Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => Ctrl-Alt-Del => Topic started by: Jaded on 26 February, 2021, 12:59:44 pm
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Finally have decided to stop with BT (after mumble-crikey years!) and go VOIP with my ISP, a favourite of this parish.
One of the things that helped me decide, apart from the usurious BT grasp, was setting up and seeing a VOIP helpline being used during lockdowns in our town, all calls dealt with remotely by the staff team.
TBH we could probably go without the "landline" but for the elderly friends and relatives that have the number. Maybe VOIP is the first step to getting the number permanently diverted to mobiles.
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You can’t actually go without a landline yet, as I believe that the telephone number is still used as the primary identifier. I can’t imagine that it’s far off though because fibre has largely made the concept irrelevant. It makes me quite nostalgic.
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Yes, I guess my terminology was a bit loose - we still have a copper pair, for the broadband (that also brings the VOIP).
Copper pair with the ISP and the costs of calls in the new regime = half the cost of BT.
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You can’t actually go without a landline yet, as I believe that the telephone number is still used as the primary identifier. I can’t imagine that it’s far off though because fibre has largely made the concept irrelevant. It makes me quite nostalgic.
I think that may have changed. I haven't been required to provide a landline number for any purpose since ditching it a year ago - maybe because I haven't tried to take out credit, but who knows. I've certainly obtained a new passport, opened new banking accounts, etc without issue.
In the old days a land line number was certainly a help in certain situations, but as you say it's totally anachronistic now and it only makes sense that's reflected in the way we do things.
Virgin Media wanted to charge me an additional £12 pm for ditching it, even though it never worked despite dozens of engineer visits. I complained vigorously until they backed down ;D Still on the same rate mind - no reduction. Bastards.
BTW VOIP just doesn't work for me, even though all the setting are as they should be. Samsung S10 - VM fibre broadband - EE 4G
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Hmm, I'd like to stop paying for a landline (the internets come via the phone line, of course), the last time I checked, it didn't seem possible. I never use it and the only calls I get are spam or a dizzy woman looking for Kevin because 'it's the number he gave me.' I can say after six months of these calls that Kevin just isn't that into you.
It's a service I don't want, all my calls are by mobile or the internet. To be honest, I use bugger all minutes on the mobile too.
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We've been doing this for a few years now, ever since NGT (https://www.relayuk.bt.com/)[1] made it possible to use an internet client for textphone calls rather than a retro 1970-technology Minicom on a BT[2] analogue line.
We're not big voice telephony users. I pretty much only use it to deal with luddite bureaucratic organisations like banks, government departments and the NHS who can't cope with more civilised forms of communication. Barakta uses it with an amplified phone to talk to her mum and a couple of patient friends who struggle to access text for disability reasons.
As a side effect of general mucking about with Asterisk, it became readily apparent that the signal:noise ratio was much better on SIP (using the G.711 codecs to Sipgate) than it was on the BT analogue line, which makes all the difference in terms of barakta being able to hear (we both struggle to hear if there's any GSM involved, which rules out mobile phones). When we no longer needed POTS for the Minicom, we got AAISP to take over the line as a broadband-only[3] service. And just like that, the spam calls stopped.
Sipgate isn't landline-levels of reliable, but that's fine for our purposes. PAYG suits our low level of useage.
So yeah, VOIP can work well, but my general advice would be:
- Use proper standards-based VOIP, not proprietary solutions like Skype.
- Use dedicated hardware phones if possible. Soft phones on the desktop are faff to answer (hearing people only give you a few seconds to answer a phone these days), and smartphone implementations are dubious bordering on broken. You can get Snom 300s for under 20 quid on eBay.
- I've never met an ATA that I actually liked.
- You need a decent internet connection. WiFi is best avoided, and it works much better if you either have traffic shaping at each end to prioritise the VOIP packets, or enough bandwidth that the link never becomes congested.
[1] Or whatever they've re-branded as this 5 minutes.
[2] And it pretty much had to be BT, otherwise you couldn't use the 1800X prefixes to route the call through relay.
[3] It provides VDSL in the usual way. If you plug a telephone into the line you get a recorded message telling the engineer what line it is and not to steal the pair. We pay about a quid less per month for this than we would for a voice-calls provider, because that's how Openreach charge for the infrastructure.
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https://www.virtuallandline.co.uk/
We transferred to this lot about 6 months ago. We went with the UK unlimited package at £7.95 a month, although for a reason that I cannot fathom, they are charging us £7.96 a month. The OCD isn't strong enough yet for me to ask for a refund of the 6p.
I found it quite amusing that someone had set up her mother in Poland with a Colchester dialling code.
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I assume the standing charge for the landline also pays for the broadband connection (as it's the same line) but really, I just want to pay the one fee for the broadband and ditch the landline phone. That still seems impossibolium.
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We've got a couple of DECT phones already, so one more as a package with the new VIOP base is fine. AAISP are the providers, and so it's proper stuff. I'm Well used to Skype and other variables...
Yes, we will be charged an amount per month for the copper pair that bring the Broadband.
The most exciting thing is the new Control Panel items form AAISP, which will take several coffees to understand :thumbsup:
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I assume the standing charge for the landline also pays for the broadband connection (as it's the same line) but really, I just want to pay the one fee for the broadband and ditch the landline phone. That still seems impossibolium.
$Telco wants to provide you with service using BT infrastructure. They have to pay Openreach:
A fee for the line, which includes POTS backhaul on that line.
A fee for broadband backhaul on that line.
Most of them recoup the former by providing a voice call service, but they don't have to. You can get broadband from AAISP without the phone, but they pass on the cost of renting the copper pair from Openreach.
The alternative is not using Openreach infrastructure. But apart from Virign Media, who like to bundle internet access up with phone and TV packages you don't want, that probably involves digging holes, sticking aerials on the roof or moving to Hull or something.
I blame Thatcher.
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I used to have a BT Landline and BT ADSL. The ADSL in my area of London is known to be atrocious. Hyperoptic came in and put a router cabinet in the basement and a Cat 5 connection to each apartment. We have a Cat5 connected wireless hub and the internet is rock solid and high bandwidth. So far so good
Mrs Scum has an alarm call button so we maintained the BT landline for years. I finally tired of was a paying for their call packages of 'free calls at the weekend' or whatever, as we never used the landline much. SO I changed to the Hyperotpic phone service also which is 3 QUID a month. SO we get 50MB internet plus phoen for 25 quid a month.
the phone handset plugs into the back of the wireless router.
