On 13/10/2020 14:40, Tim Streater wrote:
On 13 Oct 2020 at 11:08:42 BST, Robin wrote:

On 13/10/2020 09:22, charles wrote:
In article , Brian Gaff \(Sofa\)
wrote:
I think most land lines except those for vulnerable people where they
need battery backed land lines are being supplied over the internet. Heck
Virgin have been doing it for a couple of years, but not mine since its
needed to be independent of broadband. I had hoped mobile could be relied
upon, but it seems that often when the broadband goes down due to a power
cut, so does the local cellular service. Would not one think in this day
and age that some redundancy would be built in by supplying such services
from another power source? Brian

not if you're looking at your profit margin. Gone are the days of a public
service system


it is a regulated market in which legislation and OFCOM determine the
obligations on suppliers. OFCOM have said they plan to require
providers to take additional measures to provide landline access
emergency services in a power cut with IP telephony. I expect the
Select Committee(s) will take an interest in that.

Though of course nothing they can do will protect those with no corded
phone to plug in when the base station for their cordless phones stops
working.

Which is why we have one corded phone here. Although that's less necessary
than before they put up a mobile tower at the other end of the village (I get
5 bars now :-)


I also have a PS2 keyboard permanently plugged into my PC, and the
keyboard sits, tucked behind the mini-tower for those odd occasions
when the USB keyb and mouse are having a sulk.