The end is nigh !

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

https://www.zen.co.uk/blog/posts/zen-blog/2025/11/03/are-you-ready-for-the-switch-off-only-12-months-to-go/

MichaelG.

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

I might have stayed longer with BT, but the lines where I live are not copper but aluminium, and all the connections suffer from corrosion damaging continuity. The huge estate was built in the early 70’s and has already had its gas mains renewed which date from the fuel crisis in the 70’s as all the houses originally used a network of underground heating oil pipes, gas was much cheaper and the oil system quickly scrapped.

I used to get up to 7Mbits, but never consistantly and dumped BT as soon as Virgin ran fibre through the area. Since then out street has three, City Fibre followed belatedly by the BT version. I have 137/ 21 Mbits plus home phone, WiFi and TV from Virgin More than enough speed and at least 99% reliability.

[howardbParticipant @howardb]

We had fibre internet installed about 6 months ago by the  contractors for orange.fr.

It’s great – about 55 to 60 mbps down and 15 mbps up, copper lines were at best 10 down and less than 5 up.

We still have the pre-existing copper line telephonique wiring hanging about, we are not connected to it but it’s still there, swinging in the breeze across the house wall, courtesy of the previous brit owners of the house.

I want to get rid of it, if I meter the 2 wires in the old telephone socket with a digital multimeter and do not detect any voltage, is it ok to crop the wires off with a long reach pole pruner at the box on the wall about 7 metres high?

I recall the old UK dc voltage on phone lines was around 50 volts?

 

[SandgrounderParticipant @sandgrounder]

Our full fibre was installed about 6 months ago as well, it’s all underground in Southport, both the fibre and the copper come out of the ground on the inside of our garden wall and run along to the house, our copper was just left in place by the installers like yours, you’ve obviously given it a bit more thought than I did as I just cut the copper back as far as could, about 150mm below ground level, and that’s how it still is.

John

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

Does that mean BT/OpenReach have figured out how to make digital voice continue to operate during an extended power cut?

[Adrian R2]

On Adrian R2 Said:

Does that mean BT/OpenReach have figured out how to make digital voice continue to operate during an extended power cut?

Yes, they recommend the customer install a UPS.

🙁

Dave

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

The delivery company?

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

So from an engineering perspective what have people got as replacements? I guess there will always be an Openreach fibre termination box and then a separate router from the broadband provider. Looks like the Zen router (Fritzbox) comes with a phone socket, others might need yet a third device, all of which need power supplies?

We have an old house with thick walls and an annex so 2 landlines, router, 2 wifi extenders (old routers reconfigured) and a hub. We could drop one landline, I have been putting off thinking about how best to rearrange the rest.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I’m apparently a mile and quarter away from the nearest connection cabinet, at the end of the line, out in the sticks, with copper wire, and I doubt that they will ever put Fibre down to me and my nearest neighbour, who is about 100 metres away before me, so what sort of service I’ll be getting, remains to be seen, as my Broadband speed isn’t very quick at the moment.

Regards Nick.

[Adrian R2]

On Adrian R2 Said:

So from an engineering perspective what have people got as replacements? I guess there will always be an Openreach fibre termination box […]

The grey box on the exterior wall accepts the incoming [armoured] fibre and connects to the lightweight interior cable which passes through the wall to this small blister:

.

.

At my request, the OpenReach engineer left a long tail, so that I [after removing the redundant landline wiring] could route the fibre to my taste.

MichaelG.

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

[Nicholas Farr]

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi, I’m apparently a mile and quarter away from the nearest connection cabinet, at the end of the line, out in the sticks, with copper wire, and I doubt that they will ever put Fibre down to me and my nearest neighbour, who is about 100 metres away before me, so what sort of service I’ll be getting, remains to be seen, as my Broadband speed isn’t very quick at the moment.

Regards Nick.

 

Ditto, when we were told we were getting fibre we thought we would get a good connection at last.  Fibre only goes to the village a mile away and then its the same old copper wire to our property.

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

We have been having loads of literature through the letter box offering Full Fibre deals. Yet when I checked with Plusnet earlier in the year there is no Fibre in our Avenue. We have even had callers asking for us to switch to Fibre. When I tell them there is none in our Avenue they do a sharp exit.

Black plastic pipes were laid before BT was sold off. For the Fibres technology to be installed. The outlets from these have now been covered over by the last pavement upgrade. Not that these will get used by the new wave of installers who will just want to dig the whole lot up again.

I have a feeling this will die a death like the phasing out of the internal combustion engine. Honda and Toyota have a different view to Mr Musk.

