BT switching off analogue

I’ve been digital for nearly 10 years now, with one of these connected to my home hub (router). Far superior sound quality.

The AI’s at it again :laughing:

Mrs d00d’s sister in Portugal has a mobile deal giving free calls to UK landlines after 9pm. That now seems to be the only reason we have a landline number.

Our internet went down for a couple of days a week or so ago, some folks assumed I was dead, god help us when the landline goes :laughing: :laughing:

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I guess you have more faith in the internet & long term lithium supply than I do. People who have a poor signal/internet connection will be compromised. This is still a problem in parts of the UK. We are all being forced to be connected to the net whether we like it or not. It seems you can no longer live normally without being plugged in. I am trying to understand how you use this new tech without a router. It’s not too clear. I’m pretty sure that they will maintain copper connections for those higher ups who want privacy and a reliable, power-proof connection.

Well said AnnieS, if wishes were horses then beggars would ride :smiley:

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They only recently installed fibre here after NTL missed some roads out due to cost 20 or more years ago. Until about a year and a half ago the internet was connected via the landline. Many people in the UK still don’t have a local fibre network. So if they don’t have a good mobile signal what happens to them? I have also kept the landline phone for international call deals and because so many people have that number. There’s no way to retrieve data from an old mobile number so if people contact you and the contract ends you are cut off from them. But they always had the landline as a backup.

There are plenty of ways.

For a start your contact list can be exported as a file which can be saved on a computer or a usb stick and imported to another phone. Back up your phone as you would your home computer

Contacts > Menu > Manage Contacts > Export Contacts

But by far the best way - Google keeps all that data for you, sign in with a new phone and Mr Google asks if you want to make the new phone just like the last. (I presume the iphone has a similar feature).

We can sell you lithium to ease your concerns but I have no doubt battery technology will move on

I no longer have a landline phone as its cheaper to use a mobile .

My landline comes as part of my broadband package, so it doesn’t cost me anything to keep it at present. I can’t see the point in changing it at present.

Currently, BT only have only got as far as FTTC in my village (Fibre to the Cabinet in the street, so the broadband connection from the Cabinet to each home still travels along the same copper wiring as the landline connection. )
Whichever Broadband provider we choose, it all comes down the old copper wires from the same cabinet.
There is one full Fibre broadband provider, which has laid its own cables down the street at the end of my driveway. They could bring a full Fibre cable to my house but it costs much more per month for Broadband and they charge extra per month to have a phone connected to it.

I think I’d rather wait until BT roll out the new Fibre cabling to every customer and then decide on the best package for me. That probably won’t be until at least Summer 2024 in this area.
If it would cost me more per month to add a phone to the broadband router, I won’t bother having a landline at all.
I use my mobile phone most of the time anyway and find it more flexible and useful.
Only 1 person I know contacts me via the landline and I use my landline to contact her because I know she is “suspicious” of mobile phones. The rest of the calls to my landline are mostly cold callers and scammers, which get fielded by my answerphone.

Bruce I meant that when you change your mobile number and terminate the contract, anyone who tries to phone you after that, texts they send etc will be lost. You won’t know who is trying to reach you, but if you still have a landline and they have that number you have another way to get in touch. Some people for whatever reason don’t use computers and still keep numbers noted down in an address book.

ps I know all about transferring from one mob to another. I even replaced a broken screen on a smartphone a few years ago using a you tube video tutorial. This was just so that I could retrieve photos and contacts as I don’t want to have them on the cloud. I have an external hard drive for backing up the computers. I do keep some photos on google but that’s a recent thing. I don’t like the idea of storing personal official documents and correspondence on a virtual server.

I hope you are right - any ideas on what may replace lithium? My main concern ref lithium is environmental damage, secondary to that is supply chain issues as a result of overreliance.

It is not a problem here your phone number belongs to you so you take with you to another provider (the only proviso is that if you owe them money then they can hang onto it until you pay). When you apply to a new company they ask if you want to transfer your number, if you do they do it for you. I think last time it took my new provider less than an hour (certainly less than two) to set my old number on my new SIM card with a different provider on an different network (Optus to Telstra)

For example I still “own” my old landline number which I haven’t used for a considerable time and am on my third or fourth provider with my mobile number which I have had for nearly 20 years. Your number should belong to you.

You should be lobbying your Communications Minister for the same rights.

Since Ofcom introduced its Text-to-Switch service, transferring your number from one mobile provider to another is a simple process.

Yes they have made it easier to do this here too now. However, you do need some information from the old provider and the ease with which that is possible does depend on the type of contract you are on and the provider you are with. With some pay as you go providers where the phone company may have folded it’s not possible. It’s the same with email addresses. I’ve had about 2 - 3 email addresses that I’ve lost after the companies stopped provision of mailboxes when contracts changed. Not everyone is diligent at updating their contact details. So having a landline backup has been helpful. I think it will affect some more than others. It will certainly confuse the NHS if patients ditch their landlines. They are the most likely to use mobile numbers as a backup. I keep telling the GP to change this but they always phone the landline first.

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I have the same problem with medical services so having two numbers (1 mobile, 1 DV formerly landline) ensures that, on at least one, the caller will get through or leave a message.

One thing I learned dacades ago was not use us ISP provided email addresses because as you say they disappear if you change provider. The second reason was that if spam because unbearable you could dump a web based address, however that has not been the case (they seem to have better spam protection than ISPs) and I am still using my original Hotmail address but when I got it I also created a Gmail account with the same address and later a similar Outlook address.

The only time I have been forced to use an ISP provided address was again decades ago when I signed up with Ebay, at the time they would not accept a web based address. Whether that is still the case I don’t know.

I still hear constant beeps when talking to my older sister, who switched to digital last year. Find it so annoying. I will hold off for as long as I can, till forced to switch. Even then I will most likely be dragging my feet.

I really cannot see any benefits of me changing from landline to the fibre that runs past my house in the pavement. I have a good package from NOW TV that gives me excess of 65Mbps for the internet, plus line rental and all calls inclusive for £24.50 monthly and that also includes calls to UK mobiles.

BT have been warning us for months, but ignoring it seems to work well.
We’ve tried this before with much success - so far!