I found that to get the alarm call system to work I had to buy a handset from Amazon, cost about ten quid. Works perfectly.
Hyperoptic on request supplied a small UPS battery which I think runs for a couple of hours.
I honestly don't worry about having an alarm button on VOIP - Mrs Scum also has a mobile .
SO my advice for anyoen in the same situation - go for it and get a UPS battery, probably one of the larger APC mains units.
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You can of course go satellite broadband if you want to ditch the landline and can’t get “cable”. Not cheap though, at around £50/month for 50mbps.
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I blame Thatcher.
She’s got a lot to answer for in terms of setting back utility development in the U.K. all in the name of consumer ‘choice’. In terms of telecoms, post office telecommunications (as it was then) had already built the manufacturing facilities for the fibre chips and had advanced plans for universal fibre to the prem, (FTTP) when she was first elected and ordered the creation of BT, the setting up of the duopoly and the killing of the FTTP programme so that Mercury could ‘compete’ with BT. </rant>
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You can of course go satellite broadband if you want to ditch the landline and can’t get “cable”. Not cheap though, at around £50/month for 50mbps.
I think the latency would make VoIP pretty horrible.
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We have the choice of Openreach or Openreach (which incidentally, sounds like a sex act). Basically, every option seems to involve voice and super-duper 'free calls at the weekend.' I don't want to talk to people Monday through Friday, so I'm not doing it at the weekend. I've turned the ringer off, I'm tired of telling that woman that Kevin doesn't live here and no, it's really not his number. When my wife gets calls on her work mobile for the person who evidently had the number before, she's taken to saying, in a sad voice, 'Sorry to tell you like this, but Robert passed away.' Crazy Kevin Lady sounds a bit elderly, so I'm not that mean. Kevin can't call, he's in a coma.
Cable operators are too scared of the bears to come up the hill (ironically, there's a cable duct from 'Mercury Telecommunications' on the verge outside, but I can confirm that it's empty of any cables or fibreopticals because I fell down the hole once.
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Pretty much wot Kim said
I've been using a mixture of Sipgate and Draytel for Voip /SIP voice telephony for a few years now.
Generally cheaper than landline and perfectly reliable.
We use a Siemens DECT unit that routes our calls onto the relevant provider, not that we make or receive many calls.
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EE will also sell you Openreach broadband, without a landline. Though not sure if its really much cheaper, maybe £1 or so per month.
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D's been suggesting we don't need our landline but I'm a Luddite and I like my landline for calling my parents.
It struck me that our alarm system (intruder/fire/PANIC) is wired to the landline, though I know it also has a SIM for mobile network. Do you have an alarm, or anything else wired to your landline that you might have forgotten?
I'm still quite fond of having telephony independent of mains electricity.
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It struck me that our alarm system (intruder/fire/PANIC) is wired to the landline, though I know it also has a SIM for mobile network. Do you have an alarm, or anything else wired to your landline that you might have forgotten?
$ky boxes used to be a sticking point. Presumably they just phone home over the internets these days.
I'm still quite fond of having telephony independent of mains electricity.
Mobile phones cover this well enough in most scenarios. Obviously if that's not an option (eg. you live somewhere with no mobile coverage), some consideration for what happens when the mains fails is prudent. I assume that whenever our-favourite-telco start replacing copper pairs with fibre, they'll be installing some battery backup at the customer's end.
Our VOIP kit has UPS backup, as it's sharing infrastructure (server and networking) with the alerting system.
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Mobile phones cover this well enough in most scenarios. Obviously if that's not an option (eg. you live somewhere with no mobile coverage), some consideration for what happens when the mains fails is prudent. I assume that whenever our-favourite-telco start replacing copper pairs with fibre, they'll be installing some battery backup at the customer's end.
Openreach used to supply a battery backup with FTTP as standard. But it seems they stopped that a few years ago. It might still be available for vulnerable people, or those without a mobile signal etc.
Also means don't need to install such a big box on your wall.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/10/openreach-to-stop-providing-battery-backup-for-fttp-broadband.html
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I'm still quite fond of having telephony independent of mains electricity.
... I assume that whenever our-favourite-telco start replacing copper pairs with fibre, they'll be installing some battery backup at the customer's end.
AIUI the fibre cabinets have battery backup, but it's only good for about an hour(1) or so. Fine for brown-outs and blips, but not much cop in the sort of mess that the Texians seem to have got themselves into and I can't imagine TelCos supplying homes with decent battery backup - too expensive - and I don't suppose the towers for portable telephones have much in the way of battery backup(2) either.
(1) Sits back and waits to be corrected by someone who knows more. :)
(2) As (1).
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Fun fact. Once upon the old days, even before I was a junior telephone engineer in the making, the GPO used to provide batteries at subscribers premises when they were a long way away from the exchange. In this case, the exchange was where the local source of gossip worked as the village telephone
exchange operator.
When cordless phones were first introduced there was a rule that said you could not have just a cordless phone and you had to have at least one corded phone to provide you with the capability of calling 999 in the event of a power cut. I imagine that it was a similar driver that required the inclusion of ups batteries in the early FTTP kit. This whole requirement has probably been quietly dropped as the GPO has lost more and more control of CPE requirements. A win for consumer freedoms.
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https://www.virtuallandline.co.uk/
We transferred to this lot about 6 months ago. We went with the UK unlimited package at £7.95 a month, although for a reason that I cannot fathom, they are charging us £7.96 a month. The OCD isn't strong enough yet for me to ask for a refund of the 6p.
I found it quite amusing that someone had set up her mother in Poland with a Colchester dialling code.
Could you get an EU passport that way?
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Mobile phones cover this well enough in most scenarios. Obviously if that's not an option (eg. you live somewhere with no mobile coverage), some consideration for what happens when the mains fails is prudent. I assume that whenever our-favourite-telco start replacing copper pairs with fibre, they'll be installing some battery backup at the customer's end.
