Two Questions.

[Hevski77]

Me again..

1. Do you really have to get rid of your Copper Wire phone, if you get Fibre Optic, I know that is probably a stupid question, but I thought I’d ask. 

2. How does Fibre Optic, via Cables and Poles hold up to Wild Wet and Windy Weather? Copper Wire lines, via poles have often been really affected where I live by water ingress, once causing the phone line to go off for 3 months I think it was. I really don’t want to see a repeat of that. It was a very stressful time. 

Thanks for reading. 😉

[gg30340]

At the moment if you have a BT FTTC broadband package and a landline phone you do not need to move to Digital Voice unless you choose to however in the future you will be moved whether you want it or not or you will not have a landline phone.

If you are a new BT Broadband customer with a  BT Fibre package and request a landline phone it will be Digital Voice with no option to have a copper line.

See link which gives information about Fibre versus copper.

https://findcheapbroadband.com/blog/how-weather-can-affect-internet/

https://www.rsinc.com/does-weather-affect-internet-by-connection-type.php 

[iniltous]

1. If you mean once you have Openreach FTTP installed, is the copper pair effectively redundant, then Yes it is.

2. Overhead  fibre optic cables are prone to same potential problems as overhead copper cables in stormy weather, but unlike copper pair cables , less affected by water ingress , but if a pole is blown down by a hurricane (for example) it’s pretty irrelevant if the cabling is copper or fibre optic.

[licquorice]

Water doesn't affect light in the same way as it does electricity.

[WSH]

Depends on what you mean by “Copper Wire phone”?  Your existing phone will almost certainly work the fibre.  It’s just a matter of plugging it into the router instead of the old phone master socket on the wall.

I would think they would stand up pretty well.  The big problem with the copper was its age and condition. This is all new, of course.  As I understand it, the cables have a steel core, plus fibre optic won’t short out if it gets wet as its light, not electricity.

[Hevski77]

@iniltous 

1. Noooo, I thought that might be the case. I live very rurally on the side of a mountain. 
I realise now (lol) that FTTP is Fibre to the Pole, FTTC is Fibre to the Cabinet.. The house nearest me, the previous owner who I knew, I think he had his phone line put underground (on this hill), not up the poles. He obviously paid to get that done, I don’t know if he could’ve gotten FTTC (Fibre has only recently been made available). There’s a road at the bottom (well it’s the A9), and a cabinet I think on the other side, but I can’t remember, so I don’t know if a pole is part of his line, or his line went right under the road, I doubt it.. 

2. Hopefully there won’t be any poles down in a hurricane, there hasn’t been yet (touch wood), and they recently put some new ones in, for the fibre optic, tethered them to the ground. Hilariously I think for the 3 houses I’m in a row of, I’m probably the only one who will connect to it. But there’s other people along the lane who will too. With the copper it was more that water would get in to the connection boxes on the poles.

[licquorice]

FTTP is Fibre To The Premises  not Pole.

[Hevski77]

@WSH 

Yeah that’s another thing I kind of wanted to know. See I had to buy a second hand home phone the other day, cos poor. But the connector on it, is the flat shaped connector, not the square one. (I’m sure you know what I mean), whereas the router only has those square sockets on the back of it. Can you get like a new connector cable with the square bits on both ends. 

They probably have names don’t they? 😬

[WSH]

The flat phone plugs are a BT 431A.  The little square ones are RJ11, the international phone plug.  (The BT ones are, well, BT).  The Smart Hub 2 and 3 routers have a BT phone socket on the back.  (It's green).  They'll send you a new router if the old one doesn't have a phone socket.  And push come to shove, you can buy BT plug to RJ11 plug adapters on Amazon for a couple of quid.

[36ULW]

The Fibre Drop Cables Openreach use, RFOD and ROC don’t have Steel Supports like Copper Drop Wires do.

The older Hybrid Cable that had Fibre and a Copper Pair did but that was made obsolete.

The only Overhead Fibre Cable that does is COF215 ULW but that isn’t used as Drop Cables to customer premises.