John I think you are missing the point I am trying to make. What about all those pensioners who don't have the internet at home and still rely on a house phone or those technophobes who hate technology and will refuse to give it house room, also the elderly disabled or blind have to be considered? What is going to happen to them when they remove the copper service and how will they cope both with technology which only works if you have power. I know anyone on here is likely to cope very well but there must be 1000s of older folk in that category. I understand there are provisions but they rely on an internet connection and a battery backup which only Virgin so far have said they will provide. What will this cost in comparison to a current phone only used for a few calls? I understand there will be trails but these will only be of use if folks in these categories are included to make sure it supports them as well.
I think you're doing a disservice to pensioners.
The pensioners I know are capable of plugging a phone from a master socket to a router/hub, especially with illustrated instructions explaining it. If switching to FTTP an engineer will do this for them.
That's a completely different debate to the 1 above. You're going back to the old debate about PSTN closing and having no backup power.
Pardon the pun but that's flogging a dead horse I'm afraid, it's happening and for good reason.
They can't possibly keep a very expensive, outdated telephone network running simply because it works during a powercut.
The majority of the exchanges that power the PSTN network won't exists in the next decade.
Who should pay the billions to extend the leases on these thousands of exchanges for the small number of users who will be impacted.
For the very very small percentage of the population who suffer regular powercuts we have mobile phones.
For anyone with no mobile signal or who is vunerable there is UPS to provide backup power.
Your original gripe was that it was a complicated process to keep your landline number.
That has nothing to do with PSTN closing though.
Since the days of ADSL providers have been free to sell whatever products they wish.
They can sell only a landline. They can sell only broadband. They can sell both. They can let you buy the landline from 1 provider while they provide only broadband on the same pair.
Each provider has been free to choose which of the above they offer to customers.
Talktalk made the decision years ago to only sell Voice+broadband combined and only if you buy both from them. You can't buy just a landline or just broadband from them.
They have now decided to sell FTTP as a data only product and customers are free to change provider.
The issue of splitting your phone number from the broadband has existed for all of that time. It's not new or caused by the PSTN closure.
The average pensioner isn't going to have the dilemma you are facing as they can simply pick a provider that sells both broadband+voice.
Providers automatically label VOIP traffic with an 802.1p marker to prioritize that traffic. During congestion regular packets will be dropped before any VOIP traffic.
I understand people's dislike of change but the PSTN switch off is a necessity that could and probably should already have been done years ago.
