Power cut!

[Koala456]

Hello, 

Yesterday at about 8am we had a power cut at home. This was because a fuse had failed on the main power lines and we were without power for several hours. It didn't hit the whole area just a couple of houses. So Thank God I'm not with Digital Voice.

During the few hours I was without power, I called the power company of which we are Priority Service members on my BT landline. I was able to contact them and they arrived about 30 minutes later after calling them. They weren't aware of the power failure and I was the first one to contact them about it.

This day of all days was the day my Doctor was due to call me for a medication review. I was told he would call anytime between 8am to 6pm. I was waiting all day for him to call but eventually at 2.30pm he called me. If I was on Digital Voice a battery back up would only have lasted 2 hours and I would have missed his call. I also called my bank to remove one of my old mobile phone numbers that I don't use anymore from my account details. I was on the phone to TSB holding for about 20 minutes waiting.

I also called 1572 to check Junk Voicemail messages.

The power came on a few hours later at about 4pm but during that time I felt safe knowing that if there were any problems I would have a phone and someone to contact. I live in the countryside and don't have any neighbours for help.

When we are moved on to Digital Voice I won't be able to do any of this. If there is a power cut I won't be able to use my phone, not even to contact the electric company to tell them the power is off. That is dangerous.

And yes, you will be getting a lot more messages on here in the future from people with the headline 'Power Cut' because that is what you, when Digital Voice takes over, will be dealing with. Power cuts.

If BT have any sense they will ditch these DV phones. These phones should be self-powered. The fact that they are not makes them unsuitable for a roll-out.

[iniltous]

You say thank god nothing happened in the hour or two you were without power but still had PSTN telephone….so what catastrophe was avoided ? , you called the power company, are you suggesting without your call the power would have remained off , are we to believe that you and none of the other addresses affected has a mobile phone between them , the power company doesn’t have remote monitoring ….the last time I had a power outage ( I’m on DV and never once felt unsafe ) the power company texted me to say they were aware and working in it almost instantly the power went off .

Your  doctor could have left a message on the free DV answer service if your DV line was temporarily down ( if you were on DV ) or they would call back , and your call to the bank was hardly important or time sensitive

If your PSTN phone line developed a fault that stopped you making a call , and as your exchange is over 40 years old , spares are unavailable, and exchanges are way past their expected life span, so the chances of experiencing a fault is more likely than at any other time , would you leave your address for the duration and move into a hotel , or in with friends or relatives ? If the answer is No (and it is ) then you would have been slightly inconvenienced if you were on DV and not PSTN , really that’s about it .

[pddco]

@Koala456 There is of course an option to conserve the backup battery during a power cut by switching off the hub and only switching it back on when you need it to make a call.

Or perhaps switching it on for say 15 minutes each hour in the off chance of catching an incoming call.

If the call came in when the hub was off the caller would be able to leave a message on the answer service.

And you’d know if they had left a message with the interrupted dial tone when you switched the hub back on again.

Appreciate it’s a bit of a faff. And not ideal.

But at least you’d have the facility to make a call ( to explain to the doctors surgery perhaps that you may need to rearrange the review) - and access the internet of course - if you didn’t have a mobile signal as backup. 

Does that help, or reassure?

[chrisjp]

"And yes, you will be getting a lot more messages on here in the future from people with the headline 'Power Cut' because that is what you, when Digital Voice takes over, will be dealing with. Power cuts."

Your use of "you" in this sentence suggests that you think you're talking to BT. In fact you're not - this is a customer to customer forum. The only BT employees that see these comments are the moderators and they have no access to customer accounts

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

@Koala456 

When you contacted the Power Company did you express how angry you were with them for putting you in a "dangerous" position because their electrical supply was not working and because of that it was stopping ALL your electrical powered devices such as lights, heating, fridges computers cooker etc from working and had you been using that new fangled phone system, Digital Voice phone that would also have failed.

Did you also ask your Electricity Company what they were going to do to mitigate such a "dangerous" occurrence should such a thing happen again? 

[Koala456]

I'm sure the DV phones are good phones but the fact they rely purely on mains electric does let them down.

Surely it can't be beyond BTs expertise to devise a way of making these phones power themselves, so they continue to work during power cuts. BT telling people to use their mobiles instead during a power cut is kind of missing the point of having a telephone. These are telephones which should be made to operate all the time.

[licquorice]

It's not the phones that need to be powered, it's the hub and, if on full fibre, the ONT that need to be powered. 

You can do that simply with a UPS or a small portable generator yourself if you are that bothered.

[Jane2018]

Yes, the issue is about resilience of systems and having back ups and not connecting everythinng which is why I feel losing analogue is putting too many eggs in the one basket (we don't have very good mobile signal here either - outer London). one of my phones is now DV but the other is analogue and today I put a 2nd landline back in one room as I think it will only be switched over in 2027 (as no broadband on that line).  my BT interenet downstiars AND separate account upstairs went down today although it was back soon - not sure why both my two broadbands on different lines were down and Community Fibre are doing test digging to see if near me can get FTTP if we pay £40,000 as a community so I suppose that might be another back up thing for internet back up. It is definitely wise to cover all bases. I probably won't get what one neighbour got - a big private generator

[licquorice]

A 1.2Kw suitcase generator can be had for less than £250

[WSH]

Surely, this topic has been done to death?

You know, I remember the days when most working-class homes didn’t even have a phone.  My own parents didn’t get one put in until I was 17 and about to leave for university.  And “mobiles” hadn’t even been thought of back then.  The nearest phone was a call box, the other side of the estate, (assuming it hadn't been vandalised).

Makes you wonder how we survived.  We’re certainly not the stoic, robust people from the post second world war era that we like to remember ourselves as.  Back then people were way more resilient.