The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 (2021) | Hacker News Reader

The UK’s PSTN network will switch off in 2025 (2021)

business.bt.com

22 pointszahllos20 comments

My wife's parents line recently had their PSTN turned off ready for this at renewal much to their surprise and displeasure, despite what is promised their equipment did not continue to work (this claim seems to come from DECT devices being compatible).

It took them about a week to get it enabled again with lots of complaining to the support folks.

999 is not even guaranteed to be routed by whichever VOIP provider you will be forced to use -- and it wont work in powercut like existing landlines which are powered from the exchange.

The reality is that there is a whole generation that rely on landlines that will be broken by this change for no real benefit to anyone other than BT.

Some reading on the technical side from Draytek: https://draytek.co.uk/information/blog/the-end-of-analogue-p... https://draytek.co.uk/information/blog/the-end-of-analogue-p...

It's expensive to maintain a landline network that very few people use.

I don't think the replacement for normal people should be voip but instead mobile phones. It also solves the emergency calling problem.

Mobile phones need charging and connectivity. As has been pointed out, existing landlines are powered by the exchange and so you can have a traditional phone that works whenever the circuit to the exchange is (mostly) working. In particular, a dodgy connection in the circuit probably still allows an analog phone to work (though it will sound crackly), but there is no chance of running data over the same circuit. This is based on my experience at my 98 year old mother's house where, whenever it rained, the internet would drop out and the phone line would be crackly. By the time that the BT person came by, it had stopped raining and they went away with "problem solved".

Now, I guess it would be possible to power the ATA from the network, but I doubt that that will happen.

> but there is no chance of running data over the same circuit

Maybe true for top of the line fiber connections, but I honestly wouldn't underestimate the resilience of ADSL https://www.revk.uk/2017/12/its-official-adsl-works-over-wet...

Edit: Actually here's an exact case where the phone line no longer functioned due to a break, but ADSL soldiered on: https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/9yzp5wr3

No-battery AC-powered LTE-PSTN converter is used here in Japan. It should be no problem and more durable than PSTN for disaster. Adding battery backup would help for power lost situation.

There are some solutions to these problems.

The typical hardware solution is for the phone provider to install a battery powered backup device.

In the event of a power cut, the backup device allows the landline phone to make calls to 112/999 using a built-in mobile SIM.

In the US, Verizon offers (sometimes includes for free) a battery backup unit for their ONT for FiOS service, in the name of providing only the phone services during a power outage. In general there’s nothing stopping any customer from using an off the shelf UPS.

"It’s now time to leap forward from PSTN to embrace the boundless possibilities of digital."

Such as...

Such as distorted voice (almost unintelligible) , interrupted sound, dropped line.

As noted on this page in the Netherlands the network was already switched off and I can confirm the sky has not fallen.

Yes, for some applications you need new hardware. So people got new hardware.

Also, we can now pay higher prices for the same service. But it's 'better' now!

That’s not possible because the same service doesn’t exist anymore.

If you want cheap telephony, get cheap voip telephony. It’s almost free.

Per Mbit/s/EUR, fiber isn't an improvement (in NL).

PSTN is the telephone network, not internet. If you want to replicate dialup, get a prepaid wireless card or a cheap subscription.

In NL. Other places it works sanely, and any cable is Mbit/s/EUR, and there is thus competition driving the prices down.

How many megabits per second were you getting on that PSTN line? Or is this just some generic ‘the rent is too damn high’ tangent?

I thought the back end worked like this already? What's the advantage to switching over the last mile? Faster internet?

elimination of a lot of equipment in the middle-mile that is aging out and has no good replacement

I wonder exactly what equipment.

ADSL modems on the provider end, with the right software, could provide PSTN voice service-over-SIP too. It wouldn't add any substantial complexity, and could be one of those legacy services provided for the next 50 years...

Running the necessary SIP servers and billing systems wouldn't be burdensome if there weren't many real users. And if there were still lots of real users, there would be lots of revenue to pay for it.

I can only assume that BT doesn't have sufficient buying power to get modem manufacturers to include that in their software as a feature.

>I can only assume that BT doesn't have sufficient buying power to get modem manufacturers to include that in their software as a feature.

BT (openreach) basically have a monopoly on the infrastructure and all the consumer facing companies pay them for access (exception is virgin fibreoptic and possibly Kingston communications (Hull only))

So I wouldn't have though itd be a lack of buying power.

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