On 11/08/2022 11:36, Bob Latham wrote:
>
> In article <5a15b5f5bbnoise@audiomisc.co.uk>,
> Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> So we get problems like the large gas storage facility operated for
>> strategic reasons was shut down just a few years ago. This could
>> store a lot of gas to keep the country going and hedge against
>> price fluctuations and supply problems. The companies didn't want
>> to keep it as it was a 'cost'. So Government allowed it to be taken
>> out of service.
>>
>> It would now have been quite useful.
>
> I agree. Our current energy crisis is less to do with world events
> and more to do with a succession of governments kicking the can down
> the road and not making sure we have our own secure energy supply.
> Yes, by all means burn the devil's gas from Russia but be well
> prepared for that to suddenly go sour.

Perhaps.

> Add to that mix the utter
> stupidity of the pointless net-zero farce and we have a crisis.

Without all the technology that arose from the drive towards net-zero we
would be in a much worse position than we are now.

> There's a video doing the rounds at the moment of Nick Clegg in 2010
> saying it was no use going nuclear as this wouldn't provide power
> until 2021. That didn't age well.

In case you hadn't noticed the current *new* nuclear programme *STILL*
hasn't provided any *new* power in this country! Perhaps someone should
point that out to those circulating links to the video!

>> This examples that a 'free market' generally isn't 'free' but
>> focusses on the shareholder dividends, not the customers. Companies
>> also tend to 'flock' rather than compete as it is 'safer' from
>> their POV. So it also often isn't 'free' or really competitive,
>> either.
>
> That's the problem isn't it, there isn't competition to hold them to
> account. It's far from easy to see how to add the competition but
> that's the core. Companies concentrate not on customer service to
> keep their customers but on profit because the public can't buy a
> better and or cheaper service from someone else.

It's yet another example of where political dogma has led to a mess that
benefits shareholders at the expense of customers.

> That's why we get hose pipe bans because the service doesn't matter,
> only profits do. So leaks don't get properly fixed and de-salination
> plants sit idle.

Yes, perhaps, though not here in Sutherland, as I have recently proved.
About three months ago, I became aware of a constant hissing emanating
from my toilet cistern. Naturally, I presumed something was wrong with
the it but when I opened it up couldn't find any problem. Gradually
over the intervening months, the noise got louder, until I could still
here it, though reduced in volume even when I closed off its water
supply. Thinking, correctly as it eventually turned out, that maybe the
cistern was acting as a sounding board for a leak somewhere in the
supply, I reported it. Three investigations and two digs later, they
eventually found and fixed the leak last week. And I didn't have to pay
a penny, because I'd saved them water that is in short supply.

>> Government tends to be made up from politicians who go along with
>> the gag. In exchange for nice consultancies, free advisors,
>> directorships, and jobs after they leave Westminster. Regulatory
>> capture or blindness or powelessness duly infects.
>
>> So, rather than a "four legs good, two legs bad" view, it makes
>> sense to have a mix of social and market approaches to how things
>> are done. Under proper *scrutiny* and well as rules that are
>> enforced to ensure things are done in a way we benefit from as a
>> population, not simply be used as sources for wealth extraction.
>
> But I can't think of even one public body that isn't costly and
> highly inefficient, perhaps you can.

More dogma.

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 10:56:53 +0100, David Woolley
<david@ex.djwhome.demon.invalid> wrote:

>On 11/08/2022 08:10, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>> it wouldn't matter when you decided to do it, not everyone
>> would want it straight away,
>
>The reason there was an uproar about the move to digital telephony
>recently was because there were plans to force an end to analogue
>telephony, except within the home, by 2025.

It might be realistic to adopt a policy of not installing any *new*
copper cabling from a certain date. New installs and repairs could be
fibre, rather than forcing everyone to change if what they already
have is still working and they're happy with it.

And the date would have to be realistic too. Perhaps 2030 rather than
2025, and even then I'm sure there would be some complaints.
Eventually though, copper cable connections will have to go the way of
such things as 405 line television because it will be impractical to
maintain an old system for a dwindling number of users.

If the politicians would just leave the engineering to the engineers
instead of setting pointless targets for their own reasons, technical
advances would happen in their own good time.

Rod.

