VOIP??

[tozzybum]

Mums on Ee mobile no landline aged 82 and we are on Talktalk broadband.
All calls where possible free on WhatsApp and Skype It,s there foc if needed.
Touch wood we get 1 or 2 power cuts a year due to all the newbuilds around here .
Quality house builders love finding power cables with digger buckets .

 

[markj1]

I'm lucky to have 1gb/1gb FTTP from Hyperoptic. I also have a 80/20mbps FTTC from BT as backup. And a 5g router from Three. So I'm covered....

 

[Lampwick]

Thanks for the comments. I’m trying to convince my wife (and an 87 year old mil) that they can still talk via their mobiles!! They don’t need a landline!!!!

However I think the problem is they never know where their mobiles are and if they find them there’s no charge in them

Apparently I’m just being f£&@&£@ awkward as usual.

 

[VSS]

Thanks for the comments. I’m trying to convince my wife (and an 87 year old mil) that they can still talk via their mobiles!! They don’t need a landline!!!!

However I think the problem is they never know where their mobiles are and if they find them there’s no charge in them

Apparently I’m just being f£&@&£@ awkward as usual.

Give them a couple of tin cans and a bit of string and let them talk to each other.

 

[Robs]

If it's just for one or two people then wifi calling using your mobile is the way to go as its part of the contract for most providers. If for a company then VoIP will be better. With VoIP you will need some way of routing calls into the existing telecoms network and that would mean an additional services and probably additional costs. I'm sure someone whose in the business will be better placed, I left IT fifteen years ago.

 

[Druid]

You should have asked me. I’ve already changed over.
You can plug your existing phone into the router but power cuts will kill the router.
give me a call later.

 

[udderlyoffroad]

Which is fine, until there is no power

.A BT line carries it's own power ,no BT line no phone calls

(We used to be able to use the landline, of course; they work in powercuts because of residual current from the exchange).

Gentlemen, please can we stop this - The reason old copperlines work in a power cut is because the exchange has some form of power backup. When exchanges were large buildings full of switchgear, that quite possibly was a diesel generator with enough fuel to keep going for hours. Now that exchanges are those green boxes that you see on the street, they will have a battery back up for maybe an hour, depending on load. Same, incidentally, goes for mobile phone masts.

We had 4 power cuts last week.

if you are in a rural location; and I assume most people reading this are, and then you really should be powering your router and PON (the fibre ‘modem’) via a UPS. It will keep wifi calling going in the event of a power cut*. More to the point, it protects your kit somewhat from surges and other general electrical noise that us rural folk suffer from.

*Assuming your local exchange has a UPS too of course.

To the OP: If you must have a landline, and have been moved to fibre, I would suggest to go with an ISP that offers a VOIP as part of the deal. My ISP does not, albeit the router it provided has the capability to. Saves faffing about with a separate VOIP provider and being bounced between companies should something not work, especially as you said you're not tech savvy. If you were running a business or needed to make lots of calls abroad then yes, I would agree a seperate VOIP provider starts to make sense.

 

[Whitefront]

Our nearest exchange (21/2 miles away) was indeed one of those green roadside boxes, and I can assure you that the old landline used to remain working after a powercut. That's how we used to report outages until last year when they stopped our landline. I don't know how the technical terminology for how the stuff worked, I simply know that it did. "Residual current from the exchange" was how the BT engineer described it to me.

My neighbour (a mile away) who works from home bought a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) box. Cost him £1200 and the very first powercut it failed to kick in. However, it is working properly now, and he is very pleased with it. He says if won't keep all his stuff powered beyond about eight hours, so if the power goes off in the night, that might be problematic for his working day. During Storm Arwen, the power around here was off for three days - and we were lucky compared with others, some of whom were off for nearly three weeks. I gather you can buy much cheaper versions of UPS, but they conk out after just an hour or two. (That's still useful, of course). He also had the expense of buying new house phones (as did we; we also had to change mobile network/contract to get access to Wifi Calling). Overall, we wish the old landline was still in place as a backup to our VOIP, but the switchover was forced on us so we make the best of it. When VOIP works (which it does most of the time) it's great.

