Landline phones to cease in 2025?
 

I may, just, know how to clean an EGR, but am all at sea when I read that "Landline phones will cease in 2025." Reading the press I think they may have it a bit wrong for those of us who have a poor WiFi signal and have to wave the mobile out of an upstairs window.

We already have a digital handset but I think they're talking about old analogue phones that have to be plugged into a BT Master wall socket? After 2025 our phones will work via the internet and rolled out fibre-optic cables so we won't get a signal if the internet goes down or we get a power cut.

Am I correct?

I dont believe it.

I suspect we have areas in the UK with no Broadband and no mobile phone signal.
In years gone by it was recommended that people had a land line that used 50v from the telephone exchange so in the event of a power cut and an emergency they still had phone service. I think the mobile phone has done away with that thinking

macafee2

I've been trying to convince my Missus to get rid of the landline for years & save the line rental fee but she's always wanted to keep it:shrug: , It gets used on average about twice a month :mad: We both have mobile phones so it's been obsolete for years.
I can see a lot of older people who don't have mobile phones or use the internet especially my Mam not being happy about them being axed.

A bit of scaremongering by the daily.mail lol.

VoIP is widely used and in have actually used it in domestic setting in the early 2000s. Our service in work is entirely VoIP based. We have phones, phone numbers and an internal network (like the old switchboards) which are free.

Ultimately, providing the service providers can allow people to retain their phone numbers, most people will notice no difference, except perhaps a new phone.



Sent from my SM-A600FN using Tapatalk

I can't see it.There are lots of area's with poor to non existent mobile signal.

My ex has one of these alert systems, she’s disabled, which requires a land line to dial out when she pushes the panic button.

Not come across one of these systems that work via a cell phone.

We recently had an engineer out to sort out our landline ( crackling at our end ), he was saying that BT is reluctant to spend any money on the exchanges at the moment because of the new system that is going to replace the existing system. Apparently it will be better with more features than are possible at the moment.

He was saying that the system we have at the moment is just an electronic version of the original mechanical system. I remember visiting an exchange when I was at school, lots of Strowger switches moving and women taking calls and putting plugs into holes on a board, sounds mad now but it was only 45 years ago. The building it was housed in was one of the biggest in the town I lived in and I bet it would only need a room the size of a cargo container to do the same job.

And for some reason the electronic exchanges we have now wont allow or is it just BT wont allow you to take your phone number to another area. That old mechanical exchange did. My first year with BT was Internal construction, putting Exchanges in. Your right, for some exchanges a cargo container will do.

macafee2

dont need mobile.

landline, used as network/data line only (requires less cabling than a voice line apparently). Therefore even a standard (current) phone line could be used more efficiently, if voice wasnt carried on it directly. Voice calls made using data instead of the current set up of voice and data.

If you think of it, it actually makes sense (or made sense), as it allows for an expansion of subscribers as time moves on. Where I live, Carrickfergus, I can recall numbers being 5 digits, all beginning with 6 (up to 9999 subscribers), with a regional code of 09603. Whiteabbey, 5 miles away, also had 5 digit numbers, also beginning with 6, however, their outside dialing code was a Belfast regional code 0232 (even though it had its own exchange - Belfast region had so many exchanges). So if you moved into Carrickfergus from Whiteabbey, you couldnt take your number with you, as in the first instance, it was governed by a regional dialing code (this was dictated by the ability of the exchange) and also could also already be in use.

As an example, when I first moved out of home, my father's phone number then was 64375 (09603 regional dialing code) which means there was also a 64385 (this means something later). He had taken with us through 3 house moves since we first got a phone 20/25 years previously, because they were all in the Carrickfergus exchange area. My second house had the number 664385 which 10 years previously (before the exchange expansion/development) was 64385 (0232 regional code - Belfast). The 66 determined the exchange I was serviced by. In Whiteabbey (0232 regional code), you could not have had 64385 as it was already in use in the Belfast area (by the previous inhabitants to my house), but you could have 64385 in Carrickfergus, as it used a different region code. However, as subscribers increased, exchanges initially in Belfast added a digit determined by the exchange as opposed to region. Boucher exchange, in Belfast region (mine) had 6 added, Whiteabbey exchange, still in the Belfast region but 7 miles away from Boucher, added the number 8, so my number became 664385, and therefore you could have had 864385 in Whiteabbey (both having 0232 region codes). Therefore allowing duplication of numbers previously unavailable.

At this time Carrickfergus remained 5 digits, but this too eventually extended to 6 (using a 3 as the identifier - so you could have have had 64385 later becoming 364385) as subscribers increased.

Hope that makes sense.

With VoIP the as there will be no need for an exchange in the traditional manner, numbers could become a thing of the past. Exchanges will handle digital data lines only.

Think along the lines of email addresses/user names. You buy a VoIP phone and start to set it up, 'please choose a username' 'Macafee', 'please choose another username as this one is in use' Macafee1', 'please choose another username as this one is in use' 'Macafee2' 'please choose another username as this one is in use' 'Macafee3698' 'congratulations, you have successfully set up your new VoIP user name, now anyone calling you, can type 'Macafee3698' into their VoIP phone or computer to contact you' lol.

Then another person in your home could potentially have 'MrsMacafee75'. Effectively allowing you to have multiple 'lines' in your home active at the same time for one line rental, but controlled by a dedicated VoIP phone connected via WiFi (or an updated version of it) to a central hub. This central hub, is hard wired to a box on your skirting board, which goes to a pole/green box outside and to the exchange. In the future this hub could become wireless, connecting to a pole outside negating the need to hardwire into homes.

This technology actually exists now via apps (messengers, viber, whatsapp etc), and has actually done for decades (remember skype phones etc).

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My father started his first 3 or 4 years (of 37) in BT installing exchanges around the country too ;). By the way, if you have any cases from your BT days, look at their prices on eBay :O.