Openreach used to supply a battery backup with FTTP as standard. But it seems they stopped that a few years ago. It might still be available for vulnerable people, or those without a mobile signal etc.
Also means don't need to install such a big box on your wall.
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/10/openreach-to-stop-providing-battery-backup-for-fttp-broadband.html
I appear to have one with battery backup, installed in March 2018 (was supposed to be February, but hey, BT don't care about appointments). Just how are these batteries supposed to be "user replaceable" considering there appears to be no way into the box they're in? all sortsof tugging, jiggling, pulling and persuading have been tried...
I'm also not clear on just what they are powering. I'm sort of assuming its the actual connection, so a phone line connected will work? Obviously no broadband, as the router will just die with no power, as it has done on several occasions. We only have DECT phones, but do have an emergency wired phone in a drawer. Rubbish mobile signal here.
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Worth noting, Virgin Media do provide a broadband only package.
Looks like BT are even offering broadband only deals now: https://www.bt.com/products/broadband-deal/broadband-only. There will be no dial tone and no ability to make calls over the copper pair.
We do have a landline. It is never used. I was though about setting up a VOIP phone, but I think it could be less reliable than the service we get from our mobile providers, at least based on the experience provisioning it at work with an external provider.
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I'm still quite fond of having telephony independent of mains electricity.
Mobile phones cover this well enough in most scenarios. Obviously if that's not an option (eg. you live somewhere with no mobile coverage), some consideration for what happens when the mains fails is prudent. I assume that whenever our-favourite-telco start replacing copper pairs with fibre, they'll be installing some battery backup at the customer's end.
Careful, Kim. Your unwarranted faith in the good sense of large organizations is showing.
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We have three boxes on the window sill. Two are phone sockets, one labelled BT, the other Telewest Broadband. We've never plugged anything into either of them and it doesn't appear as if the BT socket is actually connected to the outside world. There's also what looks like a TV aerial socket, also labelled Telewest Broadband. We've never plugged anything into that either.
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If people are really interested in battery backups, the requirement is set by Ofcom and is (or was anyway) a regulatory requirement that people could still call 999 when there's a powercut. I've not kept up with their latest thinking, when it was first introduced you had to have an hours battery to run the bit of kit in your house that a corded phone could connect to.
The most recent guidance I could find is here https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/123118/guidance-emergency-access-power-cut.pdf which I think says the one hour thing still stands in most cases.
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When we had FTTP installed* we were told that the terminating box also had a POTS interface on it (with our landline number attached), if we wanted to use that instead of the (antiquated) cable to another part of the house.
So far I haven't taken them up on that, but might when we have our next office re-shuffle as the fibre enters the building in the corner of the office.
*1928 detached, no FTTC to the street, but FTTP is, go figure
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My BT-supplied FTTP termination box has what appears to be a standard phone socket next to the Ethernet one and I really ought to get round to finding out whether I can transfer my landline to it and dispense with the copper string altogether. Unlike most of you tragically hip sorts I do actually use mine as I know where it is at all times and don’t keep forgetting to resupply it with fresh voles.
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I'm officially puzzled now. My phone is plugged into that phone socket alongside the ethernet port in the modem thingy. We are fibre only, no copper wire at all. So, surely this business of going VOIP whether I like it or not, won't actually affect anything? I'm game for new DECT-ish phones anyway, sometime in the next couple of years, I'm fed up with my shitty Panasonics.
Idiot question 2. OK, so maybe I have a power cut, so my router dies. The modem box has battery backup (2018 install) so if I plugged my PC ethernet cable directly into the modem and ignored the dead router, would this work? I've never been sure what a router does, but if it just spreads the electronovoles around, then surely I can have one connection? As the mobile signal is shite here, some form of connection to the outside world would be important.
I eventually found the access to the AA cells in the battery backup box, took some doing...
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Idiot question 2. OK, so maybe I have a power cut, so my router dies. The modem box has battery backup (2018 install) so if I plugged my PC ethernet cable directly into the modem and ignored the dead router, would this work?
Not without some re-configuring your PC.
Where you have a separate modem and router, the router has your ISP username and password, handles the login and sets up the PPPoE session acting as the PPPoE endpoint.
You'd need to configure a PPPoE client on the PC, and enter your ISP username/password here.
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I'm officially puzzled now. My phone is plugged into that phone socket alongside the ethernet port in the modem thingy. We are fibre only, no copper wire at all. So, surely this business of going VOIP whether I like it or not, won't actually affect anything? I'm game for new DECT-ish phones anyway, sometime in the next couple of years, I'm fed up with my shitty Panasonics.
Seems Openreach used to provide a Fibre Voice Access (FVA) service. Basically means the FTTP modem has a built in analogue telephone adapter. But that has now been discontinued, the latest FTTP modems don't have any phone port. And it may be switched off for existing customers at some point.
https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/product-withdrawal/fibre-voice-access
So it is now up to the ISP as to whether they provide any VOIP service.
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Ah, thanks, thats very helpful (which is far more than can be said for BT). So at some point, I change to VOIP telephony, I assume it will need an ethernet type port. Wonder if BT will give me a new router with more than the measly 3 ports my current superhub has? Its a pathetic thing, with the weediest wifi on the planet, yet it puts out BT fon, and BT wifi X whatever they are, which I can't turn off, and can't access. I think they're meant to provide a wifi service to passing folk, but the signal wouldn't reach the road, and I don't think John's sheep have smartphones.
I'll do a bit of basic research on VOIP telephony, I gather some DECT phones can also use VOIP.
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I'll do a bit of basic research on VOIP telephony, I gather some DECT phones can also use VOIP.
As mentioned up there I use a Siemens DECT set up with SIP capabilities. I /think/ their sip versions give it away by having - sip in the model number.
I'm on my second iteration of the seimens phone hub if that's a recommendation.
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And it is done!
Seems to ring the phone quicker than the old way. And I get instant an call log on AAISP's Control Pages.
I've registered the older DECT phones on the new base, and they've got odd ring tones, so I'll have to reset them...
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Ooooh! Exciting! I can call myself!!!
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Ooooh! Exciting! I can call myself!!!
Have you got an exciting name to call yourself? ;)
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Just made my first chargeable call.
The cost? 5.9604p ;D
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Jaded, I hope you don't mind me asking a Q here as my issue is sort of similar.