 

[udderlyoffroad]

Our nearest exchange (21/2 miles away) was indeed one of those green roadside boxes, and I can assure you that the old landline used to remain working after a powercut. That's how we used to report outages. I don't know how the stuff worked, I simply know that it did.

Indeed, I didn't say that they didn't work, merely that their endurance was dependant on their own UPS, which itself is dependent on how much electrical load there is. In a rural location, it could well be that the 'green box' keeps going for hours. In suburbia, with many people calling national grid to report a power outage, that same UPS might get less than an hour.

Cost him £1200 and the very first powercut it failed to kick in. However, it is working properly now, and he is very pleased with it. He says if won't keep all his stuff powered beyond about eight hours, so if the power goes off in the night, that might be problematic for his working day.

Again, this does rather depend on load. I am in a similar situation, as one of those working form home. The UPS I purchased cost £75 has a 750 VA /410w rating, which given I'm barely using its capabilities with a router and PON connected to should ensure quite some endurance, or at least enough for me to save my work and shutdown. It has already proved useful as I'm rewiring the place, so I can turn the power off but internet service remains unaffected for the missus and kids...

Yes, the middle of the night enduring power failure scenario won't really be mitigated by this, but if it turns into a multi-day powercut, as happened last year, I might have to 'borrow' the syndicate's generator we use for running the water pump....

 

[timbrayford]

Looking for some technical advice for a dummy please.

Currently we have talktalk broadband, tv and phone calls. I’m getting rid of them and switching to Trooli fibre broadband but they don’t offer the landline (my wife still uses it and still wants it )

Can I simply buy a suitable phone and plug it into the router to make voip calls or is there a very simple process to carry out?

Ps as hinted at I’m not at all IT gifted so please answer in “dummy”

In principle yes, but having done this a few years ago we ended up abandoning the landline altogether and now use 4g for phone calls.

 

[NoIDeer]

Look for a sip phone provider I used to use a company called sipgate. Not a recommendation, just an example.

I haven't needed a landline for years now, the only person that called on it was auntie Edith!

 

[JockStalk]

If you are remote, suffer from power cuts and worried about not having a copper cable line get an EPIRB taped to your chest. Fits between your moobs and with a bit Vaseline, no chafing.

 

[Merlyn]

Buy a generator that will power your modem and a few plug in lights and stuff.

 

[long_range_rob]

Gentlemen, please can we stop this - The reason old copperlines work in a power cut is because the exchange has some form of power backup. When exchanges were large buildings full of switchgear, that quite possibly was a diesel generator with enough fuel to keep going for hours. Now that exchanges are those green boxes that you see on the street, they will have a battery back up for maybe an hour, depending on load. Same, incidentally, goes for mobile phone masts.



if you are in a rural location; and I assume most people reading this are, and then you really should be powering your router and PON (the fibre ‘modem’) via a UPS. It will keep wifi calling going in the event of a power cut*. More to the point, it protects your kit somewhat from surges and other general electrical noise that us rural folk suffer from.

*Assuming your local exchange has a UPS too of course.

To the OP: If you must have a landline, and have been moved to fibre, I would suggest to go with an ISP that offers a VOIP as part of the deal. My ISP does not, albeit the router it provided has the capability to. Saves faffing about with a separate VOIP provider and being bounced between companies should something not work, especially as you said you're not tech savvy. If you were running a business or needed to make lots of calls abroad then yes, I would agree a seperate VOIP provider starts to make sense.

Large rooms full of lead acid batteries with a diesel generator as backup to that actually. The exchange equipment is insanely inefficient due to its historical nature.

Personally I’m more concerned about the imminent collapse of the national grid due to insufficient generation from years of under investment. How much use is an EV in a power cut?

 

[JockStalk]

. How much use is an EV in a power cut?

Very little. No where to charge it you see. Because the leccy is off.

