Slight emergency - do we need a telephone cable?
Discussion
Neighbours are building a new house and a couple of days ago they ripped down our broadband fibre and old school telephone cable coming into our house from a telegraph pole.
They fixed the broadband but have not fixed the phone line. Do I need to make an issue of this?
Does the telephone line actually do anything in the modern world? Our fibre line does everything we need and we don’t have a traditional telephone in the house. Our house telephone is via broadband. But I’m thinking we used to have Sky, that I think required a telephone line, would it be an issue if we wanted to go back to Sky. Is there anything else we may need one for?
If we don’t need it then I’ll be happy as that’s one less wire to worry about, I just don’t want to find out in 12 months that I need one and need to pay £150 to BT to get it reinstated.
They fixed the broadband but have not fixed the phone line. Do I need to make an issue of this?
Does the telephone line actually do anything in the modern world? Our fibre line does everything we need and we don’t have a traditional telephone in the house. Our house telephone is via broadband. But I’m thinking we used to have Sky, that I think required a telephone line, would it be an issue if we wanted to go back to Sky. Is there anything else we may need one for?
If we don’t need it then I’ll be happy as that’s one less wire to worry about, I just don’t want to find out in 12 months that I need one and need to pay £150 to BT to get it reinstated.
Good luck getting BT to reinstate a traditional phone line they're currently phasing them all out.
https://www.bt.com/broadband/digital-voice
https://www.bt.com/broadband/digital-voice
JQ said:
Neighbours are building a new house and a couple of days ago they ripped down our broadband fibre and old school telephone cable coming into our house from a telegraph pole.
They fixed the broadband but have not fixed the phone line. Do I need to make an issue of this?
Does the telephone line actually do anything in the modern world? Our fibre line does everything we need and we don’t have a traditional telephone in the house. Our house telephone is via broadband. But I’m thinking we used to have Sky, that I think required a telephone line, would it be an issue if we wanted to go back to Sky. Is there anything else we may need one for?
If we don’t need it then I’ll be happy as that’s one less wire to worry about, I just don’t want to find out in 12 months that I need one and need to pay £150 to BT to get it reinstated.
Sky doesn't need a phone line these days, it's all done via BB.They fixed the broadband but have not fixed the phone line. Do I need to make an issue of this?
Does the telephone line actually do anything in the modern world? Our fibre line does everything we need and we don’t have a traditional telephone in the house. Our house telephone is via broadband. But I’m thinking we used to have Sky, that I think required a telephone line, would it be an issue if we wanted to go back to Sky. Is there anything else we may need one for?
If we don’t need it then I’ll be happy as that’s one less wire to worry about, I just don’t want to find out in 12 months that I need one and need to pay £150 to BT to get it reinstated.
If you have fibre I really can't see the need for a copper line. I still have a landline phone and it plugs onto my router.
That's just IMO though. Somebody else might have a good reason for maintaining a copper line.
jfdi said:
Good luck getting BT to reinstate a traditional phone line they're currently phasing them all out.
https://www.bt.com/broadband/digital-voice
https://www.bt.com/broadband/digital-voice
Neighbour owns a utilities company so should be able to sort it himself, if not, I suspect he’d have far more influence over BT than me. But good to know they’re being phased out.
98elise said:
Sky doesn't need a phone line these days, it's all done via BB.
If you have fibre I really can't see the need for a copper line. I still have a landline phone and it plugs onto my router.
That's just IMO though. Somebody else might have a good reason for maintaining a copper line.
That’s really useful to know. It was the only use I could think of, I guess I’m really just checking there aren’t any uses that I’m not ware of that may cause us issues in the future. I’ll be quite please if I don’t need to reinstate - one less ugly wire attached to the house. If you have fibre I really can't see the need for a copper line. I still have a landline phone and it plugs onto my router.
That's just IMO though. Somebody else might have a good reason for maintaining a copper line.
ChrisNic said:
Whilst you might not need one now why shouldn’t they replace it?
Should the situation change in the future and you require the line it’s going to be much harder to get them to take action.
Copper phone lines are just about as dead as analogue tv, in the next two years no one will have one.Should the situation change in the future and you require the line it’s going to be much harder to get them to take action.
https://www.openreach.com/news-and-opinion/2023/op...
ChrisNic said:
Whilst you might not need one now why shouldn’t they replace it?
Should the situation change in the future and you require the line it’s going to be much harder to get them to take action.
If it's being phased out what would change in the future would need a copper cable?Should the situation change in the future and you require the line it’s going to be much harder to get them to take action.
I'd rather strip out redundant cables.
98elise said:
If you have fibre I really can't see the need for a copper line. I still have a landline phone and it plugs onto my router.
That's just IMO though. Somebody else might have a good reason for maintaining a copper line.
Power cutsThat's just IMO though. Somebody else might have a good reason for maintaining a copper line.
Lots of older and or vulnerable people have emergency alarms that work through telephone landlines too.
When the phase out was begun it became apparent that BT had not appreciated that.
Bighoose said:
I didn't realise the turn off of traditional telephone lines was happening so soon. Will there be a programme of work to remove poles and telephone cables across the country or will they be left in situ?
No. Openreach are rolling out fibre to the premises, using existing poles. So when you get a fibre line and subscribe to the fttp service, they’ll replace your old copper line with fibre eltax91 said:
Bighoose said:
I didn't realise the turn off of traditional telephone lines was happening so soon. Will there be a programme of work to remove poles and telephone cables across the country or will they be left in situ?
No. Openreach are rolling out fibre to the premises, using existing poles. So when you get a fibre line and subscribe to the fttp service, they’ll replace your old copper line with fibre This happened to my Grandparents. The cable got removed but as the pole was not in the way and would cause more disruption to remove it. The pole is still in the garden like a lonely sentinal.
Bighoose said:
I didn't realise the turn off of traditional telephone lines was happening so soon. Will there be a programme of work to remove poles and telephone cables across the country or will they be left in situ?
Exactly the opposite: lots of places are finding new poles bieing installed as it's much cheaper than digging the roads & pavements up.PlywoodPascal said:
98elise said:
If you have fibre I really can't see the need for a copper line. I still have a landline phone and it plugs onto my router.
That's just IMO though. Somebody else might have a good reason for maintaining a copper line.
Power cutsThat's just IMO though. Somebody else might have a good reason for maintaining a copper line.
Lots of older and or vulnerable people have emergency alarms that work through telephone landlines too.
When the phase out was begun it became apparent that BT had not appreciated that.
essayer said:
Suspect they’ll happily repair it though. And charge the neighbour a hefty fee in the process!
Possibly, though there is a complete stop-sell order on copper, if you switch, upgrade or re-grade your service you already automatically lose your copper connection and are moved to a digital service.allegro said:
Would definitely get them to restore the line. very useful in the event of modern tech letting you down/emergency etc
Could you give some examples, I can’t think of an emergency where I’d need a copper phone line?When he disconnected my fibre I just hot spotted my mobile phone to my laptop and carried on working and making phone calls via the laptop, as I always do. Also used the 5g on my phone to get the TV up and running. It did stop the Hive heating system working, but just made it operate manually for a period.
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