On 11/08/2022 00:25, Owen Rees wrote:
> Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>> On 09/08/2022 13:52, Java Jive wrote:
>>> On 09/08/2022 02:05, Owen Rees wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Look up what Peter Cochrane former CTO at BT has to say about how the
>>>> rollout of fibre to the home across the UK was shut down in 1990 for
>>>> political reasons.
>>>
>>> Some links would have been useful, but the first thing I found was this:
>>>
>>> How Thatcher killed the UK's superfast broadband before it even existed
>>> https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784
>>>
>>
>> (Extremely annoying website with pop-ups &c.)
>>
>> 'Dr Cochrane knew that Britain's tired copper network was insufficient:
>> "In 1974 it was patently obvious that copper wire was unsuitable for
>> digital communication in any form, and it could not afford the capacity
>> we needed for the future."'
>>
>> '"In 1979 I presented my results," he tells us, "and the conclusion was
>> to forget about copper and get into fibre.'
>>
>> Both statements are long before the domestic Internet; digital
>> communication, especially fibre, was something that only companies would
>> be expected to need, not access to homes.
>>
>> It indicated a lack of foresight; but, building Windsor Castle
>> underneath the Heathrow flight path was a lack of foresight.
>>
>
> If you read the report it says that the plan was to replace the local loop
> with fibre. As for much electronics there are huge economies of scale. The
> political error is partly in the competition dogma and partly in the
> inability to understand the potential of fibre to the premises everywhere.
>
> We could have had fibre because it would have been cheap at the whole UK
> scale just for telephones.

By "local loop" do you mean from the exchange to the cabinet? I don't
see the point of fibre for phone, especially as in 1974 a lot of the
phones used carbon granule transmitters and magnetic receivers.

--
Max Demian

On 11/08/2022 11:14, MB wrote:
> On 11/08/2022 10:56, David Woolley wrote:
>> The reason there was an uproar about the move to digital telephony
>> recently was because there were plans to force an end to analogue
>> telephony, except within the home, by 2025.
>>
>> In other utility areas, consumers have been forced to change technology
>> over short periods, involving lots of technicians visiting homes.  I'm
>> thinking of the change from town gas to natural gas, and looking towards
>> the change from natural gas to hydrogen, for those for which heat pumps
>> are not a good solution.
>
> Perhaps a better analogy was the rush to install cable TV and broadband
> with dodgy contractors (usually Irish in white vans) digging up
> pavements and roads then doing very poor quality patches to the surface
> afterwards.
>
> They should have been carefully supervised but the companies just wanted
> to increase their number of customers as quickly as possible and
> councils did not have the resources. There was pressure from the
> government to cable the country so they were not going to get involved.

This is true of cable TV (i.e. Virgin) with cabinets with their doors
blowing in the wind and black cables in green tubing laid on the ground,
but CityFibre have been wiring up my neighbourhood quite professionally
with metal covers near each house ready to be connected if the residents
wish; though some might not want to dig up their nice block paving to
connect.

--
Max Demian

On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 14:30:54 +0100, Roderick Stewart wrote:

> It might be realistic to adopt a policy of not installing any *new*
> copper cabling from a certain date. New installs and repairs could be
> fibre, rather than forcing everyone to change if what they already have
> is still working and they're happy with it.

What needs guarding against though is monopoly. My younger son moved into
a newbuild house last year and it only has FTTP and although he had a
contract with Plusnet he was not allowed to transfer it and had to take
out a BT contract.

Are there any places where one has a choice of ISP on FTTP?

--
TOJ.

On 11/08/2022 14:55, Max Demian wrote:
> On 11/08/2022 00:25, Owen Rees wrote:
>> Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>>> On 09/08/2022 13:52, Java Jive wrote:
>>>> On 09/08/2022 02:05, Owen Rees wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Look up what Peter Cochrane former CTO at BT has to say about how the
>>>>> rollout of fibre to the home across the UK was shut down in 1990 for
>>>>> political reasons.
>>>>
>>>> Some links would have been useful, but the first thing I found was
>>>> this:
>>>>
>>>> How Thatcher killed the UK's superfast broadband before it even existed
>>>> https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> (Extremely annoying website with pop-ups &c.)
>>>
>>> 'Dr Cochrane knew that Britain's tired copper network was insufficient:
>>> "In 1974 it was patently obvious that copper wire was unsuitable for
>>> digital communication in any form, and it could not afford the capacity
>>> we needed for the future."'
>>>
>>> '"In 1979 I presented my results," he tells us, "and the conclusion was
>>> to forget about copper and get into fibre.'
>>>
>>> Both statements are long before the domestic Internet; digital
>>> communication, especially fibre, was something that only companies would
>>> be expected to need, not access to homes.
>>>
>>> It indicated a lack of foresight; but, building Windsor Castle
>>> underneath the Heathrow flight path was a lack of foresight.
>>>
>>
>> If you read the report it says that the plan was to replace the local
>> loop
>> with fibre. As for much electronics there are huge economies of scale.
>> The
>> political error is partly in the competition dogma and partly in the
>> inability to understand the potential of fibre to the premises
>> everywhere.
>>
>> We could have had fibre because it would have been cheap at the whole UK
>> scale just for telephones.
>
> By "local loop" do you mean from the exchange to the cabinet? I don't
> see the point of fibre for phone, especially as in 1974 a lot of the
> phones used carbon granule transmitters and magnetic receivers.
>

