective measures removed from the supplier and passed to the end-user (UPS for routers, cordless phones etc.) without any element of compensation for the reduction in service from the supplier.

Edited by GonePostal (Mon 23-Oct-23 19:12:01)

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Our Business internet connection is FTTC in Midhurst, West Sussex. Current the whole town has a power failure but our solar power farm on the roof is providing all the power we need. I would have thought our internet connection would be OK, but no we have no service! Also being on VoIP, no phones either. This is a pretty poor state of affairs by the telecommunications industry. Your thoughts on this please ............

PSTN inc. FTTC isn't resilient. Period.

If you want resilient for a business you'll need to stump up for it:
- FTTP without cabinets
- Ethernet / EAD / DIA circuits
- Starlink

In an extended power cut 4/5G isn't particularly any more "resilient" than a copper pair (or even an AltNnet fibre) running via a cab. Most bases don't have diesel gensets attached and the batteries have a finite life.

Unless it has a long term grid alternate power source (perhaps a battery with a renewable source) or diesel set at either end of the link - then from a power perspective it isn't resilient.

Alas, if your FTTP comes from a Subtended Head End (SHE), common in rural areas, these have only short life batteries, so that is not a resilient solution to power outages.

The new Emergency Services Network (ESN), if it ever gets deployed, will also suffer this resilience problem. Understandably, Chief Police and Chief Fire Officers are less than delighted at this prospect. The currently used TETRA system has maintained power at most sites.

Satellite links are a popular work-around, though these can suffer a lack of resilience should the satellite operator decide to restrict connections in a particular area.

Supplier management can only go so far. The Power provider will be regulated and working as fast as possible to restore their service. People/companies will need to look at the SLA from their own telecom provider to ensure it meets their own requirements and if not put mitigations in place but this example is an edge case.

In reply to a post by smouty:

. . . but this example is an edge case.

Outside the metropolitan areas there are lots of edge cases then. A typical rural power cut will last for somewhere of the order of 12 hours and a lot of rural areas will see one or two a year (and likely to get worse if the predicted effects of global warming like more violent storms come to pass).

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

Outside the metropolitan areas there are lots of edge cases then. A typical rural power cut will last for somewhere of the order of 12 hours and a lot of rural areas will see one or two a year (and likely to get worse if the predicted effects of global warming like more violent storms come to pass).

even with exchange power many of the rural areas phone lines are on overhead (poles) so a rough enough storm would disconnect people anyway.

In small towns and large metropolitian areas the mobile transmitters also go out with power cuts, and those nearby get overloaded, so phone calls and data all fail... my last experience of this was before 4G rollout but I had to drive 5 miles to get working signal.

In reply to a post by jpm:

Legacy PSTN protected you against a local power outage, that was all. Openreach FTTP is equally able to deal with local power outages since there's nothing active in the network. There are other situations where VoIP is more 'resilient' than PSTN - say your local exchange burns down, with VoIP your number will still work.

Not actually necessarily true. Your VOIP provider could have a single homed network in one location and be just as vulnerable to a fire. But also, as it stands it is possible if your VOIP number was ported in from a landline an issue on the BT side of the network could still leave your number broken.

It's not *resilient* in the true sense of resilient at all.