Digital Voice Battery Backup

[dephead2004]

I was promised a Battery Back up unit in February after our transfer to Digital Voice (unsought but compulsory on recontracting) went badly and we were without service for 13 days.  I was promised this twice and SA's have confirmed it's in my notes.

Checking yesterday and today as to where the order is,  I have been told

1. that the Gvt. made BT move to DV (really?),

2. that no BBUs are available (you can buy one from the BT shop but the free ones are not available) and now

3. that they do not work with FTTC only FTTP (why have two SA's advised that they have one on order, they were dealing with the  13 day service failure at the time surely they knew we did not have FTTP, the engineers who attended certainly did) 

Can anyone confirm  these  3 advices please? 

This seems to fly in the face of the CEO of BT who said they would do everything to help customers who require support  in the matter of DV.

Just as background we have Halo 3+ (top of the range  and BT mobiles) but we cannot use a backup mobile with surety. For example since Oct 2021 there have been 21 days when we have been notified that there is a problem with the transmitter lasting from 4 to 15 hours on each occasion. There are personal reasons why it is a must to have a working phone

[jac_95]

Hi dephead2004,

Thanks for the post and welcome to the Community.

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[iniltous]

A battery backup unit ( BBU) is only any use during a power outage so didn’t have any bearing if you were migrated to DV and were out of service for 13 days, whatever the problem was,  a BBU wouldn’t have helped , unless you had a 13 day power outage that coincided with the change to DV , and even then , a BBU would only supply mains power to the router and or ONT for a short while, possibly for as little as 60 mins,  after that they too would stop powering the equipment .

To answer your points,

1…Its nothing to do with the Government, but DV is inevitable for all BT customers , all telephony ( even for other providers ) will eventually be VoIP ( DV simply being BT proprietary version of VoIP telephony ) BT are migrating customers as the existing PSTN switched network is to be retired by 2025.

2. BT originally stated that a BBU would only be supplied to DV customers for free if they were considered  to qualify for one, it wasn’t explicit what category of customer would qualify , and is effectively on hold for those that were going to be migrated without any say in the matter anyway  , those joining BT , upgrading or re contracting have a choice to join or remain with BT and those installs or migrations to DV are still taking place .

It was the case that there were no stocks of BBU in the BT store, even for those willing to buy one themselves, but it doesn’t have to be a BT  BBU , there are other retailers  that sell battery back up units          ( also known as UPS )   , so for those willing to purchase one themselves , they don’t need to wait for BT to have them in stock…those that qualify, wanting a freebie , they may have to wait until BT have the stock.

3. FTTP or FTTC ( or ADSL for that matter ) is irrelevant, if the household has a power outage , the BBU maintains the power to the router and in the case of FTTP the ONT , for a short while , it has nothing to do with the type of broadband

[dephead2004]

Thanks iniltous.

You have confirmed my worst suspicions that this particular SA is totally unsure of his facts. I did wonder if I was actually speaking with BT at one point. This is the SA handling what is now a complaint. Rare, as we have been satisfied with BT for the past 2 decades.

I have always understood that the BBU will only last one hour but this gives an opportunity to cover for the more frequent and and short lived blackouts that we get. 13 days is quite exceptional and had only happened once before in 1987 when I simply joined the severed trailing overhead cable with some spare wire. Impossible now, of course.

In 2022 only two of those days were for a blackout the rest was subsequent broadband down, clearly uncovered by a BBU.

[dephead2004 · Accepted solution]

Rounding off this thread, the SA has called me back early with an offer which means I can obtain a BBU for fttc at no charge from the BT shop. It turns out that there is, of course, a BBU for FTTC and FTTP, just different models and made specifically for a BT smart hub 2 and ONT.

Common sense has prevailed and complaints are closed.

Thanks to the forum for support

[Les-Gibson]

There is an article on the Ofcom website about digital voice (see Upgrading landlines to digital technology – what you need to know - Ofcom ), the interesting part of which states

"If you rely on your landline - for example, you don’t have a mobile phone, you’re unable to use a mobile phone  or you don’t have mobile signal inside your home - your provider must make sure you are able to contact the emergency services during a power cut. "

I have one question regarding that namely;  In these days of Wi-Fi calling, how many people have turned off the Wi-Fi on their mobiles in order to check that they have a decent enough mobile signal to enable them to make a call if their internet connection failed? not many I would wager.

[dephead2004]

That would have been the decider if I'd realised that. Someone at BT probably knew. It was mentioning verbally the ombudsman and initially refusing to allow the closing of the complaint that might have tipped the balance. 😉

Lessons to be learned here

[gg30340]

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@Les-Gibson wrote:

I have one question regarding that namely;  In these days of Wi-Fi calling, how many people have turned off the Wi-Fi on their mobiles in order to check that they have a decent enough mobile signal to enable them to make a call if their internet connection failed? not many I would wager.

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I would also wager that people who have a mobile phone would know whether or not they have a decent mobile signal at their home address.

Mobile coverage is usually one of the first things that gets check prior to a person purchasing a mobile phone and when they get home to ensure it works there. As you will no doubt be aware it is brought up frequently on this forum by people as a reason for not wanting to be moved to DV so they already know because they can not make or receive mobile calls.

[dephead2004]

Was the issue that with the rise of Voice over WiFi, the issue may remain hidden until there is no wifi! In our case for example since Oct 2021 there have been 21 days when we have been notified that there is a problem with the transmitter lasting from 4 to 15 hours on each occasion. This is irrespective of power cuts etc

[gg30340]

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@dephead2004 wrote:

Was the issue that with the rise of Voice over WiFi, the issue may remain hidden until there is no wifi! In our case for example since Oct 2021 there have been 21 days when we have been notified that there is a problem with the transmitter lasting from 4 to 15 hours on each occasion. This is irrespective of power cuts etc

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Your "home phone" uses your broadband connection to make phone calls and yes, if the electricity goes off so does your broadband router which means you lose the ability to make "landline" phone calls. This is negated short term if you have a BBU which depending on its capacity would keep your broadband router powered for possibly a couple of hours and I would agree that some sort of BBU should be supplied by all the UK phone providers when they migrate their customers to DV.

If you are using a mobile phone that can use "wifi calling", if the power goes down which would stop the router working and thus transmitting wifi for the mobile phone, the phone would stop using "wifi calling" and would default to using the "normal" mobile signal if there is one.

Obviously if there is no mobile signal no call could be made. I would presume that any one in this position of not having a mobile signal at their home would already know this and that would no doubt have been part if not the main reason for using "Wifi calling". 

As regards your mobile transmitter not transmitting a mobile signal on 21 occasions that is obviously an issue for your mobile phone provider to resolve and DV can hardly be blamed for that. Out of interest out of the 21 days that you had no mobile signal how many of those days were you without power.

If you are having frequent power cuts I would suggest that there is an issue with your power company and they should be getting complained to and reported to Ofgem by all those who are being affected on each occasion that it happens.