Yes, missing from many of the accounts of what happened in 1990 was that
the critical communications were entertainment. BT could only fibre to
to consumers if the "asymmetry rule" was scratched so they could sell
TV, films & other entertainment. The fear was that would have
guaranteed BT a monopoly and killed cable TV companies at birth.

IIRC Blair announced at the 1996 Party Conference that New Labour wd
revise the BT project. Dunno what happened to it. Possibly Browned off.

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

On 11/08/2022 14:55, Max Demian wrote:
> By "local loop" do you mean from the exchange to the cabinet?

Local loop is generally understood to mean the copper pair from exchange
(although from the 1980s, more likely to be a remote concentrator in an
old exchange building) to the analogue phone instrument.

The aim since the early 80s, or earlier has been to use passive fibre
networks to the premises, so the aim is that there should be no power to
the cabinets to support driving a copper pair.

I think the concept in those days was that, by now, we would have video
phones like in Kubrick's 2001.

On 11/08/2022 08:10, Roderick Stewart wrote:
> You can't force an entire population to
> accept the nuisance of changing to something they don't want and which
> has no perceived advantage

Ha!

Smokeless zones

Electric cars

Bill

> It might be realistic to adopt a policy of not installing any
> new copper cabling from a certain date.

That date is September 2023 for the entire country, there are already over 300
exchanges where you can no longer order a new PSTN or ISDN line.

December 2025 is when all existing Openreach PSTN and ISDN telephone lines go
dead, with the first exchange Salisbury due to die this December.

If you order a new broadband line in a area that is not yet full fibre, it may
still be digital voice only, many providers now only supply WBC SOGEA.

Angus

On 11/08/2022 15:18, Robin wrote:

>
> IIRC Blair announced at the 1996 Party Conference that New Labour wd
> revise the BT project.  Dunno what happened to it.  Possibly Browned off.
>

....*revive* the BT project

--
Robin

On 11/08/2022 15:22, David Woolley wrote:
> On 11/08/2022 14:55, Max Demian wrote:
>> By "local loop" do you mean from the exchange to the cabinet?
>
> Local loop is generally understood to mean the copper pair from exchange
> (although from the 1980s, more likely to be a remote concentrator in an
> old exchange building) to the analogue phone instrument.
>
> The aim since the early 80s, or earlier has been to use passive fibre
> networks to the premises, so the aim is that there should be no power to
> the cabinets to support driving a copper pair.
>
> I think the concept in those days was that, by now, we would have video
> phones like in Kubrick's 2001.

And hey pop, my girlfriend's only three.
She's got her own video phone,
and she's taking LSD.
(John Sebastian)

Don't we have (kind of) videophones with smart phones?

--
Max Demian

On 11/08/2022 17:20, Max Demian wrote:
> On 11/08/2022 15:22, David Woolley wrote:
>> On 11/08/2022 14:55, Max Demian wrote:
>>> By "local loop" do you mean from the exchange to the cabinet?
>>
>> Local loop is generally understood to mean the copper pair from
>> exchange (although from the 1980s, more likely to be a remote
>> concentrator in an old exchange building) to the analogue phone
>> instrument.
>>
>> The aim since the early 80s, or earlier has been to use passive fibre
>> networks to the premises, so the aim is that there should be no power
>> to the cabinets to support driving a copper pair.
>>
>> I think the concept in those days was that, by now, we would have
>> video phones like in Kubrick's 2001.
>
> And hey pop, my girlfriend's only three.
> She's got her own video phone,
> and she's taking LSD.
> (John Sebastian)
>
> Don't we have (kind of) videophones with smart phones?
>

"Very British Problems" (Rob Temple) addressed that only this week:

"A guide to FaceTime

As the recipient:
1. See FaceTime request, feel blood drain from face, go into shock
2. Wait for it to stop
3. Resume breathing
4. Text “did you just try to FaceTime me?”

