Power cut!

[pddco]

@Koala456  With the proliferation of mobile phones, their reliability, convenience and in the most part good signal strength in the home, the traditional landline phone is no longer seen as a necessary device to keep in contact. Really the only main advantage of a landline phone is that by having one people know that when they ring you, and you answer it, they know that you’re at home. And some people like calling a landline as they know the person won’t be in a shop or somewhere inconvenient when they rang. 

So perhaps you can see why others might see the loss of a landline during a power cut not so much of a deal.

Now of course if you’ve got  no mobile signal at home when the power goes off then the landline does become important for emergency calls  should they be needed at that time. Hence the option for a backup battery if you’ve got no mobile signal. 

And we’ve gone through how to prolong the battery life already. Appreciate DV  may not be ideal for you, and not how it was before. But,  I’m not sure there’s another way of doing it. The PSTN is unfortunately being shut down. 

[Koala456]

One thing that has been overlooked is people who wear hearing aids. Some mobile phones can interfere with hearing aids. I've also noticed that these new DV phones are cordless. When one moves about with a cordless phone, especially when the handsets batteries are low and the device isn't fully charged, the sound quality tends to 'swish and sway'. I used to use a cordless phone in the office and found the sound quality terrible compared to an analogue phone with a curly cable. It's all very well saying use a mobile, but my 83 year old mother who is deaf and wears a hearing aid and has done for the last 45 years wouldn't have got on with a cordless and much prefers the sound quality of her analogue phone compared to mobiles.

Also, these DV phones have to be plugged in to a router which is connected to the mains. Who's going to pay the electric bills?

It's all very well telling people to buy generators, but that is not practical or realistic for many. 

We don't want to get rid of the landline, and if it is to be replaced, then at least give us what it should already be ...a landline that powers itself. I don't think it's too much to ask.

[VeteranISPUser]

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@Koala456wrote:

One thing that has been overlooked is people who wear hearing aids. Some mobile phones can interfere with hearing aids.

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Hi @Koala456   Perhaps back in the Stone Age. My hearing aids are controlled by my mobile phone. My hearing aids also connect direct to my VOIP phone. There is nothing special about DV phones and there is no problem using a corded phone. The delivery is different, but you use the same home phones.

[Koala456]

@gg30340  You are missing the point! I was only able to contact the Power company because I was not on DV. Had I have been on DV there would have been no power to allow me to make the phone call. You must agree that is a dangerous situation, and DV phones should power themselves. My mobile was very low and I actually charged it up with my power bank during the power cut. The whole thing was not ideal if DV phones are to be the future

[pddco]

Oh @Koala456 look, you managed to charge your mobile phone and it would’ve been fine. Please re- read the comments. 

[iniltous]

If you are sufficiently concerned about the ability to contact the power company to alert them to their failure, then a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) BBU battery back up would have allowed you to contact the power company if it’s imperative that you contact them rather than relying on someone else suffering in the same outage or the power company monitoring systems detecting the outage 

[Koala456]

My mobile needed charging. But that's not the point! The point is I pay BT to provide me with a service, a service I would like to keep. BT didn't let me down during the power cut  because the phone worked, but had it been DV it would have been hopeless.

[licquorice]

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@Koala456wrote:

One thing that has been overlooked is people who wear hearing aids. Some mobile phones can interfere with hearing aids. I've also noticed that these new DV phones are cordless. When one moves about with a cordless phone, especially when the handsets batteries are low and the device isn't fully charged, the sound quality tends to 'swish and sway'. I used to use a cordless phone in the office and found the sound quality terrible compared to an analogue phone with a curly cable. It's all very well saying use a mobile, but my 83 year old mother who is deaf and wears a hearing aid and has done for the last 45 years wouldn't have got on with a cordless and much prefers the sound quality of her analogue phone compared to mobiles.

Also, these DV phones have to be plugged in to a router which is connected to the mains. Who's going to pay the electric bills?

It's all very well telling people to buy generators, but that is not practical or realistic for many. 

We don't want to get rid of the landline, and if it is to be replaced, then at least give us what it should already be ...a landline that powers itself. I don't think it's too much to ask.

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What total and utter nonsense. I never use my landline for calls as using my mobile connected to my hearing aids by Bluetooth is far superior.

The electric bills will be pence, you are totally living in the past.

Explain how you think electricity will be transmitted through a fibre optic cable.

[VeteranISPUser]

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@Koala456wrote:

The point is I pay BT to provide me with a service, a service I would like to keep.

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Hi @Koala456   Back in the real world, BT and all the other Openreach customers can only provide you with a service that Openreach provides them. The fact is the Openreach PSTN Network has reached end of life and is going to be shut down. There is nothing you or BT can do to prevent that, and all your what ifs and consequences will not change it.

[Koala456]

@licquorice  'explain how you think electricity will be transmitted through a fibre optic cable'

@licquorice It won't be! I'm talking about electricity that supplies the DV hub that will be plugged into UK mains socket, hence my original post about power cuts.

We all have different levels of deafness, my mother prefers the sound quality of a landline to that of a mobile or a cordless. When calling friends who have cordless phones she finds it difficult to hear them compared to a non-cordless phone.

 @licquorice saying that is 'total and utter nonsense'  is a bit strong and a little over the top if I may say so. 

The electric bill doesn't cost a few pence. My mother is of the generation that switches off her devices, television etc when not in use. I won't be keeping my DV phone switched on all the time either.