The Plain Old Telephone Service that’s been around in the UK since the late 19th century is about to be discontinued. This isn’t happening everywhere all at once, it’s a phased thing on an exchange by exchange basis, but ultimately if you currently have a basic phone line this is going to stop working.

There are concerns around this, mostly centered on elderly people who still use a landline and what happens when the power goes out? The argument goes that in an emergency, e.g. during a storm, in a power cut, we would not want to leave people without the ability to call for help.

There are other issues around the loss of analogue lines to do with monitoring systems and alarm, but these can pretty much all be mitigated with VOIP adapters. The real issue is about reliable service in an emergency.

It’s hard to know how much of a problem this actually is. Whilst I don’t doubt there are plenty of elderly people for whom the landline is important, my first question is how many have a cordless phone? These have a base station that needs mains power. I have never seen a domestic unit with battery backup. In a power cut these do not work, but a secondary wired phone can be present.

Then there’s the question about line damage. The circumstances that lead to power outages can often also result in damage to telephone lines. It doesn’t matter that the exchange is still working if you’re no longer connected to it.

If your analogue landline is discontinued it will be replaced with either FTTP or a DSL circuit over copper pair. To maintain a phone service means using VOIP – either dedicated phone hardware or some sort of VOIP adaptor, possibly built into the router.

The most obvious solution is a low cost UPS. To maintain service in an emergency1-3 devices would need to be powered. These are not going to present very high current draw and a small UPS would probably keep things working for several hours – albeit with annoying beeping which itself is likely to be an issue.

Debate I’ve seen is around who is responsible for this. I understand why this is raised because currently an basic analogue telephone is powered by the exchange. The thing is it’s possible to consider an analogue telephone as part of the exchange as when in use it completes the circuit through the line. As this service is withdrawn it becomes necessary to power devices locally – as it already is with a cordless phone connected to an analogue line.

UK domestic comms has moved from circuit switched analogue voice telephony to broadband packet switched IP. The way analogue telephones work, at least between the exchange the home, is essentially the same now as it was in the late 1800s and it makes complete sense to end this service now that it is no longer used as the primary means of communication.

Something that doesn’t get a lot of mention in the press coverage around this is parts of the phone network is getting old. Nothing lasts forever and periodically the cabling infrastructure in the ground and the equipment in exchanges needs to be replaced. We have gone from the human operator through several generations of mechanical switching (this link provides a wonderful explainer on how an old mechanical telephone exchange works) to electronic analogue switching through everything being digital links and now it’s all IP between exchanges anyway. Having to maintain the old, just because it’s been there a long time does not make financial sense.

Given what the communications network is now used for it makes no sense to put new wiring in. If streets and driveways are to be dug up to replace old cabling it’s much better to replace them with fibre – and that’s what’s happening.

The problem here is one of change and how that change is managed. BT have gone from offering to provide battery backed up equipment to not doing that to postponing the copper pair migration in areas because it turns out they hadn’t worked this out.

I have seen a lot of people claiming that the good old analogue phone is simple, reliable and should be maintained for that reason. I can see the logic of that though I would argue it’s only the user end that’s simple.

Perhaps there’s a market for a simple phone VOIP terminal that has built in DSL, ethernet, doesn’t need a separate router and can supply power (12v outlet) for the PON terminal – nice big LI-PO battery inside. Get that right an BT can probably then have a standard hardware item to issue that will just work, then the rollout can proceed.