As the sender:
1. You’ve pressed it by accident, panic as if handling a live grenade"

--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

On 11/08/2022 17:20, Max Demian wrote:
>
> And hey pop, my girlfriend's only three.
> She's got her own video phone,
> and she's taking LSD.
> (John Sebastian)

The Lovin Spoonful - Younger Generation. Great song that!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Ic_9ehFxU

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 14:07:11 -0000 (UTC), The Other John
<nomail@here.org> wrote:

>On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 14:30:54 +0100, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>
>> It might be realistic to adopt a policy of not installing any *new*
>> copper cabling from a certain date. New installs and repairs could be
>> fibre, rather than forcing everyone to change if what they already have
>> is still working and they're happy with it.
>
>What needs guarding against though is monopoly. My younger son moved into
>a newbuild house last year and it only has FTTP and although he had a
>contract with Plusnet he was not allowed to transfer it and had to take
>out a BT contract.
>
>Are there any places where one has a choice of ISP on FTTP?

As far as I know, FTTP in most places is just BT wholesale resold by
whoever your ISP happens to be, just the same as with ADSL or FTTC, so
if it's available in your area, they should all do it.

I've been with Zen for more than 10 years, but just out of curiosity
I've put my details into the search boxes in other ISP websites to see
what they offer. With any ISP that says they offer fibre, this always
returns a "yes" for my address, so it doesn't seem to depend on ISP,
just the area.

Rod.

On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 16:13 +0100 (BST), angus@magsys.co.uk (Angus
Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd) wrote:

>> It might be realistic to adopt a policy of not installing any
>> new copper cabling from a certain date.
>
>That date is September 2023 for the entire country, there are already over 300
>exchanges where you can no longer order a new PSTN or ISDN line.

So soon! I hadn't realised. Better get those old VDSL modem/routers on
Ebay while they're still worth something.

>December 2025 is when all existing Openreach PSTN and ISDN telephone lines go
>dead, with the first exchange Salisbury due to die this December.

Well, that won't bother me at all, as I'm full fibre now, which is
exactly what I wanted anyway, but I can understand why some would
object to being forced to accept something they don't want and don't
really understand, because they already have a telephone line that
works and they're not interested. "If it ain't broke, why fix it?"

I wonder how many million homes they have to convert by 2025, and if
anyone has calculated if it's feasible to do it in only 3 years? I
live in a quiet residential cul-de-sac and my fibre terminal is just
inside my front door and next to a power socket, but not everybody's
installation will be as easy as that. They'll have old buildings,
remote villages, flats and tower blocks to deal with too, so good luck
with all of that.

Rod.

n Thu, 11 Aug 2022 15:31:31 +0100, williamwright
<wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:

>On 11/08/2022 08:10, Roderick Stewart wrote:
>> You can't force an entire population to
>> accept the nuisance of changing to something they don't want and which
>> has no perceived advantage
>
>Ha!
>
>Smokeless zones
>
>Electric cars
>
>Bill

They can try, but who's got a spare 25k for an electric car?

Rod.

On 11/08/2022 15:31, williamwright wrote:
> Ha!
>
> Smokeless zones
>
> Electric cars
>
> Bill

They are certainly trying to force battery cars on everyone but the
majority do not seem to want them.

On 11/08/2022 20:33, MB wrote:
> On 11/08/2022 15:31, williamwright wrote:
>> Ha!
>>
>> Smokeless zones
>>
>> Electric cars
>>
>> Bill
>
> They are certainly trying to force battery cars on everyone but the
> majority do not seem to want them.
>

What people want and what they get is different.

Bill

On 11/08/2022 19:08, Roderick Stewart wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 16:13 +0100 (BST), angus@magsys.co.uk (Angus
> Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd) wrote:
>
>>> It might be realistic to adopt a policy of not installing any
>>> new copper cabling from a certain date.
>>
>> That date is September 2023 for the entire country, there are already over 300
>> exchanges where you can no longer order a new PSTN or ISDN line.
>
> So soon! I hadn't realised. Better get those old VDSL modem/routers on
> Ebay while they're still worth something.
>
>> December 2025 is when all existing Openreach PSTN and ISDN telephone lines go
>> dead, with the first exchange Salisbury due to die this December.
>
> Well, that won't bother me at all, as I'm full fibre now, which is
> exactly what I wanted anyway, but I can understand why some would
> object to being forced to accept something they don't want and don't
> really understand, because they already have a telephone line that
> works and they're not interested. "If it ain't broke, why fix it?"
>

But if most other people ditch their phone lines, and the price goes up
because the fixed costs are spread among fewer customers, they would be
up in arms..