We have just moved our business back to our home office. We have a BT Cloudphone service with 2 handsets (Yealink) and an app on my phone (I can make and receive business calls anywhere, even on my bike[1] - yay!).
I was hoping to just end the broadband service part of our BT bundle and just continue with the Cloudphone part. The man at BT says no - I also need BT broadband otherwise the CP will stop working[2]. It works here though[3].
So, I'm a but stuck as to where to go. I have no problem with the BT CP system, and it's not expensive. Can the panel recommend an alternative to BT Cloudphone? The mobile app bit is the clincher here.
[1] I did so just the other day 8)
[2] I'm confused by this. It's clearly not the full Nimbo-Cumulos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abFJuqp867g) type of cloud ???. If I can receive a call on my mobile why can't the base-station/handsets be reached on a land-based part of th'Internet? Devices locked to the BT network? Probably.
[3] Our BB is supplied by JL, which is re-branded Plus.net. I guess we're currently on BT BB after all so I can't disprove his comment (it's probably a moot point anyway).
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Hi,
Quick answer, I haven't set mine up to do anything other than go to voicemail if it isn't answered. (That voicemail is then emailed to me as an fps, which is really useful)
Looking at the instructions, I can have the system ring other numbers, and set a time delay. e.g. ring my mobile after 15 seconds. I'm guessing that I can then answer on my mobile. That costs what it would normally to call my mobile. I haven't tried this, but will do, as it looks useful. I doubt that I can make calls that appear to be from the landline.
My VOIP is provided by my BB supplier, AAISP.
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The app that BT uses just creates an additional handset, but one that you can answer anywhere. It's not a call re-direct so no additional charges involved. You should ask your provider if they offer something similar.
I've just noticed that the BT app is provided by RingCentral. I have therefore contacted them to see what they can offer.
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Is this the same as going digital? BT have just told me that we are going digital and will need a new adapter. Apparently it is called digital voice.
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I use BT for the internet but haven't had a phone attached to the landline since June 2019. Use mobile/VoIP for all calls. Mobile reception is not as good in Clarencefield (where I'll be when I finally manage to get the cottage finished) but the internet speed is better than in Dumfries- will have to look at other options then.
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Is this the same as going digital? BT have just told me that we are going digital and will need a new adapter. Apparently it is called digital voice.
Phone lines (POTS or Plain Old Telephone System) is a pair of copper wires designed to take signals at audio frequencies. Tapping a phone line consisted of connecting headphones to the phone line. The ringing comes from 80 ish volts of ac, which actually powers the bells (for the half-dozen subscribers in the UK who still have phones with actual bells)
For 2 decades now, ADSL or FTTC has put higher frequencies on the same copper wires. The copper wires are not the best for high frequencies, but it is all that is available. The data carried by those far exceeds the data carried by audio frequency signals, so there doesn't seem to be much point to put in cables and systems that are designed for the audio. It makes a lot more sense to have cable better suited to high frequencies, and the electronics no longer has to keep on working with an 80 V ac on the wires if the POTS doesn't have to work.
Of course as soon as that is done, POTS won't work. However a VOIP to POTS adapter will be fairly trivial to engineer.
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"Going digital" probably means something specific to our-favourite-telco's marketroids. But they're probably about 12 and don't remember ISDN.
It probably means either VOIP generally, a specialist POTS-replacement VOIP service to accompany FTTP, or a VOIP product they're pushing this week. Who's to say? No technical term survives contact with Marketing.
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However a VOIP to POTS adapter will be fairly trivial to engineer.
They're called ATAs and they're almost universally awful. Much better to use an IP handset, unless you have very specific needs.
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Is this the same as going digital? BT have just told me that we are going digital and will need a new adapter. Apparently it is called digital voice.
I'd guess it's this transition : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58233420 or https://digitalwholesalesolutions.com/2019/10/the-bt-openreach-pstn-and-isdn-2025-switch-off/
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Openreach are adamant the December 2025 deadline is set in stone. Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) Lines that have not migrated to alterative services in April 2025 will be deemed as Orphaned Assets and Openreach intend to work with CPs to identify and migrate these customer to alternative products by the December 2025 deadline so they do not lose service. The actions to be taken are yet to be defined and the difficulties identifying the use of the line, and in some cases the end user customer, along with the contractual agreement to move is still to be confirmed but be assured, services will be withdrawn and customers will be impacted should they not move in time.
This means alarm line companies, payment terminals, traffic light systems, payphone lines, emergency pendants, dialysis machines, telemetry devices
I see this going roughly as well as when they planned to switch off FM radio in 2015, and that wouldn’t have broken any dialysis machines.
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https://www.virtuallandline.co.uk/
We transferred to this lot about 6 months ago. We went with the UK unlimited package at £7.95 a month, although for a reason that I cannot fathom, they are charging us £7.96 a month. The OCD isn't strong enough yet for me to ask for a refund of the 6p.
I found it quite amusing that someone had set up her mother in Poland with a Colchester dialling code.
Thread necromancy.
How's it going with Virtual Landline, WB? Can you load the app on more than one device with the package you have?
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Well, it works using the dongly thing* that's plugged into the server. That is then linked to a set of 4 handsets throughout the house. If someone calls and it rings for a give time (20 seconds I think) it automatically passes to my mobile.
Even though we have our internet connection provided using a SIM, we have had no problem whatever with the "landline", which some suggested might be the case. I think clever people like Kim talked about something called "latency", but, being an ignorant luddite, I don't know what that is, and it hasn't bothered me anyway. One quirk of the system is that, because our phone is an 01702 (Southend) number, it's not connected to the exchange so if I want to phone another Southend number I still have to use the dialling code.
*I think they call it a "Buzzbox".
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I think clever people like Kim talked about something called "latency", but, being an ignorant luddite, I don't know what that is, and it hasn't bothered me anyway.
Literally the time taken for a message to get from one end of the connection to another.
With a baked-bean-tin telephone, the sound travels at the speed of sound in string. With an analogue electric telephone, the change in voltage travels down the wires at the speed of light[1]. Once you start doing things digitally, it takes a little time to convert from analogue to digital and back at each end, but not enough that it becomes a problem.
