The proposal was 2025

(remember much of the PSTN up to the exchange is already IP internally)
https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/wlrwithdrawal/wlrwithdrawal.do

as referenced here
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0032/137966/future-fixed-telephone-services.pdf

The current BT smart Hub 2

The TalkTalk Broadband Hub

The latest Sky Hub

All have a PSTN/'BT style' phone socket on them... in readiness


Many new estates have for some years only had Fibre broadand to the property.. no copper

Some by private companies such as 'see the light' 

Some by openreach, with (till recently) only BT offering services over IP. and Fibre to the property. 


Last years move to provide Fibre to the Property (FTTP) rather than the G.FAST and FTTC (cabinet) high speed broadband is part of that. Private companies are being subsidised to roll it out to existing locations.


So ultimately many people will have only copper from the green cabinet to the home until such time as they get a fibre connection.

Will it be 2025 ?

possibly not - like the turning off of 405 line TV...


It does leave the question of backup of phone services when (230v) power goes off - the 48v Phone supply will no longer be available to keep the phone (or in this case broadband) working 


And no, it does not mean it will be cheaper.. (though it should be)

many VoIP services are charged as highly as traditional services... 

I'm not sure how that idea of using VoIP even makes sense.  To use it, you need broadband, and to get broadband, you need a copper wire or fibre.  So either way, you're still paying the line rental.  You only save on the calls package.


I saved on my calls package a year ago by cancelling it, and using the mobile phone for outgoing calls instead.  It's easier than setting up VoIP.


Some years ago, I did actually have VoIP.  BT offered it as a no-cost add-on to their broadband service.  Their home router had a phone socket and built-in DECT basestation.  But they eventually realised it was making them no money and closed it down.

VOIP is now very popular in business premises, and for good reason. These premises are wired up for ethernet; why not use the same wiring for phones, seeing that it is entirely possible? If you change desk or office - no problem with the phone. You just pick up any convenient phone, as you would anyway, log into it and you have the use of the phone with your usual number. No waiting a fortnight for telecoms team to do a patching job in the PABX room. But these phones are still connected by wire, though the telephone network point of entry to the premises may well be fibre optic.


Are mobile phones going to take over? Time will tell, but at present they are a slow and expensive way to use the Internet, though I expect that 5G will improve things. One advantage of VOIP with a mobile phone is savings on international calls; the Internet has little regard for geographical distance.


I think that VOIP is going to penetrate successfully the domestic market before long. But copper wire is going to be with us for a while yet.

The 'telephone cable drums' pictured in the article referenced in the original post are actually high voltage power cable drums as used in the USA.


That's what happens when journalists use stock images to add some colour to their articles.

If BT have their way, it won't be a case of VOIP successfully penetrating the home market.  BT intends to switch off the whole POTS telephone network in the next few years, and migrate everything to VOIP.  Anybody who still wants a land-line phone will be given a box, which will effectively be a cut-down broadband modem with a phone socket on it.


Presumably anyone who has a broadband service will be encouraged to install some kind of VOIP phone on that.

I think that is quite likely, Simon. Not so much penetrating the market as being induced. It does kind of make sense after all.


My BT home hub has a spare telephone socket, at present unused but . . .

Back in the 80s I was involved with the Royal Observer Corps. We had reporting posts scattered all over the UK each linked by traditional phone lines from exchanges which were -at the time- still mostly Strowger type electro mechanical and thus quite resilient to the effects of EMP from nuclear bursts. The battery backup in the smaller exchanges was reckoned to be okay for about a week.

Now everything is digital/electronic and apparently with the resilience of a chocolate teapot to anything resembling stray voltages: some years ago a site I look after had 2 lightning strikes on two nearby buildings. The electromechanical exchange was untouched apart from some surge protectors popping and a few mains fuses needed replacement around the site. Another nearby site which was mostly electronic were almost wiped out.

Does this mean any third world dictator with a nuke or two could bring the whole of europe to a grinding halt?

