General ramblings about how mobiles phones are better than land lines and Lindsay's house move :-D

sirch said:
Full fibre is making its way to the wilds of Cumbria and I am being "upgraded" in a couple of weeks. My existing cordless house phones are fairly ancient and have needed replacing for a while, for anyone who has been through this and bought new phones for fibre only, is there anything to look out for and any recommendations for new cordless, probably DECT phones?
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Ah! FTTP/FTTH I think a few other members have mentioned hereabouts that they have fibre to the premises.

I surmise DECT cordless will function and as for brands we have had our Panasonic three unit set for some years and so far still going strong. They replaced a BT branded set which by comparison were were dire and none to user friendly.

I will look forward to hearing of your broadband speeds :( ;)

A quick question ~ are you currently on FTTC fibre service and what sort of cost per month difference will there be when the FTTP is in place.

PS I am with Plusnet and IIRC they have trialled FTTP in some areas and the costs were markedly higher compared to FTTC
 
I currently have Panasonics and they have done well, must be 15 years old at least. So happily go with Panasonic again but the current range of phones from them is quite large and confusing.

Yes on FTTC (or actually to the pole, yes we are still on poles) and FTTP is going to be cheaper but then I am with Zen which is quite expensive but it is reliable and their service is very good
 
sirch said:
I am with Zen which is quite expensive but it is reliable and their service is very good
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I'll second that.

We've been with them for many years and they've never failed to provide excellent service and support.
 
I suspect you will still end up with a "socket" that will take standard DECT phonesI don't think there is such a thing as a fibre phone unless you will be given a standard wired phone as part of the upgrade and be expected to pick up from there?
 
sirch said:
I currently have Panasonics and they have done well, must be 15 years old at least. So happily go with Panasonic again but the current range of phones from them is quite large and confusing.

Yes on FTTC (or actually to the pole, yes we are still on poles) and FTTP is going to be cheaper but then I am with Zen which is quite expensive but it is reliable and their service is very good
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We have a set of relatively old Panasonic cordless phones and they work fine with the BT router/modem thingy we now have. The base station is plugged into the box and reaches everywhere in the house and garden. Like everyone though, we're stuffed in a power cut (WRT landline, although mobiles should still work!)
 
Yes, I get that I can plug any old phone into the telephony socket on the modem, I was just wondering it there were some that were "better" than others?

Mr Bump said:
don't think there is such a thing as a fibre phone
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There are direct VoIP phones but I'll probably stick with DECT
 
Why keep the phone at all?

I have not had a phone for 10+ years, when I went FF I went to a package where I dont pay for a phone line or something like that. Any calls made on the mobile so really dont see the need for a home phone
 
Another Zen accolyte here

I got upgraded a few weeks ago and have not bothered connecting my landline, the only calls I ever get on it these days are scams.
The Zen router has a telephony page where you can see what calls you have received set answering machine functions etc. I looked last night and have had 7 landline calls, all scams.
 
I went FTTP about 18 months ago. Mrs wanted to keep a landline so the kids could use it in an emergency.
I setup a self hosted 3CX PBX install with a couple of old office IP phones.
I then rent a number through Voicehost.

This is all running locally on my server and means we can make internal calls between the phones easily and when someone calls the landline it automatically dials on the 3CX app on my phone. I also setup automatic re-direct so if someone calls and no one answers within X rings it redirects the call to another number.

I like this setup as I have full control, a lot of customizability and I only have to pay a very small amount for the phone number, which I can change easily if needed.

This is not for everyone though as getting it all setup and working with my opnsense router on a separate VLAN was far from easy. It's been trouble free since I set it up though.
 
Some years ago, I had new digital telephone service put into my mother's home, to replace her original analog line. (The digital service could be set up with a list of allowable telephone numbers, and all other calls would be filtered out, so that she would not again fall victim to phone scammers!) The fiber line comes into the structure and connects to a box which converts the fiber optic signal and sends it to output ports for a conventional telephone and conventional modem. You do not NEED to buy new phones, but you can certainly do so to upgrade to new features, like answering system or even call filtering phone systems that filter unwanted callers even if the phone company does not offer filtering itself.

For those not aware, analog lines (at least the ones here in the USA) have their own power source which energizes the phone lines even when the main AC power to the surrouncings is interrupted...the line works even during power failure. OTOH, digital lines (both fiber optic and VOIP over wires) do NOT function when power is lost, for the simply reason that the equipment needed for the signal to pass (modem, fiber conversion) have no power supply). While some modems have backup batteries, none of the fiber-to-wire convsion boxes have back up battery power! I do not know the electrical power situation for the fiber optics network itself (out on the telephone poles)...it is not mandated everywhere that even the cellular phone system has backup batteries, so your mobile phones might go dead even if you phone battery is charged up. Here in California there is current controversy about the phone company proposal to DROP SUPPORT of analog phone service within the year, due to the emergency calling uncertainty of digital!
 
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After we move house (and I don't want to tempt fate by saying much about that yet), we apparently will have a limited choice of broadband suppliers - Vodafone and TalkTalk I think, for best speeds. So I'm toying with Starlink, as they are doing a marketing push at present, as an interesting alternative. I just don't really want to add to Musk's wealth, and have concerns after reading about them having to de-orbit 100 or so satellites due to a fault of some sort, plus the risks from CME's from the sun which seem to be increasing lately due to moving towards a sunspot maximum. Stuff to think about...
 
lindsay said:
After we move house (and I don't want to tempt fate by saying much about that yet), we apparently will have a limited choice of broadband suppliers - Vodafone and TalkTalk I
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Sounds like a CityFibre area - there should be others available - probably VF/TT are the ones that have bombed the area. Even if not CF it'll be the companies with the largest marketing budget as a proportion of their op ex.
 
