This topic

Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

JohnGeddesWinster — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 07:54:36 GMT

With the move to Digital-only imminent, can anyone tell me where we are on provision for emergency calls during a power outage, in locations where mobile signals will not support an indoor call to 999/112?

Ofcom "guidance" says "Providers should have at least one solution available that enables access to emergency
organisations for a minimum of one hour in the event of a power outage in the premises;"

BT say (of FTTP) "We believe that power back-up should be provided to allow a customer a minimum of one
hour".

But there are reports that such units as BT have supplied to FTTP customers (these) only power the ONT and not the router, so wouldn't allow a voice call without mains power. And there are reports that the units are not currently being supplied.

As to copper broadband, I can't find any trace of BT offering a Battery Backup Unit (BBU) at all. Have I missed something?

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

jac_95 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 07:57:06 GMT

Hi JohnGeddesWinster,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Community.

This is an automated response as I can see you have a question about BT’s Digital Voice service. Rather than waiting for a response from the Community, you may find an answer to your question by using the search bar on the Community homepage. We also have a thread that contains a wealth of info related to BT’s Digital Voice, click this link to take a look, Digital Voice FAQs.

To learn more about the nationwide change to this Internet based voice service visit landlinesgo.digital

If you have already looked for the answer to your question and have not found anything that can help, then please ignore this message. One of our Community members will be along shortly to help you further.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

jac_95 — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 08:16:38 GMT

Have a read of

https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-phone-including-Digital/UPS-solution-for-ONT-and-SH2/m-p/2236314/highlight/true#M84684

There's 2 models, 1 for ONT and 1 for the BT Smart Hub

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

imjolly — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 09:22:54 GMT

@JohnGeddesWinster

is the poor mobile signal just your provider or have you checked a mobile coverage and maybe another provider does have some cover in your area? remember you can make a 999 call on mobile and it will use whatever network is available not necessarily your own

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

JohnGeddesWinster — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 07:44:47 GMT

" remember you can make a 999 call on mobile and it will use whatever network is available not necessarily your own".

That bit is true. BUT...

It appears that if you reach 999 via another network, the emergency services cannot call you back. I can't get Ofcom to confirm this (they claim not to know, which is scary) but Derbyshire Fire and Rescue and Derbyshire Police have both confirmed this.

That means that if an ambulance team can't find your house, if you only placed the original 999 call via another network, then the ambulance service can't call you back to ask for more detailed directions, or to ask you to go to the front door to see if you can spot them. Not clever.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

yorkspark — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 08:03:31 GMT

What was the response of your electricity provider when you queried what they are doing to mitigate power outages?

Are they providing a bbu for your fridge/freezer?

I cannot understand the faux drama about how everything becomes impossible because of a power cut and everyone miraculously suddenly needs to dial 999

Anyway if you did happen to need to call 999 when camped on an alternative network, then just tell the call handler who would keep the call open until assistance arrived.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

iniltous — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 09:09:19 GMT

If you have a genuine concern then presumably you would have already mitigated the risks , what do you currently do if your old fashioned landline developed a fault that made outgoing calls to 999 impossible, do you leave home for the duration of the fault , after all , with no ‘internal’ mobile service you are at the same risk as you would be on DV during a power outage and the BBU/UPS only lasting an hour ….

No point being anything less that honest with yourself , if you wouldn’t move out in those circumstances, you are overdramatising the risk from DV …..if your concern is justified , you could always provide yourself with a more robust back up service , in fact , as with all these complaints from people that allegedly live in areas where the power supply is extremely unreliable, why haven’t you already done something about that to keep the lights , heating , freezer etc going during these frequent, prolonged outages ?

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

Saighdear — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 22:40:30 GMT

Well I am new to this forum, but have an urgent request / statement to make based on experience. We are rural and at the end of a Power line and telephone line. Now in the past , with winter storms and / or prolonged dry periods with a sudden rain storm, we have suffered both Minor and Major power cuts. Being a t the end of the line, the system was not always Aware of the situation, even after an hour or so.
QUESTION: with the current ( as of recent years) the POLICE do not like people phoning 999 for what should be a non-urgent call . I've had abuse from them before because I don't know what the other number is -used to be the local station on 2222 or such variations. now 101, 121, or whatever I dunno. and since our MObile has very poor reception - getting worse when we don't have 2G, shortly, I believe, .... what to do. This is WORSE than the call for EVs by 2030.
As for "then just tell the call handler who would keep the call open until assistance arrived." As I'vesaid above - and this makes me soooh angry with the system: They don't want to be told!

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

iniltous — Sat, 11 Nov 2023 08:51:33 GMT

So are you saying your power is unreliable because of the weather ( storms etc ) yet somehow your current telephone service is resilient to the same weather conditions ?, the chances are it isn’t.

If your power supply is so unreliable, why haven’t you mitigated that already , by having some sort of backup power already , it always puzzles me that people who claim that their power supply is always ‘off’ , these people are presumably happy to stay in a home with , no mains powered devices, no lights , no heating , no TV , the food in the freezer going off but are content to stay put , provided the landline phone has a dialtone when they lift the handset ( ignoring the fact that the event that takes the power off likely has also taken the conventional phone line down too )

If your situation is that when converting to DV you are deemed by BT to be vulnerable and you genuinely have no mobile service then you may be provided with a BBU , but if you were genuinely concerned why wouldn’t you have already would done something about your unreliable power supply yourself , by not doing anything suggests that you need is not really that great , and you are overreacting.