Regards

Gray,

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

All this talk of copper – it’s NOT copper it’s steel with a thin layer of copper on the outside. It’s NOT worth even stealing. Noel.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

For information [and with no political intent]

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-transition-from-analogue-to-digital-landlines

MichaelG.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

Many moons ago NTL dug up the pavements and installed ducts for interweb cables. Despite this, all the fibre up our street is hung from telegraph poles. When they did ours there was a fair length of the fibre optic cable? left on a reel which he dropped in our bin. It’s now doing duty as a washing line.

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

On Adrian R2 Said:

Does that mean BT/OpenReach have figured out how to make digital voice continue to operate during an extended power cut?

Yes, they recommend the customer install a UPS.

🙁

Dave

When BT pushed me into Digital voice I asked about this. After some negotiation they agreed to supply a UPS and a phone handset that connects to the hub. The UPS has power outputs for both the Hub ( I am still on FTTC) and the fibre termination box if we ever get FTTP.

With a charged phone handset in theory I still have a phone through a power cut, but I suspect if the cut is at all widespread the FTTC box will loose power and it will all go off. FTTP is (I belive) les dependent on  “local” power.

This is the unit they sent.

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

When the switch off happens I’ll cancel my broadband and phone account and just us my mobile phone which will be cheaper than my phone and broadband package. I get a very good 5g signal where I live. I don’t stream stuff or watch online TV programmes,I don’t even have a television not had one for at least 15 years.

Mark P.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Its great for that Duncan as it has an internal strain wire fitted.

[Adrian R2Participant @adrianr2]

Thanks Michael. My current thoughts are that I don’t want the fibre entry where the soon to be ex-landline is now, but hopefully I can re-use some of my existing CAT5 to connect it to the “master” router location for best wifi coverage, however that isn’t where I would want the remaning landline base station to be so may need a separate box of some sort for that. Ideally I would also get rid of one of the wifi repeaters but that depends on what coverage new router can achieve standalone.

We are on overhead cables from BT, although an alternative provider has laid fibre under the pavement outside but to an inconvenient place at the corner of our plot behind a wall and next to a tree so not clear how they would get it across the garden to the house without making a mess.

[noel shelley]

On noel shelley Said:

All this talk of copper – it’s NOT copper it’s steel with a thin layer of copper on the outside. It’s NOT worth even stealing. Noel.

Umm, I don’t think so! Online sources (multiple) confirm they use just copper. That’s why there was (is?) an epidemic of villains nicking multipair phone cables from ducts.

[Richard Simpson]

On Richard Simpson Said:

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi, I’m apparently a mile and quarter away from the nearest connection cabinet, at the end of the line, out in the sticks, with copper wire, and I doubt that they will ever put Fibre down to me and my nearest neighbour, who is about 100 metres away before me, so what sort of service I’ll be getting, remains to be seen, as my Broadband speed isn’t very quick at the moment.

Regards Nick.

 

Ditto, when we were told we were getting fibre we thought we would get a good connection at last.  Fibre only goes to the village a mile away and then its the same old copper wire to our property.

Same here initially, but fibre has since extended throughout the village.  I think nearly 5 years to get from one side to the other.

Takes time to roll-out new technology.  Never assume it’s no good just because it hasn’t reached you yet.  It will, and it will be better. It may take a long time.

Being a late adopter isn’t all bad: early versions are often a bit buggy.   I’m in a mobile phone dead-spot, and am too mean to upgrade to 5G, which provides good coverage.   The provider isn’t going to upgrade the legacy service just for me.

Ship’s Diesels are another example.  At first very unreliable compared with steam (brought to perfection in about 1920), and failed to deliver the expected efficiencies.   All the naysayers were delighted, modern rubbish is no good.

By the 1950s, diesels were markedly better than steam, and have been considerably improved since.  21st century diesels are remarkable beasts, amazingly high thermal efficiency and power, and very reliable.  Same story with locomotive diesels; poor at first, now very good.  Over a century in development!

Dave

[Bruce NewmanParticipant @brucenewman56212]

I asked a passing BT engineer what to do to get rid of my redundant phone cable and he told me to just cut it at my end then coil it  up and leave it at bottom of the telegraph pole but as it was tangled up in a tree I hung the coil still connected to the pole on a low branch and with in a few hours the cable totally disappeared, absolutely no idea where it went.

[Adrian R2]

On Adrian R2 Said:

Thanks Michael. […]

You’re welcome

At the risk of stating the obvious, I would mention that the the Green plug feeding the OpenReach box is conveniently small and will pass through a modest hole in an internal wall.

I have not investigated yet, but I suspect that one could add a fibre optic splitter and feed more than one box.

[my house is too small to be worth doing this, but it could be an option for you]

MichaelG.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

CORRECTION ! my reference to NOT being copper was in the context of the overhead wires. Living in a rural setting I had forgotten that town dwellers have underground and as John has pointed out twisted pairs are copper.

BT on being told I was old, and therefore vulnerable, gave me a UPS and hand set in case there are power cuts. Though the genny is just as easy and keeps the lights on. Noel.

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