By the way I along with many non techy users dont have a clue what all the PTSN etc mean.
Public Switched Telephone Network. It’s the name for the telephony equipment and network rising up from the old plug-and-cord exchanges, to the Strowger Switch (see here) and then later more automated devices into the 21st Century Network as BT called it. In essence, the equipment that needs so much money, time, effort to now maintain and replace parts of in all exchanges across the country.
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) has been around now for over 15 years in use here and there, and like fibre optic technology, has now matured enough to be considered a viable replacement.
Really, the ‘landline telephone’ isn’t going away at all. It’s just changing network. Instead of the old switched telephone network, it will now run on a network of routers already in place that also happen to run websites and services... almost everything these days. We call it the Internet, but that is an International Network or Interconnected Network. The fact the phones will now run on it is just an evolution. The telephone itself is not going away.
This is the phone in my bedroom:
This is running through the Digital Voice VoIP system and works perfectly (even have a pulse to tone converter attached so I can dial out).
Openreach already have plans in place on how to deliver these services to phone-line only customers. It’s nothing scary. Just replacing the Switched Network equipment with Internet Protocol Network equipment. Different boxes, same telephone experience.
Only the well covered (on this forum) ‘power outage in emergency’ thing is a bone of some debate, but Battery Backups are available and a lot of scaremongering by the media is the cause of people’s worries on the most part. But I won’t go into that here as that has been well covered and can be searched to death on this forum.