What really slows things down is when you take that digital datastream, break it into convenient chunks, stick extra data on there to say where it's supposed to go and send it out on a network[2] that operates more like a postal service than a series of tubes[3]. And then stick it back together in the right order at the other end. Sometimes a packet might go the long way round. Or get lost. Or be duplicated. Or a load of them get backed up and all arrive at once, like buses. There are various coping strategies, mostly involving keeping a buffer of to-be-processed data at the receiving end to even out the flow. But that means the data that arrives on time has to wait in the buffer, which adds to the total journey time. (This applies to any kind of data, but it's only usually a problem with things that have to be responsive in real time like telephone calls, telnet/ssh sessions or video games. If a web page takes half a second to start loading, you probably won't notice.)
For voice/video, latency becomes noticeable when it's in the few-tenths-of-a-second range, and makes a conversation seem stilted.
Historically, cellular connections have had vastly more latency[4] than wired broadband, but it seems to have greatly improved in the 4G era. You can still get inconsistent latency if you're using the connection while moving around, due to the vagaries of hand-over from one cell to the next.
That it hasn't been a problem is a testament to the performance of the network.
[1] In copper, which is a bit slower than the speed of light in a vacuum[5].
[2] Eg. The Internet.
[3] ©2006 Ted Stevens
[4] When I first got a mobile phone that could do such things, the round trip time could be of the order of seconds. You could type a command at a command line, and watch the characters appear one at a time a second or two later.
[5] Which can itself start to be a problem if your signal has to travel tens of thousands of miles, eg. out to a geostationary satellite and back (these days a sufficiency of undersea optical fibre means that most telecoms generally don't).
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Well, it works using the dongly thing* that's plugged into the server. That is then linked to a set of 4 handsets throughout the house. If someone calls and it rings for a give time (20 seconds I think) it automatically passes to my mobile.
That's exactly like the system we have for our business (we also have to dial local numbers with the area code). Good to know, thanks :thumbsup:. VL is possibly a bit cheaper though as we don't want to spend much on a "landline" number when the only person who calls it is my mother...
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*I think they call it a "Buzzbox".
Never mind the Buzzbox, here's the Short Message Service!
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Since 2am this morning we are a landlineless household.
Broadband is now dedicated fibre to premises from Litfibre (100 both ways for £0/month for 6 months, then £20/month for another 18 months)
"Landline" calls are brought to us via our old number, ported to Localphone as an incoming number ($25 porting fee and 99p/month (both plus VAT)) all seems to work.
We have had a Gigaset combined VoIP and landline phone for a while and we have used Localphone for outgoing calls for a long time with no issues.
I have discount links for both services if you are interested.
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Oddly I received a letter today from BT telling me I am being upgraded to fibre to the house for free and my PSTN will be delivered over it as a result... which is interesting as I was just about to make the jump to FTTP so now don't have to bother!
We don't use our landline though we still pay for it, it just gets the odd spam call and thats it, so I might use this oppertunity to ditch it too. Last time I looked into FTTP and ditching the PSTN line as it had just become an option, it didn't seem much of a saving over the line rental aspect. Getting FTTP for free however probably makes it worthwhile now!
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I'm months into losing landline, phone and broadband and going all out 5g. So far no issues. It's £20 for speeds that range from 300-700 mbs.
Only thing I've noticed was occasional buffering on iPlayer solved by rebooting
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Oddly I received a letter today from BT telling me I am being upgraded to fibre to the house for free and my PSTN will be delivered over it as a result... which is interesting as I was just about to make the jump to FTTP so now don't have to bother!
We don't use our landline though we still pay for it, it just gets the odd spam call and thats it, so I might use this oppertunity to ditch it too. Last time I looked into FTTP and ditching the PSTN line as it had just become an option, it didn't seem much of a saving over the line rental aspect. Getting FTTP for free however probably makes it worthwhile now!
Have look at lit, good deals on the website, even better if you deal with the local salesman.
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If you are with BT you will be updated to the smart hub 2, as a friend has. Doesn't seem to be a great hub.
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They've sent me a Smart Hub 2. It's still in its box.
I think we already have a Smart Hub 4 and, after we received it last year, David spent AGES fettling settings to get all his equipment to work.
I'm expecting switchover to Digital Voice imminently 'within the next 48 hours' about 36 hours ago.
If the phones work on the hub we have, can you see any reason why I should unbox the Smart Hub 2?
BT say they'll charge me £50 if I don't return the Smart Hub 4 and have provided an unpadded bag for its return. (Who puts anything fragile in the post if they want it to remain serviceable?) I'm willing to argue the toss with BT if need be and spend ages on the phone, before I return their unopened box.
I'd REALLY rather not swap hubs if I don't have to!
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I think you have a Home hub 4, and the Smart hub 2 is more advanced, and crucially has the green DECT socket on the back, so yes, I think you’ll need to swap over to the new hub.
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There's a phone socket in the back, cunningly hidden by a sticker, which D removed, marked 'Digital Voice Only'...
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There's a phone socket in the back, cunningly hidden by a sticker, which D removed, marked 'Digital Voice Only'...
Yebut although it may contain the necessary hardware, it won't be pre-configured with the necessary VoIP settings, which the new one will...
So you'd need to know all the SIP server settings, which you probably don't.
And it's also possible that the VoIP SIP settings are not even exposed in the config pages, so you can't enable it even if you did know the settings.
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Aaah thanks!
Why is this not explained anywhere?
I don't think they've activated Digital Voice yet & it was supposed to be last Thursday...
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Aaah thanks!
Why is this not explained anywhere?
Marketing. Which is also why they use made-up confusing terms like "Digital Voice" rather than calling it SIP.
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To be fair the BT page showing all their hubs is quite clear that only the Smart Hub 2 has phone capability, and the Home Hub 4 manual illustrations don’t show a socket. I suspect the manufacturer was just using common parts for different customers hence your Home Hub having the hidden socket.
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And the customer is always LAST…
David's time is not factored at all.
I've got the old hub's website up and hopefully, if we print out all the settings, D can copy them into the new hub.
D has manflu and the weather is foul, if mild here, which won't help with a smooth transition. We'll need to check/test computers etc in the outhouses.
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And the customer is always LAST…
David's time is not factored at all.