> I wonder how many million homes they have to convert by 2025, and if
> anyone has calculated if it's feasible to do it in only 3 years? I
> live in a quiet residential cul-de-sac and my fibre terminal is just
> inside my front door and next to a power socket, but not everybody's
> installation will be as easy as that. They'll have old buildings,
> remote villages, flats and tower blocks to deal with too, so good luck
> with all of that.
>

They don't need to convert everyone to fibre, just to VOIP. So for those
of us on FTTC (or even ADSL) cease the POTS service but retain the data
service.

> Rod.

Dave

On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 20:36:54 +0100, williamwright
<wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:

>On 11/08/2022 20:33, MB wrote:
>> On 11/08/2022 15:31, williamwright wrote:
>>> Ha!
>>>
>>> Smokeless zones
>>>
>>> Electric cars
>>>
>>> Bill
>>
>> They are certainly trying to force battery cars on everyone but the
>> majority do not seem to want them.
>>
>
>What people want and what they get is different.
>

They usually GET shafted!

--
brightside S9

On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 20:36:54 +0100, williamwright
<wrightsaerials@f2s.com> wrote:

>On 11/08/2022 20:33, MB wrote:
>> On 11/08/2022 15:31, williamwright wrote:
>>> Ha!
>>>
>>> Smokeless zones
>>>
>>> Electric cars
>>>
>>> Bill
>>
>> They are certainly trying to force battery cars on everyone but the
>> majority do not seem to want them.
>>
>
>What people want and what they get is different.
>
They uisually GET shafted!

--
brightsiode S9

Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> On 11/08/2022 00:25, Owen Rees wrote:
>> Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>>> On 09/08/2022 13:52, Java Jive wrote:
>>>> On 09/08/2022 02:05, Owen Rees wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Look up what Peter Cochrane former CTO at BT has to say about how the
>>>>> rollout of fibre to the home across the UK was shut down in 1990 for
>>>>> political reasons.
>>>>
>>>> Some links would have been useful, but the first thing I found was this:
>>>>
>>>> How Thatcher killed the UK's superfast broadband before it even existed
>>>> https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784
>>>>
>>>
>>> (Extremely annoying website with pop-ups &c.)
>>>
>>> 'Dr Cochrane knew that Britain's tired copper network was insufficient:
>>> "In 1974 it was patently obvious that copper wire was unsuitable for
>>> digital communication in any form, and it could not afford the capacity
>>> we needed for the future."'
>>>
>>> '"In 1979 I presented my results," he tells us, "and the conclusion was
>>> to forget about copper and get into fibre.'
>>>
>>> Both statements are long before the domestic Internet; digital
>>> communication, especially fibre, was something that only companies would
>>> be expected to need, not access to homes.
>>>
>>> It indicated a lack of foresight; but, building Windsor Castle
>>> underneath the Heathrow flight path was a lack of foresight.
>>>
>>
>> If you read the report it says that the plan was to replace the local loop
>> with fibre. As for much electronics there are huge economies of scale. The
>> political error is partly in the competition dogma and partly in the
>> inability to understand the potential of fibre to the premises everywhere.
>>
>> We could have had fibre because it would have been cheap at the whole UK
>> scale just for telephones.
>
> By "local loop" do you mean from the exchange to the cabinet? I don't
> see the point of fibre for phone, especially as in 1974 a lot of the
> phones used carbon granule transmitters and magnetic receivers.
>

In telephony, the local loop is the physical link or circuit that connects
from the demarcation point of the customer premises to the edge of the
common carrier or telecommunications service provider’s network.

In other words from some telco thing to the customer’s premises.

Conventional acronym for fibre local loop FTTP.

The point is that the big organisation manufactures fibre by the thousands
of miles enjoying economy of scale. It manufactures the equipment needed at
the customer premises by the tens of millions enjoying economies of scale.
At scale it is cheaper than adding more copper and maintaining existing
copper.

Fragmentation for competition destroys the economies of scale. Political
meddling with a maximum 5 year horizon destroys any ability to plan for the
long term.

