Well, hello and good morning! I found out about the above yesterday when looking to renew my broadband contract and one of the ramifications was that my alarm and other bits would no longer work if I moved over to faster FTTP, because the copper line would be pulled out and replaced with fibre. I'm therefore reluctant to do so and considering staying on the copper for now, purely to avoid the additional cost (for the moment) of replacing connected systems. But this left me with questions, not least because the tech chap I spoke to said that companies (or Openreach?) are hoping customers make the change themselves by upgrading their lines/internet connections, which I took to mean "rather than Openreach having to fork out and do it themselves". Possibly incorrectly, but my knowledge of this is slim, having heard nothing about it and limited to the above link and a couple of similar ones. So if I were to renew my copper broadband contract and then tomorrow the switch happens, who is in charge of maintaining/upgrading my contract? Plus is it worth getting in now and hoping fingers crossed that whatever tech I install now is still supported in three years, rather than a further change happening (this occurred with TVs when it was decided that the 720p (from memory) versions that were being sold as HD suddenly weren't when 1080p became the favourite a couple of years later - had a row with Currys over this one back in the day)? Further, it seems to me that with the switch, more links are added to the chain as potential points of failure ie. to change the alarm system and be notified of any alerts, this requires that the internet is up, the router is working, my mobile has a data connection wherever I am and I actually see the notification, as opposed to it just ringing me on the phone line. I also admit this is the limit of my understanding on the subject based on one conversation with one person, so could do with some more research/advice. This isn't even to mention the potential security holes since the alarm company will be able to remote access my system in order to minimise maintenance callouts etc.. Although my system still works fine at the moment, it is now actually unsupported since the company got bought out and shut down, which means the alarm guys can't get hold of parts any more and thus won't commit to maintaining it. I therefore did ask the tech chap what would happen in the event of any newly-installed technology becoming obsolete quicker than anticipated ie. (for the sake of extremes) wi-fi becoming obsolete in the next year and the answer was that they can't control that, so the system would also therefore become unsupported. Even despite at point of sale there being a ten-year support commitment. So one part of me is happy with the current FTTC connection because it works and is fast enough (and is cheaper at £11/mth rather than ~£30), plus I avoid immediate ancillary upgrade costs and upgrading as late as possible should cover last-minute changes to standards etc.. Another part wonders what will happen to my connectivity if I do remain on copper and also to costs when the upgrade is forced in three years' time - will they go up because people have no choice, or down because of more competing providers? And another part is reluctant to jump onto anything now in case of changes down the line. As you can tell, it's all a bit jumbled upstairs, so any insight anyone can add would be appreciated! EDIT: Something else that just occurred to me, since this is a forced changeover that is likely to impact many people and businesses cost-wise, are there any grants or subsidies being discussed?
Most business etc are probably already using the IP phones and many providers already give an IP phone even when using FTTC through copper when you sign up, the phone plugs into the router. Certainly when I was on FTTC with Sky and BT that was how my phone is done. I would be surprised if you were using the old analogue network unless you haven't switched providers for decades as they have been removing these for years. Yes you will have no phone if your internet goes down, sounds like analogue doesn't matter for your alarm as it is wifi anyway? so will also suffer if internet goes down.
No, it's the opposite at the moment - the alarm is on the traditional phone line but they're mentioning changing it over to a wi-fi-based one. Another thought - would this make it easier to defeat from outside somehow? The Virgin box is much easier to access and unplug than the roof-height phone line, for example. And as you say - no internet = no alarm (or at least, no notifications). Incidentally, we've never actually had a VOIP/digital/router phone, or been offered one. Admittedly, the line is solely used for the alarm as we have our mobiles, but that raises another point - if we did decide to use the VOIP solution upon changing, I'd also (I assume) need to buy a network switch at additional cost, since all the ports on the router are in use. Interesting what you say about them removing the analogue lines as well - we generally change internet providers at the end of each contract but it's only yesterday that this whole thing came up. No-one has mentioned it before, or even offered to upgrade the line in order to get a faster (and more expensive) package. The only reason I noticed was because the BT site mentioned that faster fibre was available on my line which was a surprise, plus a note underneath that FTTP means that your alarm might no longer work. Even the Sky rep I spoke to about possibly upgrading had no idea what the impact of any upgrade to faster fibre would be, but she did ask if I had another way to make emergency calls in the event of an internet outage. EDIT: Just found this, which I'll have a look through at some point as well. EDIT 2: I read it. It wasn't very helpful and seemed mostly aimed at garnering business from businesses.