I've got the old hub's website up and hopefully, if we print out all the settings, D can copy them into the new hub.
D has manflu and the weather is foul, if mild here, which won't help with a smooth transition. We'll need to check/test computers etc in the outhouses.
As a mainstream provider their priority is, understandably, providing something that Just Works out-of-the-box for a typical customer who doesn't know what WiFi means. Technical customers who care about what IP addresses get allocated to what on their internal network are sidelined, because they're a minority who'll either cope and grumble or go elsewhere without making a dent in the bottom line.
If you're a technical customer who want an ISP that won't fuck you around, AAISP or Zen or whatever do exist.
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There's a phone socket in the back, cunningly hidden by a sticker, which D removed, marked 'Digital Voice Only'...
Oh, and also..
BT have history of this. The original BT Openreach branded VDSL modems had two LAN ports on the back, the second of which allowed access to the config pages where you could see sync speed, error rates etc. This had a sticker over it, saying 'LAN 2 not in use'.
If you removed the sticker and tried to access the config pages, they were not there. BT had put on a custom firmware to disable this. So to see things like sync speed etc, you had to re-flash the device with the manufacturer's stock firmware, then manually re-configure it to connect to BT.
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Those (HG612s) were good. The later model with the non-overheating power supply, anyway. You could, with a bit of fiddling, set things up so that you could access the stats and config pages via the same port as the PPPoE.
Mine's redundant now we've got FTTP, but I'm hanging onto it in case of house moves.
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We drop our landline on Friday and it is a gamble for us as our mobile signal can be pretty erratic at times. We are now out of contract with BT after the obligatory 2 years for getting FTTP which is fair enough all in all. So we are leaving a £65 a month landline and 150 meg deal for Sky BB only 500meg at £34 a month.
Time will tell if it's actually a good move or not.
Pete
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I presume we need a new BT hub, not looked at the current one as it's at the back of the cupboard under the stairs where even spiders fear to tread, but it must be 10 years' old (it's just a modem, the wifi is handled elsewhere). Honestly, I'd dump the landline, but my wife seems to believe there are still people out there who might need to reach us who don't have our mobile numbers. I don't think there are.
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We only have FTTC (Vodafone - and that was only made available in the village a couple of years ago) although FTTP is now available from an outfit called Gigaclear. BT aren’t interested in providing the infrastructure around here (and even in the neighbouring village, population c6000 its Gigaclear and Trooli laying the fibre). I assume that when BT drops copper around here we’ll lose the FTTC and have to migrate to FTTP anyway. I’m guessing my wife will still want a landline, despite having a mobile. Having said that, as a power cut will render the “landline” useless (as it does the current cordless handsets but we have a corded backup for power cut duty) I can’t see the value, it’s just tradition. She’ll have to learn her number tho, at present she only knows the landline and it’s simple. OTOH a basic VoIP package is £3 a month. We’ll see.
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Last week's long overdue server upgrade meant the enforced retirement of the TDM400 PCI card that was responsible for driving our one remaining analogue phone. A Geemarc Screenphone which is notable for a) being enormous b) allowing you to make textphone calls with the aid of a PS/2 keyboard[1] and d) the volume going to 11. The screen is b0rked, so we're giving it to Mrs-Barakta's-Mum who would benefit from LOUD but doesn't care about such things as Caller ID or directory functions.
Barakta now has a Snom300 (a proper, if rather old, SIP phone that can be obtained cheaply on eBay) on her desk, with one of those Sarabec inline amplifiers that - instead of amplifying - it wired to divert the earphone audio to the little mixing desk that feeds her BAHA streamer. This appears to work surprisingly well - not least because she's no longer trying to couple the telephone's handset to her BAHA's mic without feedback.
Anyway, I can't help feeling that it's a tremendous amount of effort to go to in order to make calls to:
a) The unavoidable beaurocratic organisations that insist on telephony
b) The boomers with cruddy DECT (or worse, cellular) phones who insist on paying to use the PSTN to conduct a restricted-bandwidth audio call where a much better quality audio (and indeed video) call could be made for free over the internet using any of the dozen applications that people are now used to using for such things.
How long until voice telephony goes the way of fax?
[1] Remember those?
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It does seem pointless, I have no wish to deal with anyone by phone (I'm not sure why so many organizations insist on me calling them, surely doing it asynchronously is more efficient for both me and them), I gave up recently with HMRC on account there was no wait time <40 minutes and wrote and mailed a proper letter (how much is a stamp these days!) since there seemed to be no other way to communicate with them. I say communicate, this assumes they ever respond. Ironically, the correspondence is about a cheque.
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People will always want to talk to each other, so there will be telephony of some sort, be it over copper wire, tin cans and string, or whatever the internet morphs into. It might come with or without video, tactile and olfactory elements.
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People will always want to talk to each other, so there will be telephony of some sort, be it over copper wire, tin cans and string, or whatever the internet morphs into. It might come with or without video, tactile and olfactory elements.
Sure, but voice-over-PSTN (and with it, the PSTN itself) is Shirley on a collision course for obscurity. Though it will no doubt linger on well past its obsolescence in some of those afore-mentioned bureaucracies.
Prediction: The NHS app will at some point provide a voice call function, in order for ill people to sit and listen to their GP's hold message at 8am.
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It does seem pointless, I have no wish to deal with anyone by phone (I'm not sure why so many organizations insist on me calling them, surely doing it asynchronously is more efficient for both me and them), I gave up recently with HMRC on account there was no wait time <40 minutes and wrote and mailed a proper letter (how much is a stamp these days!) since there seemed to be no other way to communicate with them. I say communicate, this assumes they ever respond. Ironically, the correspondence is about a cheque.
They have a chat bot which, if you tell it you need to speak to an advisor, will put you through to a person to exchange messages with.
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It does seem pointless, I have no wish to deal with anyone by phone (I'm not sure why so many organizations insist on me calling them, surely doing it asynchronously is more efficient for both me and them), I gave up recently with HMRC on account there was no wait time <40 minutes and wrote and mailed a proper letter (how much is a stamp these days!) since there seemed to be no other way to communicate with them. I say communicate, this assumes they ever respond. Ironically, the correspondence is about a cheque.
They have a chat bot which, if you tell it you need to speak to an advisor, will put you through to a person to exchange messages with.
