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End of the Landline: BT Aims To Move All UK Customers To VoIP by 2025 (siliconrepublic.com)
BT aims to move its UK customers to IP telephony by 2025. From a report: BT is shutting its traditional telephone network in the UK, according to an email seen by The Register. The public switched telephone network (PSTN) closure is part of the company's plans to move in a fibre network direction in terms of its infrastructure. All phone calls will eventually be made over broadband using VoIP systems, which means the company's existing wholesale line rental products, which are reliant on the PSTN, will need to be removed. BT Openreach runs the network used by all but one of the telecoms providers in the UK.
Landlines work in a lot of cases where the power's down, at least in the States. Not sure about UK.
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high quality audio conversations
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They are not replacing the last mile (from the home to the exchange). They're replacing the backhaul, from Ericsson AXEs to Cisco MPLS devices and a variety of other IP based networking. VoIP is then provided seamlessly between exchanges, no new phones or wires required.
They've been doing it since 2005 - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_21CN
So.. if you can't afford broadband, or don't want it for whatever reason, you're going to be without a phone line?
Back in the day, a landline was $8 a month and would give you data via dialup. Good luck finding a broadband replacement for double or triple that.
what about elevator / lift phones?
Didn't they try this before a few years ago, called the 21CN? I think they ended up moving their data networks to it, but gave up on voice.
All of England's VOIP data is hoovered by the NSA and passed on to MI5.
What a free cuntry!
Due to the high cost of copper, miles of a bundle of hundreds of copper wires, subject to crosstalk and imbalanced, is a much worse investment than coaxial and fiber hybrid network. POTS is well on its way out and is far inferior to coaxial and fiber technologies.
Also, coaxial networks can carry power on the coaxial cable to power the VOIP adapter on the customer premises that connects to their two wire inside wiring. This has become more rare but some cable companies have done it. The coaxial distribution line running down the street already has DC on it to power the amplifiers. Multitaps can tap out some of this power and send it down to the customer. Cable companies seem to be opting for a battery back up inside the VOIP adapter and an AC adapter instead.
That's not the end of land lines. It's the end of POTS service. You can have a land line that uses VOIP and doesn't require a general purpose internet connection. I've got one sitting right next to me in my office. It's a phone but it uses it's own routers and isn't connected to our office computer network in any meaningful way.
By 2025, no one will be using traditional voice phone, even for mobile. All communications will be via SSL via end to end encryption and majority will be via custom apps (WhatsApp, Snap, FaceTime etc). Numbers will be used only as an identifier for the source and target devices. Many people already prefer such apps over phone number as they don't want to share phone numbers. The apps provide much richer control than standard telephone provides. What we lack is standardization and legal aspects (I have to provide my phone number to all govt and private businesses).
Here in Norway 85% of the PSTN/ISDN customers are gone since the peak in the early 2000s. Fiber is now biggest and growing, cable is second and holding steady through upgrades so replacing the last mile is not necessary while xDSL is third and dropping. Pretty much all new installations are now fiber, no matter who does it. Our main telecom operator already suggested this once before, I think mostly to see how much resistance they'd get and get the ball rolling. The problem are those where it's not cost effective to put fiber in the ground, but it was probably not cost effective to put copper in the ground either. I think that eventually we'll convert the requirement that you must deliver phone access (wireless service okay) into must deliver Internet access of a certain bandwidth/cap/quality. We still got at least 2-3 years of massive commercial roll-out before that though, let's see where we're at then.
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I know this story is about the UK, but clearly the US telecoms are moving to VOIP as well, and I wonder about the legal implications. If phone service is now considered an "online service", does the FOSTA/SESTA legislation apply to it? Will telecoms be required to monitor the content of phone calls in order to make sure that no one is committing a crime? How will this affect the ease with which LEOs can monitor or record your phone calls?
Did all VoIP use GSM ? Didn't just use landline differently ?
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Er "Landline"...means a phone connected to the wall.
I have a VOIP phone on my desk - it's connected to the wall, it's still a landline despite being VOIP.
"Switching to VOIP" doesn't mean "getting rid of landlines" at all.
*PERSONALLY* while I can see the compelling reasons for not having essentially 3 parallel wire-systems to residences (phone, electrical, cable/internet), living in rural America where the power goes out at least a handful of times a year, we find it helpful to KEEP a pots phone account just as a backup for emergencies.*
*for those who don't know, pots phones carry their OWN CURRENT; so even if power is out, you can still make calls (to say nothing of disregarding the congestion/power status of local cell towers)....at least up until the point that the local telco converts pots to VOIP at switch-stations.
-Styopa
Land lines can accept Collect Calls. Where the person calling you might be stuck in a situation where they are far away, and can't afford to pay for a call (such as a pay phone, stuck in a prison, in jail for some reason). They can ask the operator to reverse the charges, so that you, the one receiving the call, can talk to that person.
VOIP phones don't have the billing infrastructure and laws/regulations that require they have this ability. As a result, loss of land lines means less and less ability for a family member to be able to reach you in an unexpectedly harsh emergency.
The only reason I still have a land line is because this happened to me. A family member ended up in jail, and the only way that they were able to call and let me know was because I had a land line. If I hadn't had one, I suppose I would have found out... eventually? Somehow? It's hard to say.
I really feel like we're losing something, and not many people are giving serious thought to this particular service, because it's so rarely used, and hard to predict what conditions would have to happen for it to be useful.
splunge (n) -- A good idea.. but it could be lousy... and I'm not being indecisive!
So... does this mean BT will actually introduce IPv6 for consumers or will it be a VPN type of deal for the VoIP channel and we'll still be praying for IPv6 in the year 3000?
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
but in America poor rural areas might be a couple weeks without power following a major disaster. Heck, parts of Puerto Rico still don't have power...
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Sucks if you care about connection reliability too: in the states the POTS landlines have a government mandated 5x9s of reliability while internet and power companies offer no guarantee and the government refuses to enforce any basic quality of service.
a month ago I was given an adapter to plug into my VDSL router and told that the telephone exchange was being shut down. NZ has old neax exchanges that are not supported anymore. I think this will be pushed fairly quickly where they can in NZ so they can keep salvages exchange parts for rural exchanges.
I have put my router on a UPS for the power cut issue,
Apparently fibre will be here soon. the cable has been layed down the street.
There is no such thing as a "LAN Line", you dumb bastard. "Land line" is the term your stupid ass didn't know.
Well they better get a move on because the end level fibre coverage is awful in UK. Maybe they could fix the roads while they are at it.
BT is just terrible about DID (phone number) portability. It's like pulling teeth from a shark. If they go VOIP, they really need to get their act together on DID portability.