I was fortunate to work on System X for a good part of my career, and can assure you that much thought was put into this. Although I hope it will never be proven, I think a combination of sensible equipment location whilst maintaining suitable electromechanical elements in the security communications structure would mean the few holocaust survivors could still call one another to arrange an armistice before they succumb to the nuclear winter!

I have been bombarded by adverts of this kind saying that we need "Never pay a landline phone bill again" and claiming that VoIP is a NEW Technology that the phone companies do not want us to know about! The very strong implication being that we need not pay (around £200 per annum) for Line Rental and can simply swap over to VoIP and save loads of money. As several Forum Members have already observed, we still have to pay for Line Rental if we want a decent low latency, ADSL (Typically 36Mbit/s Download and 10 Mbit/s Upload) cabled Broadband service for our Laptops, PCs, Tablest and Smartphones in our homes. The only current alternative is using your smartphone over a nominal 4G/LTE mobile air interface which means waiting say 10 times as long as ADSL Fibre Broadband to the Street Cabinet, to upload a simple 3 minute 250MB video to 'the cloud' for the purposes of submitting my Smartphone AV recording of the Bass part to a Virtual Choir invitation in May of this year during 'The Lockdown'. This was done by mistake when I had accidentally turned off my WiFi connection to the Router Modem in the Hallway!


Yes 5G is promising even faster access to the WWW than current 4G networks, but we all know that the reality will be poorer phone coverage geographically, significantly less speed than promised on paper and a requirement for many more antenna to support the shorter range that 5G brings. The appropriate use of new technology is to be commended where it offers a real benefit to the population but the number of shady marketing scammers who jump on the band wagon and offer 'jam today' for 'next to no cost' are deluded, ignorant and fraudulent. Sadly there are so few of our engineering peers in Parliamnet that powerful lobby groups periodically manage to bully the UK Govt into making legislation that suits their commercial agenda and is not properly peer reviewed before roll out. But that is another story! Good luck everybody.

Hello,

As engineers, we should get the terminology right. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology enables traditional telephony services to operate over "data/computer" networks by converting your voice into a digital signal allowing it to be "switched" over the digital network and then converted back into voice at the other end. Simply put, it is phone service delivered over the "switches" (exchanges) using internet protocol. The "old" circuit switched telephone exchanges are practically non-existent since IP switches are cheaper to run. So even "old fashioned" phone calls are switched using IP. The only part of the "old technology" is the copper wire to your local exchange and you rent this copper wire (so that your call can be switched by any competitor and not necessarily BT)

The old law still applies: Only the "old" land-line phone is supposed to work even if the area has no electricity and the operator has to guarantee that you can make emergency calls. This is done by actually powering the phone from telephone exchange, so unlike computer, VoIP phone, etc. you do not need home electricity (or power backup)  to make phone calls. You will note that there is always a disclaimer for VoIP (not suitable for emergency calls, ...). Mobile phones have made the above part "redundant" since you can now call emergency services using your mobile phone, provided you have good coverage!

Line Rental is the charge for using the "copper wire" from your house to the local telephone exchange. This copper wire is still needed to use another digital technology on it called ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line)  so that you can use your copper wire to transfer digital signals (and by the can make VoIP calls). With Fibre Optics, you do not need copper wire but I am sure you will still have to pay to rent the fibre from your home to first exchange.

BT was broken up into "local" part as BT Consumer (who owns copper wires/fibre optics to consumer premises) and BT Enterprise - the backend part which can be used by competitors as well. The breakup was mandated to ensure that BT Enterprise did not subsidise BT Consumer indirectly.


Unless you have excellent mobile coverage and good enough for your Netflix, You Tube, etc. or you do not use any of that, one is stuck with BT Consumer and hence Line Rental charges.


Nothing to do with ADSL, etc. - it is "pipe" which is need for fast internet services.


Best wishes,

Kirit