Hmm, I didn't seem to get that option (I was trying to get them to reissue a cheque and check my tax code – it just kept sending me back to the tax code page, which misunderstood the problem that yes, I can do this, but then they change it – not a biggie, it ultimate all gets addressed when I do the self-assessment).
Still, I'd hazard that if you've a waiting time of >40 minutes, pushing people towards phone enquiries isn't really working.
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I use voice telephony to speak to my aged Mum around six times per week.
I sometimes need to speak to a Real Human. I rescheduled D's dental appointment yesterday and tomorrow I'm going to try to get Sainsbury's to link my Nectar card to my groceries account, as they seem to have come unstuck.
They previously linked OK but I can't seem to resume a broken link.
I prefer the ergonomics of my landline handset to those of my little dumbphone.
I suppose I'm a Luddite...
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I gave up my landline in 2004 when I moved home and went with the local cable company for internet only. Then, in 2010 I moved home and cable wasn’t an option so I had a telephone line for internet but never had a phone plugged in.
I then moved again in 2017 . My current ISP is fibre to the premises and offered me a telephone on VOIP. I declined having never used a landline for so long but I always know, if it ever becomes the case, I can have one on VOIP.
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I decided to read some stuff on this, this evening. Then I lost the will to live and gave up.
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I decided to read some stuff on this, this evening. Then I lost the will to live and gave up.
Ditto
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I now have the phone over internet. The old landline phone now plugs into back of router. As a result no longer pay a landline charge , which was about £10 a month.
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BT has just sent an email, reminding me to set up my new hub.
I really don't want to do this until it's daylight and David has the spoons to check all the outhouse peripherals.
I reckon I'll also have to involve the alarm folk and phone them.
There's still no sign they're actually activating Digital Voice.
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It could be (ok, this is BT so who knows…) that they’re waiting to see your new hub on line before activation.
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I decided to read some stuff on this, this evening. Then I lost the will to live and gave up.
Ditto
This is generally my motto.
On other matters, I'm pretty sure I read that the standard burglar alarm call-to-base doesn't work. Doesn't bother me much, as I never had it put back after the refurb, I figure that if the box on the front of the house isn't deterrent enough, any burglar will be gone long before any security service service turns up (and about a week or two before the police).
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It could be (ok, this is BT so who knows…) that they’re waiting to see your new hub on line before activation.
This has crossed my mind.
Point is I have a mobile for voiec calls and setting up the hub's unlikely to be trivially simple, which 'they' don't appreciate..
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Yeah, it seems likely that they're waiting for a SIP registration from the hub before re-routing the incoming calls.
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I've still not heard anything since getting the email 30 Oct.... must have forgotten about me!
We contacted you recently to let you know that we’re rolling out our new home phone service – Digital Voice – in your area. And we want to let you know that you’ll be switched over within the next 30 days.
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I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…
Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?
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I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…
Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?
Not that you'll be swapping routers regularly, but it might simplify matters if, in future, the peripheral equipement was connected to a separate mesh network. Then it's only a matter of changing the single connection 'twixt mesh and hub.
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I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…
Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?
I do but it's more complicated in that I don't use a BT Hub at all (I am still on the standalone ADSL modem) - the router I do use serves static IPs to my astro gear so I just need to arrange for whatever BT provide to act as a dumb pass through. I might ditch the VOIP as absolutely no one other than spam calls our landline and I only have it because you used to have a copper line for the internet - I'll deal with that once it's in else I will just get bounced on to a new contract with them!
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I doubt they've forgotten, just their schedule's are slipping.
No doubt the seasonal weather is causing entirely predictable problems…
Do you have astronomical equipment on your network, J?
Not that you'll be swapping routers regularly, but it might simplify matters if, in future, the peripheral equipement was connected to a separate mesh network. Then it's only a matter of changing the single connection 'twixt mesh and hub.
I think some of D's equipment is on some sort of satellite hub. He's still off-colour & not really up to going out in the cold, damp drizzle.
Still mo switchover...
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I do but it's more complicated in that I don't use a BT Hub at all (I am still on the standalone ADSL modem) - the router I do use serves static IPs to my astro gear so I just need to arrange for whatever BT provide to act as a dumb pass through.
This is by far the more sensible approach, not only because it follows the proven networking principle of use as little BT as possible[1], but it means you maintain full control of things like DHCP and firewall rules, have more scope for doing WiFi properly, and aren't at the mercy of stupid bugs in the ISP-provided hardware[2]. Nobody wants to have to re-structure their network just because their ISP has sent them a new router with different default settings.
[1] Kenny, P. 2002
[2] Even Virgin Media seem to be able to manage a router that can work reliably in bridge mode.
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I'm not really sure what the shutdown of PSTN means for me.
If you are a BT customer for both BB and phone, that's easy: they shift your number onto their SIP platform and give you a hub which has an ATA and everything 'just works' (for certain values of).
But there will be other customers who have a BT landline with a voice service, but a different ISP, so no BT hub or whatever.
I'm in that situation.
Will BT provide a SIP service I can log into using my own hardware (Asterisk Box / IP Phone / ATA / whatever) over my 3rd party ISP to continue my voice service on my landline number?
Or provide a pre-configured ATA I can plug into my existing LAN?
It's not clear to me.
I feel a visit to the IRC AAISP channel coming on.
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For a while the future seemed to be ONTs with an ATA in them, with or without battery backup, but that seems not to be happening (our ONT just has the PPPoE port). It's certainly a good question.
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Another email from BT reminding me to set up new hub by the end of the day to stop me losing my phone.
Seems like it will happen tonight.
Will get printout of old hub settings & leave this till tomorrow...
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Can you not keep the old hub with all its settings but link it to the new hub?
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Can you not keep the old hub with all its settings but link it to the new hub?
I expect so, but you'd have to reconfigure it, and then you've got two points of failure and twice as much power consumption in order to save you from *checks notes* ...having to do some reconfiguration.
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After 3 calls, BT now say the old hub, seemingly identical to the new (David finally unboxed), will work. (First calls, techies said it wouldn't work.)
Still haven't been switched over.
Will have to wait, watch and see...
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I've been scratching my head a bit here, about what I should do.
