Copper load of this: Openreach outlines 77 new locations where it'll stop selling legacy phone and broadband products
- Reference: 1620743230
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/11/openreach_pulls_copper/
- Source link:
The “stop-sell” order will come into effect on April 29, 2022. Included in [1]the 77 locations are Ellesmere Port in Cheshire, Hayes in Greater London, Kelso in Scotland, and Coleraine in Northern Ireland.
Those clinging to their legacy-based copper phone lines won’t necessarily see any immediate changes to service. However, the “stop sell” order means that anyone who switches broadband or landline providers will only be able to choose from products delivered over fibre.
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The announcement came days after Openreach [5]activated a stop-sell order in the small Sussex town of Mildenhall.
Mildenhall was selected due to the diversity of providers operating in the area, as well as its ideal mix of business and home users. Openreach said it hopes the shift to fibre-delivered telecoms in the town will allow providers to iron out the kinks in their transition processes, ahead of the wider withdrawal of the legacy copper network.
In a statement, James Lilley, Openreach director of Managed Customer Migrations, described the new stop-sell orders as “a really big deal for our industry.”
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“Whilst we’re building more and more full fibre infrastructure across the country, we’re also working closely with our communications providers customers to plan the withdrawal of legacy services and make upgrades from copper to fibre as smooth as possible. This is the next step on that journey – a further commitment that we’ll stop selling copper products in areas where Full Fibre’s going to be widely available,” he said.
Openreach plans to cease sales of new analogue products nationwide [7]by 2025 , with the aim of shifting more and more people to fibre. The provider has previously cited the cost of running two parallel networks as a justification for the transition from copper.
Although fibre promises faster speeds and improved reliability for broadband users, it’s a little more complicated when talking about phone products.
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Landline connections delivered over fibre will require the use of a router, regardless of whether the user has broadband. Openreach has said telcos will provide these for free. Certain telephone-based alarm systems may also cease to function, and punters may be forced to replace their phone handset with a newer compatible model.
Additionally, as fibre-based telephony products are powered via the mains, rather than via the telephone exchange, there's a potential for a loss of service during power outages. ®
Get our [9]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.openreach.co.uk/cpportal/products/product-withdrawal/stop-sells-updates
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YJqqGuOHljglPhsQYir8SAAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJqqGuOHljglPhsQYir8SAAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJqqGuOHljglPhsQYir8SAAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/07/openreach_mildenhall_copper/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJqqGuOHljglPhsQYir8SAAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2018/07/11/infrastructure_commission_report_full_fibre_end_copper/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJqqGuOHljglPhsQYir8SAAAAAE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
So? Some of us use them every day ...
Loss of power
Exchange powered lines are becoming scarce with FTTC.
Without a UPS in the green box there's every chance that a local power outage will kill your domestic landline now.
Re: Loss of power
Looks like a case of one step forward and half s step back.
Still, so long as the beancounters and share holders are happy, it's not as if customers are important is it?
Oh! Last time I was.in Mildenhall, it was in Suffolk.
Once again I tried the corrections button but on my phone nothing happens.
Re: Loss of power
Without a UPS in the green box there's every chance that a local power outage will kill your domestic landline now.
Phooey. With FTTC a 'phone is powered by the Exchange Battery just as it it always has been. A local power cut may well disrupt local broadband (unless the cabinet is battery - backed) but 'phone services will continue uninterrupted... up to the point the exchange battery is exhausted unless there is a reserve generator on site.
So when do they start changing users over "for free" like the energy suppliers do for smart meters?
We're moving house soon
Good to have a list of places I can cross off my 'possibles'.
Re: We're moving house soon
Why? You realise this is rolling out everywhere in the UK the year after?
line rental
So will they finally stop charging line rental then, on a line that you don't get?
I haven't had a landline for 15 years. That's £2000 I've saved on line rental, and Virgin have benefited because they provided broadband without it.
They're sitting on a gold, umm, copper mine
I wonder if they're planning on pulling that copper up. The current price is [1]pretty juicy .
[1] https://ycharts.com/indicators/copper_price
Re: They're sitting on a gold, umm, copper mine
Have you seen the price of steel recently? Also going up rapidly and easy to find just lying about.....
(Also copper wires are hard to strip, speaking as that apprentice so tasked many years ago).
So 2025 is Openreach's target stop-sell for coper.
2025 is also the UK Government's target date for 85% of the country to be able to get gigabit broadband.
Assuming both are using fibre as the medium, what happens to the 15% if they want a new phone line? Think rural here.
" What happens to the 15%?"
Smoke signals, cleft stick, pigeons, cocoa tins and string, there are loads of options for those rural customers who make it difficult for phone companies to profit from them.
Very rural here...
And our exchange is one of the ones on the list with a stop date of April 2022. I thought we would never get full fibre.
My parents are even more remote, and they also now have FTTP.
I'm guessing BT have been given some more cash...
Additionally, as fibre-based telephony products are powered via the mains, rather than via the telephone exchange, there's a potential for a loss of service during power outages. ®
This is an account of somebody dying in a lift in China after the power was cut:-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-35742148
This currently couldn't happen because of that nice little alarm button in every British lift that uses a landline to sound an alarm; the fitting of which is a legal requirement.
I have been wondering since the demise of copper was announced if little things like this would actually be replaced because nobody had even started developing replacements. I'm not convinced that anything has changed here; are we now seriously engineering a situation where alarm systems are reliant upon mains power, a decent internet connection and no routing problems etc for things as fundamental as distress systems?
A steel box inside a reinforced concrete lift shaft can in some cases present a tolerably effective faraday cage that may quite seriously degrade a mobile signal so this should receive at least some thought. :/
I haven't had a phone plugged into my landline for around a decade. Not missed it.