What is a house phone ??? never had one for years, mobiles for me and the missus so why use a house phone, they do nothing that a mobile cannot do.
 
hunnymonster said:
Sounds like a CityFibre area - there should be others available - probably VF/TT are the ones that have bombed the area. Even if not CF it'll be the companies with the largest marketing budget as a proportion of their op ex.
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It's in the countryside - not many fibre providers, at least at present.
 
Then smells like whoever told you is possibly badly informed. If it's Openreach-based then there are dozens of providers for FTTP, FTTC etc.

Other than potentially CF I can't think of another that would offer Vodafone & TalkTalk only.
 
OK I remembered incompletely for my case. I've just rechecked, the fastest speed provider is TalkTalk, followed by Voda, and some outfit called Fibrus, then Sky. I'm tempted by Sky but checking out the other options.
 
Sorry I hijacked it - not my intention!
 
Even though I have temporarily disconnected my landline, I still prefer the hardwired network. No disconnection, no wavering modulation and no outages.
 
lindsay said:
So I'm toying with Starlink,
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Curiously, they are still firing these things up in the air, but I've never seen them since the initial launch, I guess they are just avoiding MK-on-Mud :D

sirch said:
"mobile only" - I'm sure that's great if you have a reliable mobile signal at your house ;)
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5G masts growing like weeds here, the closest is about 300 yds as the crow flies and yet my signal is only what I would describe as adequate.

Curiously I swapped from BT mobile to 1p mobile, both use EE as a carrier, and the 1p signal is slightly better than BT
( I had both sims in at one time awaiting the number port)

Hard wired internet here (FTTC) to my pc. ( upstairs) My laptop ( downstairs) is wireless and yet when I checked they both produce the same speeds,
Which is curious as I always assumed that hard wired would be faster.

Oh and I've not had a landline in years just the mobile...
 
Cobra said:
Hard wired internet here (FTTC) to my pc. ( upstairs) My laptop ( downstairs) is wireless and yet when I checked they both produce the same speeds,
Which is curious as I always assumed that hard wired would be faster.
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If you were to check the connection between two wired devices they'd be faster and more stable than a wired to wireless connection.
But if you're just testing internet speed and your connection isn't all that fast then they can measure the same speeds. The wired will still be more reliable overall.

Also depends how close you are to the wireless access point.

Getting the back room, garage and living room wired up for Ethernet was one of the best things I've done. Far better than wireless or power line adapters. Just rock solid connection throughout the house. Full gigabit between my PC, the server and the WAP means I can max out the 500mbit connection to the internet easily and over wireless close to the WAP it also almost maxes it out.
 
not been mentioned yet?
If your mobile signal not good at home make mobile calls via your home WiFi

With power cuts looks like we are going backwards
most dect phones will not work
mobiles will not work if the mobile mast is affected by the power cut
BT replacing the copper so home phone will not work during a power cut
Apart from that all good :rolleyes:;)
 
nog said:
not been mentioned yet?
If your mobile signal not good at home make mobile calls via your home WiFi

With power cuts looks like we are going backwards
most dect phones will not work
mobiles will not work if the mobile mast is affected by the power cut
BT replacing the copper so home phone will not work during a power cut
Apart from that all good :rolleyes:;)
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CQ, CQ, CQ, CQ,.............

Now where are the pair of CB handsets I bought yonks ago......let alone my hankering even longer ago for a SW transceiver.
 
If you're worried about power cuts, make sure you have a UPS backing up the power to everything in the connection chain, including your router, FTTP box, phone etc.

They're useful to have anyway as the occasions brown out or 10 second cut in power doesnt disrupt or damage your equipment.
 
lindsay said:
After we move house (and I don't want to tempt fate by saying much about that yet), we apparently will have a limited choice of broadband suppliers - Vodafone and TalkTalk I think, for best speeds. So I'm toying with Starlink, as they are doing a marketing push at present, as an interesting alternative. I just don't really want to add to Musk's wealth, and have concerns after reading about them having to de-orbit 100 or so satellites due to a fault of some sort, plus the risks from CME's from the sun which seem to be increasing lately due to moving towards a sunspot maximum. Stuff to think about...
Click to expand...

I have a few neighbours in Greece that are moving to starlink and thinking about it myself when I make the semi perm move late this summer
high start up cost but blistering speed in Vamos where I am because of low density but not sure about high density areas
 
firewireguy said:
If you were to check the connection between two wired devices they'd be faster and more stable than a wired to wireless connection.
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I've never had an issue, obviously if the wired goes down, then so does the WIFI.
and as above the speeds are identical.
 
Cobra said:
I've never had an issue, obviously if the wired goes down, then so does the WIFI.
and as above the speeds are identical.
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I do think people are over thinking this. Power cuts, rarely happen and mobile always works. Coverage is fine for most people too. Benefit too of when you are on hold to a call centre you are not stuck at home, can go for a walk, post something etc.

Been using WiFi for 15+ years. Never really have an issue.
 
In the past year, we've had around a dozen power cuts and while we do have mobile coverage here, in the house, there is none at the bottom of the road. Network (mobile) problems aren't unknown, either.
 
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