If your power goes off frequently, ask yourself honestly how many times during those outages did you need to use the phone to contact 999 with a genuine emergency.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

Saighdear — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 10:22:38 GMT

Oh Mannie, What / how to say it: I've left off a reply until now, hoping someone else ( non "beginner" would have come up to the plate.
We've had SEVERAL power cuts since I first wrote on here. Does the "Guru" not realise that Telecomms lines are mostly UNDERGROUND whereas Powerlines are AERIAL - no surprise that aerial lines are subject to DOWNING - simple laws of Physics .
Last night was the cream on the cake for Prize Idiots in the Essential Services CallCentres. After waiting around a minute to find that the power wasn't going to "blink" back on, I phoned 105. Had to listen to pre-recorded waffle and how I could find MORE waffle online, ... ONLINE Online, I ask you, ONLINE ? FFS The power's just gone OFF ( that means to most people- ( I thought ) that the Router would not function and our screens would go dead - DEAD! ) Around 10 minutes later and as I was about to put the phone down, it was answered by a REAL person ( think so) and after the usual precursory pre-amble, I got to tell him ( it/they) that we'd experienced another power cut . Had had several blips earlier 30 hrs where the Desktop PC ONLY had suddenly shut down and I had considered there was a fault with the PC ... obligatory pull to bits to investigate .... No-oh! I don't do things like that anymore - even when running Windows ... treated like our machinery - inherently stable.
And then to reinforce the point of THIS THREAD and losing contact, the person COULD NOT GRASP the notion that IF / WHEN I had ONLY FIBRE broadband and using the new system ( DATA only) I would not be able to contact them. ( Nobody else had bothered to call - no instances on his screen) What a faff to explain to the Gonk that Signals via Fibre are Optical and cannot transfer POWER. "OK so what's the problem if it is fibre - the power loss won't affect it the? .." was HIS take on it. Intelligent I ask myself. How does the router work and allow a VOIP call if there is no electricity to power it all.
I cannot argue with Idiots, my level of whatever I no longer know, for their level of whatever I no longer know's experience, is miles ahead of me/ us.
So in conclusion, MOST people I discuss this issue with, have literally NO IDEA what they're talking about. We will have NO Comm's with outside world to tell the outside world that we have no electricity to tell the outside world and that my EV has a flat battery and when I go outside somewhere on horseback ( Shanks's Pony ) to get a Signal with my Mobile, I find the Cold battery has died after having to listen to the Preamble waffle. Intelligent Technology ? It'sso artificial.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

iniltous — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 10:44:07 GMT

In rural areas , where power outages are most common , telephone lines more often than not , are not underground, they are also overhead, if the economics of providing the electricity supply requires it to be delivered overhead , then the same economic circumstances usually dictate that the phone/internet supply will also be overhead, if your power is overhead but your ‘phone’ supply is underground, that’s not the norm , but is irrelevant anyway .

The rest of your somewhat rambling post has nothing to do with DV and outages , and seems to be an unrelated rant about the people you report power outages to , if you were on DV and had a BBU/UPS the call you apparently made , would still be possible, that’s what the topic is , 999 during a power outage , and although your call wasn’t frivolous, it’s not a call requiring attention from the ‘blue light’ emergency services.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

WSH — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:19:19 GMT

A lot of the canal boats around me have suitcase sized portable generators usually with outputs around 1-1.5kW. Just an idea.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

Saighdear — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 11:57:09 GMT

Thnx, We have generators coming out of our ears: How big do you want? Wee ones to Welder Generators AND Workshop standard sizes ( 3-phase) and plenty spare Batteries .... It's just the Principle of the thing - and who wants to go out in middle of night and a terrible storm to connect up. ( We share end of line with 2 other households which do NOT have generators)

As far as the Highlands ( & Islands) of Scotland is concerned ( when did I last notice overhead Telephone lines anywhere alongside any roads? ), our Immediate supply line is overhead from the Transformer but UNDERGROUND to it so another previous expert is talking absolute nonsense !!

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

JohnGeddesWinster — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 19:56:47 GMT

Update, Feb 2024

I have called BT on three occasions about Battery Backup Units (BBU) for customers in our village who are on Digital Voice/Cloud Voice but have no indoor mobile signal on any network.

The two calls to the Business side of BT each received a point blank refusal to supply a BBU (despite Ofcom insisting that they were supposed to). But complaints to the Chairman's Office (who answer questions sent to the CEO) in each case produced a goodwill credit to cover the cost.

The one call on the residential side was better. The agent understood the need, but we did end up at something of an impasse over the categorisation of the account - the agent kept wanting me to confirm that the customer was "vulnerable", while I was sure that I only needed to show that they were "at risk" as defined by Ofcom - and you are "at risk" simply by not having a mobile phone signal at home.