 

[vitalspark]

+1 for Sipgate SIP. There was a one off £30 to transfer over our BT landline number. You have to buy hardware to connect your existing cordless etc to your router but this was under £100. No monthly bill. As we only use it for incoming calls it is essentially free but obviously outgoing calls are charged by the minute if you wish to use it as a normal phone.

 

[udderlyoffroad]

Large rooms full of lead acid batteries with a diesel generator as backup to that actually. The exchange equipment is insanely inefficient due to its historical nature.

Can imagine it must've been quite the task to keep that lot running

Personally I’m more concerned about the imminent collapse of the national grid due to insufficient generation from years of under investment. How much use is an EV in a power cut?

Same; but I would just point out that not only will you be unable to buy petrol/diesel if there's a power cut, but the fuel distribution depots can't even load tankers during a power cut. Never mind keeping refineries running.

Whereas , with an EV, you could charge it from your solar panel installation, assuming a) the sun is shining, and b) you've paid for the extra infrastructure needed to support 'islanding'.

Buy a generator that will power your modem and a few plug in lights and stuff.

Sledgehammer/walnut. I would not be attaching any electronics to a DIY grade generator without some form of surge protection and filtering.

Also generators need maintenance and obviously some form of infrastructure to support them (this could be as simple as a long extension lead+ earth spike). Depends where you live of course, but if a generator is truly a viable option due to grid unreliability, then you need to consider a few other things first.

 

[markj1]

Aren't we confusing street cabinets with exchanges? A street cabinet is a small green metal box, and mostly just holds connections, while an exchange is typically hosted in a building. A street cabinet doesn't need a backup generator (though it may have a built in UPS battery backup).

The reason that old style telephone handsets work when there's a power cut in the house is because they are powered via the PSTN analogue 2-wire copper line and are not dependent on the power in the house. If the local exchange had no power, neither will your handset or your landline, but that's rare thanks to backup generators etc.

The reason that your Internet stops working during a power cut at your home isn't because of the physical Internet connectivity - be it analogue copper line or fibre (ADSL/FTTC/FTTP etc etc), but because the end point - your router - is powered from your home mains socket.

If someone builds a router that is powered via the copper of fibre line (something similar to PoE) then your Internet would continue to work during a power cut just like your old telephone phone does.

Until then, you can put your router (and any VDSL modem or fiber unit) on a UPS - as suggested above - and you'll have Internet (and VoIP) during a power cut.

 

[udderlyoffroad]

Aren't we confusing street cabinets with exchanges? A street cabinet is a small green metal box, and mostly just holds connections, while an exchange is typically hosted in a building. A street cabinet doesn't need a backup generator (though it may have a built in UPS battery backup).

Well, perhaps it would be wiser to defer to @long_range_rob on this as I assume he is telecoms, but what the hell:

Not really. The whole idea of the street cabinets isn't just as marshalling points but rather they become exchanges, as they're directly connected to the network. Far more cost effective than a large building containing many miles of cabling, racks of kit and backup gennys to power it all.

If someone builds a router that is powered via the copper of fibre line (something similar to PoE) then your Internet would continue to work during a power cut just like your old telephone phone does.

Copper of fibre? Fibre optic cables have polymer or glass fibre strands within them to carry the data as a beam of light. No copper involved!

True some fibre optic cables had moulded onto their side some conventional copper cables, the idea being to maintain a PTSN network as well as fibre network. But I don't think they're used in this country. Fibre only, all the way to the premises.

In any case, PoE has a very short distance over which it can transmit DC power (less than 100m). Can you imagine the transmission losses trying to do that at the network scale? One of those cases of 'they haven't done this for a reason' and not just cost.

 

[long_range_rob]

PoE for broadband will never happen. BT is a massive consumer of electricity and the guys in the ivory towers who make the big decisions are aiming to always minimise cost so why would they provide you with power. That’s the job of the power companies.

Face it Elon isn’t going to give you power from his Starlink network so why should BT.

The world moves on