> I wonder how many million homes they have to convert by 2025, and if
> anyone has calculated if it's feasible to do it in only 3 years?

BT Openreach first announced the PSTN close down in 2015 so it was a 10 year
plan.

Currently there are about 8 million full fibre homes, increasing to 10.7
million by next April, and 25 million by 2026.

But digital voice just needs broadband, not fibre, so the fibre roll out is not
directly relevant.

PSTN replacement by digital voice simply means replacement of old routers with
new ones with phone sockets, or separate (Grandstream) VoIP adaptors. All new
installations should already be digital voice enabled, but time is getting
short for broadband suppliers to start swapping out existing hardware.

Virgin Media is similarly closing down it's own telephone exchanges in a
similar time scale to BT Openreach, and while new cable modems have phone
sockets, old ones don't. VM has also announced it's replacing it's hybrid
coax/fibre network with full fibre, but that might take 10 years.

Angus

On Thu, 11 Aug 2022 23:04:09 +0100, David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid>
wrote:

>>> December 2025 is when all existing Openreach PSTN and ISDN telephone lines go
>>> dead, with the first exchange Salisbury due to die this December.
>>
>> Well, that won't bother me at all, as I'm full fibre now, which is
>> exactly what I wanted anyway, but I can understand why some would
>> object to being forced to accept something they don't want and don't
>> really understand, because they already have a telephone line that
>> works and they're not interested. "If it ain't broke, why fix it?"
>>
>
>But if most other people ditch their phone lines, and the price goes up
>because the fixed costs are spread among fewer customers, they would be
>up in arms..

If you mean the price of copper cable installations goes up, then the
natural thing to do is migrate to fibre. I would think most people
would willingly do this if fibre costs less (even if they don't know
or don't care how much faster their internet sevice sould be).

My change to fibre actually has resulted in a slightly lower monthly
bill, as the internet service costs the same as before, and the line
rental of about £15 has been replaced with a £7 charge for VOIP phone.

In my case, I've been with Zen for many years and have the advantage
of their fixed price for life, and I ordered the upgrade to fibre just
before they discontinued this, so effectively I stayed on the same
contract, which is why the internet stayed at the same price for me.
However, even without this, I think the price would have been about
the same or only slightly higher. Most advertised prices for fibre and
copper seem to be comparable now. If fibre cost an arm and a leg there
would be good reason to object, but it doesn't.

>> I wonder how many million homes they have to convert by 2025, and if
>> anyone has calculated if it's feasible to do it in only 3 years? I
>> live in a quiet residential cul-de-sac and my fibre terminal is just
>> inside my front door and next to a power socket, but not everybody's
>> installation will be as easy as that. They'll have old buildings,
>> remote villages, flats and tower blocks to deal with too, so good luck
>> with all of that.
>>
>
>They don't need to convert everyone to fibre, just to VOIP. So for those
>of us on FTTC (or even ADSL) cease the POTS service but retain the data
>service.

Point taken. I hadn't realised it was only the conversion to VOIP that
had a target date. That looks much more feasible, though of course how
well VOIP works will depend on the speed and integrity of the internet
connection, and I suppose the addition of VOIP to an existing
connection would require a new router or an additional box to decode
it, with battery backup where necessary. The more elegant solution is
to upgrade everything in one step, which is what I did, and it has
resulted in a neater installation that works better than before. In
the fullness of time there will only be fibre, that's inevitable, but
maybe if it were presented and advertised the right way at a
reasonable price, more people would be persuaded to adopt it sooner.

Rod.

On 11/08/2022 23:04, David Wade wrote:

> They don't need to convert everyone to fibre, just to VOIP. So for those
> of us on FTTC (or even ADSL) cease the POTS service but retain the data
> service.

Not everyone has a BT/Openreach connection. VirginMedia operate down two
connections to my house, a twisted pair POTS service and a coax
broadband, (which gives me 100mb). That has the distinct advantage that
when I had a power cut last year I used the POTS phone to report it
while the rest of the house was without power. It allowed the engineers
to ring me back and tell me that it was a substation fault and that it
only affected my street, and I was given an estimate of how long to fix it.

On another occasion when the telephone was dead, I could use the
broadband to report it and arrange an engineer visit to diagnose and fix.

As the wires are already in place, I can't see any reason to replace
them with fibre, and I can't see any customer benefit to changing to
VOIP. Besides, if I want to use VIOP, I can use Skype from my laptop
instead.

Jim