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emergency phone provision


Dave m

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And a similar anecdote of a TalkTalk customer who switched their domestic internet service to the new (and promoted) OpenReach Fibre To The Premises service, and only found out (as far as they were concerned) they were loosing their conventional copper land-line when TalkTalk disconnected it the following day! I haven't heard if they have been migrated to VoIP, but they certainly won't have a UPS!
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My mobile internet dongle frequently tells me I'm in Tunbridge Wells even when I'm at home North of the Thames. Which area emergency exchange it finds may be a random selection.

 

Don't start me on UPS's! To know that I have three minutes of electricity from the instant of a mains loss doesn't help much. Now a properly specified UPS may be much better.

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We have BT FTTP (not that we are putting our VOIP over it) and ours has a small (4 x AA battery) inbuilt UPS so you can still access POTS during a power cut. However when it was installed by BT they did not know how long it would run on battery and we have it connected to a UPS that will do 4+ hours anyway.
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I have got a little confused? I simply assumed at some point my suppliers, BT and Talktalk Business would tell me they have to install the fibre line, which already goes to the pole. My assumption was they’d give me a new box inside, with a small adaptor with an old fashioned master socket type outlet for my analogue devices? It appears I misunderstood? I’ve had nothing at all from either company, and due to a fault, TT only just installed a new cable to the premises. My alarm automatically switches to 4g when the phone line drops, or there’s a power cut.
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You get a box called an OLT (optical line terminal?) which just has a cat5 plug to connect your router and a mains psu brick to power it. At least that's how it works here. Analogue lines are handled as a completely separate thing. Edited by timsabre
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I have got a little confused? I simply assumed at some point my suppliers, BT and Talktalk Business would tell me they have to install the fibre line, which already goes to the pole. My assumption was they'd give me a new box inside, with a small adaptor with an old fashioned master socket type outlet for my analogue devices? It appears I misunderstood? I've had nothing at all from either company, and due to a fault, TT only just installed a new cable to the premises. My alarm automatically switches to 4g when the phone line drops, or there's a power cut.

 

You won't need fibre to the property (although there's some obvious speed benefits if you do have that) just an internet connection. Your telephony provider will offer some form of VoIP package to replace the analogue service. If you have VoIP phones, these can just plug into the router. If you have analogue phones, it should be possible to get converters which will provide the D-A / A-D conversion and necessary line/ring voltages to make the old style phones work.

 

For landline customers who do not have internet (mainly much older people) there should be a basic internet connection offered which will allow VoIP to work.

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Ah I assumed wrongly that the purple conduit now on every phone post would mean they were dumping comped completely not just the phone element! I get it now cheers!

I thought fibre was going to be mandatory, given some of the available commentary (after all, it's in various provider's financial interest to talk up the need for fibre!).

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all of our POTs have been removed or don't work.

Some phones around the place (in offices) have been replaced by new phones that seem to have 2 x Rj45 connectors on the back.

90% of us just use our computers as a picture less video call. we don't get handsets or even earphones.

 

As to emergency phones, they argue about every public access unit and say it must be near an existing network cable.

The POTS was located where it was deemed necessary and a telephone line installed.

It's a bit daft to remove an emergency phone connected to outside then complain that it's the user's fault that the infrastructure in inadequate to supply a safe replacement.

 

To be honest, it's not a surprise, they removed everyone's individual printer and installed a networked system.

Problem is that it doesn't work on Macs.

This meant nobody could print anything for 6 weeks when they figured out a solution.

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I can understand pots being removed to replace it with internal voip, but ultimately for genuine 999 calls there is little that's as good as pots copper pair. The worst candidate is the public mobile phone network, during the London tube bombings as an ambulance driver I couldn't use the mobile network but we had some "mini cab fist mic" radios that worked.
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  • 3 weeks later...

This report about such matters may be of interest.

My link

 

 

It discusses the possible need for backup arrangements, but only for "vulnerable" or "at risk" d0m3stic users with little mention of entertainment venues. I have very little faith in cellphones during any out of course event as the network tends to be swamped by the extra call volume.

I also have little faith in batteries provided and "maintained" by third parties such as telecoms suppliers.

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This report about such matters may be of interest.

My link

 

 

It discusses the possible need for backup arrangements, but only for "vulnerable" or "at risk" d0m3stic users with little mention of entertainment venues. I have very little faith in cellphones during any out of course event as the network tends to be swamped by the extra call volume.

I also have little faith in batteries provided and "maintained" by third parties such as telecoms suppliers.

 

The 2018 document above seems to still be current (it has changed significantly at least once) as it is linked to from section A3 of the General Conditions of Entitlement (https://www.ofcom.or...-of-entitlement)

The point about swamping is an important one, nationalised BT used to implement (presumably still does) priority calling for a wide range of numbers, and by destination as well as origin. Hence a call to a Doctor's surgery (not just 999) could cause another call to be dropped if there was insufficient routing capacity between exchanges. This does not now appear anywhere I can see in the OFCOM conditions so I presume it was not transposed to law (and therefore no other provider has been obliged to do so).

I fear this will stay off regulator's radar until there is an incident where the lack of public access telephony is deemed to have caused harm, unless the emergency resilience community is able to apply pressure (they are statutory consulties, but may not be thinking about this). Licensing officers could impose requirements, but I would speculate have never thought about the question (having not needed to).

The situation is similar to that with communications for the energy distribution networks - the commercial providers claim that all is well (but that the detail is commercially confidential), whilst the energy network operators themselves don't believe a word of it. Respective regulators are not always consistent with each other, and a great deal of effort is expended trying to get the various parties to agree. It is of course not possible in this context to organise a full-scale test to see if things do in fact work as claimed, hence the de facto reliance on retrospective analysis of real emergencies.Reliability of batteries is only part of the picture - a lot of network equipment seems these days to be in a box at the side of the road, and powered from the ordinary mains. It's little consolation to have power to the OTN maintained at your venue if the green cabinet up the road is dead!

 

Edited by richardash1981
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I have radio repeaters on a shared site, mostly cell phone base stations.

When an engineer was on one site at the same time I asked if it was possible to have a feed from their 24V battery backed supply just as a fall back in case of a power cut, to cut a story short he said it would be OK but at the end he removed the panel from the battery compartment to reveal the ends of 4 SLA batteries, all 4 of which had swollen to the point the case had split and showing the dry white sulphated plates, I have every expectation they are completely useless. There is a dish to Police HQ on that system..

 

 

The other system in the building doesn't have batteries fitted in the power supply.

 

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The other system in the building doesn't have batteries fitted in the power supply.

 

BT SDH Equipment on customers premises relied on the Customer connecting the alarm contacts of the PSU's including back up battery feed to a customer's local alarm system, no reporting back to BT. And the customer had to check the "replace by" date on the battery and request BT to replace it.

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