I also found this (had to screenshot as it downloaded locally): Our exchange is shown in the list that followed, which is odd, since I can apparently still order (as in offered for sale, haven't yet put the order through) "normal" broadband which I assume is FTTC, even though I can also apparently get an upgrade to FTTP. I would have thought this meant the decision was effectively made for me and rules out the cheaper/older options, although this may become clearer at the point at which I renew.
I've been working on migration stratagies on the migration with various customers for the past few years. Business was their focus at the moment as there's not a finished migration solution from BT for consumers, especially people that only have a phone and not any internet. Most alarm systems have switched to IP with 4G backup now, not the same as having redline but better than not being connected.
Here's a pic of the back of Sky's current router. The ethernet cable from the FTTP wallbox would plug into yellow socket 4, marked "WAN", and your phone would plug into the black socket marked "UK".
Ah, cheers both - makes sense. Only thing is if I'm losing one of the sockets to the WAN cable, I'll still have the same issue of being a port short. Yeah, I spoke to the alarms chap this afternoon and he said the same thing. I understand it a bit better now as a result of the chat - the newer alarm basically functions as a standard alarm and it's only connected to the router to send alerts out via the mobile app. Pulling an external Virgin-type box off the wall will only affect that, not its main operation. All devices and apps have to be paired with the main box and any backdooring in has to be approved by the primary owner. He reckons the most common outage is a power cut, affecting alerts as before when the router goes down. So it seems my options are to go with cheaper internet (which is actually a 12-month contract, handily) and keep the current alarm running until I'm able to buy into the new alarm tech, at which point having the copper line in place will have no effect on the new unit and I can change to FTTP when the broadband contract expires. Otherwise, I upgrade to FTTP now and lose the phone line, current older alarm remains operational but I receive no calls when it tries to alert me of something. I'll have to decide once I know what the full cost of upgrade is .
Other option for the alarm (assuming it's not using Redcare) is to get a ATA to connect it to then use something like sipgate to give it a line. If it doesn't dial out much you'll spend £10 a year or so on calls
Ah, this sounds interesting. I looked at the sipgate site, but what's an ATA and what sort would I need? It was tricky just doing a search for that as too much came back. EDIT: Apologies, I was barking up the wrong tree (trunk line?). I think I just need one with a single in socket and a wi-fi connection.
The one IanW linked to would work. In the world of SIP/VOIP trunk or channel is a virtual phone line. So a single channel/trunk would work for you
Cheers guys - appreciated! Is this one much different, given it's two thirds of the price? From reading the specs, it didn't seem to be. There was also this, which had a used option for about £40. I'll need to check the connection at the alarm box, but if it's BT instead of RJ11 then I'll just grab one of these as well, but nothing I can find seems to be wireless to the router ATA-wise (and cheapish), so I assume I'll need a Powerline adapter - is there a minimum speed required for VOIP? If I'm adding the Powerline, then I'll definitely need a network switch upstairs as well as I'll be over the port limit on the router, as mentioned in an above post. I found this and this with the difference apparently only plastic vs metal, plus also this and this (but I don't know why this is the advanced version of the latter, other than green creds). The "enhanced feature set" versions of the Netgears seem to get better reviews than the basic versions, so might possibly be worth going for one of those unless one of the cheaper ones will do just as good a job (I won't really be using advanced stuff like VLANs, but supposedly faster out of box speed would be of use, obvs). Bit of scope creep here, so definitely grateful for the assistance! To end on a peculiar question - is there an option whereby the FTTP engineer can install a wall box downstairs for the alarm (to connect to via ATA, unless it needs to go straight into the router) and one upstairs for the router? Or am I limited to the wall box being upstairs in the office and having to faff with the above setup (switches, Powerline adapters etc.)? What a rabbit hole...
Most ATA's are similar. Grandstream or Linksys are commonly used and supported. The passthrough netgear powerline's are often on special around black friday/random Amazon sales. Voice needs 100kb or so each way, latancy is more of an issue. FTTP is your entry point, you'll get 1connection and that'll connect to your firewall/router