The second wobbly was that the procedure is that BT gives a credit for the cost (£88.99 from memory) and then the next bill will include the cost of the unit, and the credit, so a net of zero. But after agreeing this, I got two emails, each informing me that there would be a credit of a different amount (£22.99 and £25.99, from memory). But only two, and totalling nothing near the cost of the BBU. When I queried this, the explanation was that they couldn't authorise the full credit in one go, so would credit it in four chunks. I've seen no confirmation of the third and fourth credits, but perhaps all will resolve on the next bill. But what an amateurish setup!

The Battery Backup unit is promised to keep the router running for at least an hour. I realise that performance will deteriorate over the months and years, so I expected initial performance to be considerably more than an hour. But I was still very impressed to see that the BBU kept a Plusnet Hub2 (on which I was testing it) running for 6 hours 46 minutes.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

COMPANY-PENSIONER — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 20:12:04 GMT

In no way attempting to persuade you away from a BT BBU. UPS (uninterupted power supplies) are available at commercial electrical factors. Starting around, broadly, £100 inc vat. The more you pay, the longer the supply lasts in a power outage. Since the BT Fatplugs run on milliamps, the lower end of the UPS market will do nicely.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

patricia73 — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 14:28:44 GMT

I'm new to this so please excuse me if I seem irrelevant. My problem is that I have a vulnerable husband (had to call 999 earlier this month). We live in a town which is a notorious mobile signal black spot and which has a large elderly population. I've just been speaking to a very pleasant lady at bt, all she can do is sympathise and offer to put me to the back of the transfer list (presumably hoping my husband dies before we transfer). I don't think this is acceptable, technology is supposed to make life better and safer. Bt seems to have no answer to the problem and any attempt to contact them is made as difficult as possible. I cannot guarantee that my husband is able to time his episodes of ill health so that they don't coincide with our occasional power cuts.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

iniltous — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 15:08:25 GMT

Presumably you have read this thread , so that begs the question, why have you resurrected an old post to ask a question that has already been comprehensively answered ? ,

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

imjolly — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 15:14:53 GMT

Have you registered your accountwkth BT that a vulnerable person lives there as that should delay move to DV until 2027. It is not BT who are stopping the ability to make receive calls over PSTN but openreach as the existing services are getting to expensive to maintain

Is it just your mobile provider provider that has problems in your area or all mobile providers as your mobile will use any mobile network to make a 999 call

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

JohnGeddesWinster — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 10:26:31 GMT

Update August 2024:

Ofcom have confirmed that 999 calls made via another mobile network (ie over EE if you are on Vodafone) cannot later be returned by the emergency services: "When a mobile phone is outside the coverage of its "home" network, call to the phone will not be possible" (Ofcom Director General to my MP in answering my question about this, October 2023).

The Cyberpower unit supplied to BT customers who are "at risk" (eg no indoor mobile signal) is a good solution to the problem. I tried a brand new unit on a Plusnet Hub 2 router, and it provided 6h 45 of backup.

Finally, Ofcom's regulations on provision of a "solution" to the 999-in-a-power-cut problem appear to be totally unenforceable.

In March, I discovered that I could not reach 999 from my mobile having made a test call that failed. I told my Broadband provider (who also provided my VOIP) of this, asking them to provide a "solution" as prescribed by Ofcom's General Conditions A3.2(b).

My ISP refused, and gave me a month's notice to find a new ISP.

That would seem to fly in the face of the Ofcom intention - if any ISP can tell a customer with a problem to go away and see if they can find another ISP to solve the problem, then the Ofcom requirements are useless: the customer needing help with a Battery Backup Unit (or other "solution" to the problem) is not going to find anyone wanting them as a customer.

So I called Ofcom. I thought they might be interested to find someone openly refusing to follow their requirements. They politely wrote down details, then said they were unlikely to look into it. Instead, I should follow the Dispute Resolution system to make a complaint against my ISP.

My ISP was signed up to CISAS, so I complained to them. Many months later (lots of back-and-forth, with the ISP making one submission running to 26 pages), I have had my complaint refused.

The main ruling was that Ofcom's requirements are apparently not requirements. Just guidance to what it would be nice for an ISP to do. But the ISP is free not to do anything if they would rather not.

The secondary judgement was that I had not managed to provide evidence that I didn't have a reliable indoor mobile signal. I had provided the date and time of my failed 999 attempt, but this was apparently not enough. But there was no suggestion made of how I could have provided the necessary evidence. (I have since asked my mobile company, 1pmobile, what they would have been able to provide if I had asked them for evidence: the answer is nothing, as they only have details of chargeable calls, so wouldn't see data on even successful 999 calls.)

So it appears either that Ofcom have been incompetent in drafting what they intend to be firm rules, or CISAS have got it wrong (there is no appeal, so I can't take it further) or that Ofcom deliberately wrote their requirements so that they sound tough (so reassure MPs etc) but opted to keep the industry happy by making sure that they proved to be unenforceable.

Re: Digital Voice - 999 in power cuts

garybs29 — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 10:59:04 GMT

I've heard it all now, attempting to tie up a life or death emergency 999 line with a "test call" words fail me