Current config is normal BT landline, with DSL on it, which is now not used.
Internet is with AAISP, but connected via L2TP tunnel from my Firebrick through a Starlink connection.
The analog part of the landline lands on a TDM400 card in an Asterisk box, and hence to IP phones.
I wish to keep the landline number for now, for a few reasons.
My current plan is this:
-Port the number to AAISP VoIP service.
Yes, they can maintain the ADSL service on the copper line if required, but I think I will just allow the entire line to cease that as it's now un-used.
-De-commission the Asterisk box, in favour of using the VoIP gateway functionality in my Firebrick.
It has enough of the features of Asterisk that I need: it will accept registration of the phones, and will register with the AAISP gateway for external connectivity on my ported-in number.
-I will need to provision TFTP which is running on the Asterisk box elsewhere, because the Cisco IP phones pick up their config from it. That can be moved to my Roundcube webmail server.
This needs to be thought through a bit more, but that's my general direction.
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Excerpt from email, timestamped 20.01 today:
<<We're still working on your Digital Voice
Your broadband is now ready, but your Digital Voice service will start after . So, you should wait until then before setting up your Hub and digital home phones. >>
No time is specified before the .
So I wait...
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Excerpt from email, timestamped 20.01 today:
<<We're still working on your Digital Voice
Your broadband is now ready, but your Digital Voice service will start after . So, you should wait until then before setting up your Hub and digital home phones. >>
No time is specified before the .
So I wait...
Have they disconnected the landline yet?
Sent from my Pixel 8 Pro using Tapatalk
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They have now.
Phone plugged into old hub does not work.
I seem to have had contradictory advice from BT and elsewhere.
Will battle on and maybe try new hub tomorrow.
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That's not a surprise.
Like I said before, although the old hub might have the hardware capability to do the phone thing, it was supplied to you before that stuff was relevant, and the necessary configs for your actual phone number etc will not have been pre-configured in it's config.
You are making things un-necessarily difficult for yourself.
Just use the provided, pre-configured hub.
If that requires some re-config on your LAN side, then you just need to eat that up, I think. Sorry.
The local configs can't have been *that* hard, because these hubs don't allow for much configuration.
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Right, so I've got the Firebrick configured as a VoIP Server.
And all the LAN SIP phones are now registering with it.
I can call from extension to extension.
Next step is to shift the PSTN number to AAISP, and configure the external trunk once I shift my number to AAISP.
In the meantime, I have an Olde Analog Phone on the PSTN.
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Thanks!
We'll swap hubs tomorrow.
Our systems aren't simple though. I am immobile, David is unwell. It's cold & wet out.
David has much kit connected both by wire and by Wifi, 30 metres down the garden.
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Currently without landline on old hub, new hub or old wiring.
Still awaiting Magick Email from BT stating Digital Voice is ready to use.
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Huzzah!
We are connected via the new hub, following yet another call to BT.
'Alice' in Dundee was very helpful - on the phone to her over 15 minutes.
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Urg, Plusnet have been in touch, our phone + FTTC contract runs out in July, so we either take out another 18 month contract or I actually have to try and figure out how to do VOIP (Plusnet don't), or if we even need it.
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What's not clear to me is how BT intend to migrate their landline users to VoIP.
In the case that they also use BT as their ISP, they will just migrate it using their provided hub.
What's not clear is what happens if you are using an other ISP.
Will they migrate your number to their VoIP platform, and provide you with login details so you can log into it via your preferred ISP?
Or will they only offer voice service if you take a bundled ISP/VoIP service with them?
Will they really just ditch millions of users at the flip of a switch?
For my part, I've migrated my number to AAISP and have my SIP gateway logging into that.
The phones are all registering with the SIP gateway, no BT is involved anymore, so all is good.
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Urg, Plusnet have been in touch, our phone + FTTC contract runs out in July, so we either take out another 18 month contract or I actually have to try and figure out how to do VOIP (Plusnet don't), or if we even need it.
I have Plusnet in the flat in Edinburgh (as ISP, not landline, which is still with BT with no phone plugged in).
Don't think I'm in contract any more.
It just seems to roll along from month to month.
What happens if you don't do anything?
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As far as I can tell the free line rental stops being free so the cost goes from £29 to £59 a month.
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As far as I can tell the free line rental stops being free so the cost goes from £29 to £59 a month.
So it comes down to 'do you need to maintain the copper circuit at all', eg for the VDSL FTTC connection?
Do you have FTTP options available?
If you do need to maintain the existing copper line, then look around and decide. Least hassle is probably to just sign up again, but there may be better deals. But possibly with enhanced crapness.
If FTTP is available, then you can ditch the copper line and line rental totally.
If so, then I would go with that, with an ISP of your choice.
If maintaining a landline number is important (it was for me), then that's a separate thing and you would migrate your number to a VoIP provider, get an IP phone, and use that provider.
In my case, my VoIP provider is also my ISP, but there's no reason it needs to be.
If this is all a bit too much and making your brane hurt, then the path-of-lest-resistance would be to just sign up again...
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Probably the latter, but TBH the phone line almost never gets used...
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Probably the latter, but TBH the phone line almost never gets used...
Same here, but I have a couple of essential-use scenarios.
One is Mother Dear.
The other is that the mobile signal is so poor that voice calls often fail, so I have to ask people to call on the landline number.
I've had this issue with important calls recently, with the oncologist!
And if your ongoing deal continues to offer free line rental on ye olde aes cyprium line, then there's not much to loose, is there?
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Hmm, there's also the thought of someone else running their cable in a neat freak's home... Especially as we're about to get the decorator in.
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Probably the latter, but TBH the phone line almost never gets used...
Same here, but I have a couple of essential-use scenarios.
One is Mother Dear.
The other is that the mobile signal is so poor that voice calls often fail, so I have to ask people to call on the landline number.
I've had this issue with important calls recently, with the oncologist!
And if your ongoing deal continues to offer free line rental on ye olde aes cyprium line, then there's not much to loose, is there?
Can you make use of WiFi calling on your mobile? Now it seems to work quite well, I hardly notice if there's no mobile service, but I have WiFi.
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My mother went VOIP a few months ago (Salisbury is one of the early test areas). The process seemed to go very smoothly and she's had no issues so far.