Broadband ISP TalkTalk Start FREE Automatic UK FTTP Upgrades
Back in 2022 we reported that budget UK broadband ISP TalkTalk was running a new trial (here), which gave “some” existing customers a free automatic upgrade to full fibre (FTTP) broadband – provided they were covered by the network and didn’t already have such a package. But fast-forward 13 months and this is no longer just a trial.
At the time of writing, TalkTalk are known to support several Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) networks on their service, including Openreach, CityFibre, Freedom Fibre and CommunityFibre. But the original trial of automatic upgrades only seemed to focus on a few selected ADSL2+ and FTTC using customers covered by Openreach’s new full fibre network.
However, a number of the internet provider’s customers recently informed ISPreview that they’d begun receiving emails from TalkTalk, which announced that they would be “upgrading your home with a brand new Full Fibre connection that’s faster and more reliable, for free” – despite the customers concerned not having requested such an upgrade.
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Copy of TalkTalk’s Customer Email
Hi ******************,
We will be upgrading your home with a brand new Full Fibre connection that’s faster and more reliable, for free. It will also include our new Digital Voice phone service.
We’re doing this because the copper phone line-based technology that most broadband services use wasn’t designed to cope with modern day demands. So, it’s going to be retired in the next few years and be replaced with Full Fibre broadband.
We’ll confirm the appointment date for your full fibre installation in the next few weeks via an SMS from 07786****** or 07701******. You will need to respond to this SMS to accept or rearrange the install date.
Once you’ve read through the information below, there will be nothing else for you to do at this time, except if you have a care alarm, medical alarm, no mobile phone coverage, or other circumstances that are detailed in the email below. If this is the case, then the upgrade may not be suitable for you, so please call us on the number below and we can discuss your options.
…
Not only are you being upgraded free of charge, but there will be no change to your current contract, monthly bill, or telephone number. You can learn more about what to expect from your engineer appointment by visiting www.talktalk.co.uk/fibreupgrade .
There are some circumstances where upgrading may not be right for you. If any of the statements in the following section apply to you, please contact us on 0333 003 1064 to discuss your options:-
– I have medical equipment, a critical care device or personal safety alarm that relies on a home phone connection.
– I have a home alarm or burglar alarm wired to my home phone connection and want to continue having this connected.
– Due to mobility issues, I need additional help and support to connect the equipment in my home.
– I have multiple phone sockets in different rooms throughout my home that have corded phones connected to them.
– I rely on my landline to call the emergency services / I don’t have access to a mobile phone, or experience poor mobile coverage in my property.If any of these statements do apply to you, please call us on 0333 003 1064.
This upgrade requires an engineer to install Full Fibre in your home. Our installation partner, Openreach, will send you an SMS to your mobile phone number ending 161, with your installation date.
…
Thank you for being a TalkTalk customer, we hope you enjoy all the benefits that a Full Fibre with Digital Voice connection brings to your home.
We queried this with TalkTalk and were informed that they will now occasionally be moving their customers onto FTTP, free of charge, given the nationwide move from copper to fibre and eventual closure of exchanges (the latter will mostly occur after 2030). Such a programme has to be done in a gradual, phased, way as otherwise it would probably be too disruptive (i.e. strain on engineering resources). Not to mention that FTTP is currently only available to around half of the country.
According to the ISP, the first customers to benefit from this automatic upgrade will be spread across the United Kingdom, albeit currently focused on areas where FTTP availability is greatest. TalkTalk also confirmed that this would be conducted through their partnerships with Openreach and also other leading altnets, such as CityFibre, which was specifically named.
On the surface, this should be seen as a good and positive development, although it’s also fair to say that not everybody was happy with the approach during last year’s trial. Some customers complained about having such an upgrade imposed upon them, particularly as they were perfectly happy with their current service, while others bemoaned the need for an engineer to work on their homes.
In addition, the new VoIP style Digital Voice product does have some added caveats, such being unable to work during power cuts (unless you have a battery backup) or with certain alarm/telecare systems. But to TalkTalk’s credit, they are being very mindful of this in their communications and are offering to discuss alternative options.
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However, like it or not, virtually everybody will eventually end up being moved to vastly superior full fibre lines, it’s just a question of when.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« Sheffield City Council Order CityFibre to Cease Noisy Night Work
The big switch begins.
Incoming Ad47uk in t-minus…
Not at 12.30AM 🙂
There are a couple of problems, according to Talk Talk there is no FTTP where I live, but there clearly is as the Openreach gubbins are on the pole outside my house along with Zzoomm and according to Openreach i can get their FTTP.
The second thing is, what happens if someone is not allowed to have FTTP as their landlord will not allow it?
There is someone on another forum saying about a housing association not allowing zzoomm due to a hole being put into a maisonette wall.
I don’t like the way they are doing it, it is like some energy companies with smart meters, we have made an appointment. it should be we are offering a free upgrade, if you want it then let us know.
Too much of this pushing for different things.
At least people can stop it if they want, I wonder what would happen is they did not reply to the text?
Landlord in general cannot prevent you having FTTP. There may possible be an issuing with drilling a hole but we are talking a small hole and in many cases it may not be needed they may be able to use the existing hole for the cooper line
I doubt drilling a small hole will be an issue
Just because Openreach kit is on the pole does not mean FTTP is available. Best to check on the Openreach Web site
@bob
Have seen a few OR engineers who refused on some houses due to H & S crap
@Bob, I said that, but I had to ask permission and I live in a house and then ZZoomm still decided to do a survey and send it off to my landlord, so had a to wait another week. The same HA as the one who said that they were not allowed FTTP. I said get zzoomm to do a survey, they may be able to put the Fibre though the same hole that the phone cable is.
some people think that just because providers like Talk Talk say they are going to give a free upgrade to FTTP that it is going to be easy-peasy.
haha that must be a weird conversation
‘sir we r here 2 move u 2 fibre’
“but i’ve been on fibre since 2008”
‘yes but this is fibre++’
“and before then, my 56k dialup also qualified the criteria for fibre”
‘yes’
Wot u fail’d Inglish @ school?
I’m sure it would be. Luckily hardly anyone is going to have it and those that do will be having it intentionally and need to get out more.
I still miss the sound of the old 56k dial-up modem. I remember when I first went onto ADSL and it was strange not having to dial up to get on the net, use it when ever I want and the home phone was still free for my parents to phone me. The speed was nice, but being able to get onto the net when i wanted was the best thing.
Worth noting this is opt out rather than opt in, TalkTalk seem do be arranging an appointment then telling you.
Just wondering what connection does Talktalk have with Community Fibre?
Reseller of Community Fibre services in certain areas?
None
@SC-APC Connector
That’s what I thought. So no idea why Mark has mentioned Community Fibre in the article.
As far as I am aware, Community Fibre only retail their own ISP over their own infrastructure
The savings from changing over to Fibre are considered. A lot of the savings will be to BT/Openreach
Currently they are having to maintain both copper and fibre also the AD converters plus the space they take up
Coper comes into the exchange through a cable chamber and is terminated on an MDF which is then patched across to the line side which often requires maintenance. Not sure what happens with Fibre
Switching to all fibre means the copper cables can be covered freeing up a lot of duct space
If the cables are pole mounted removing the copper reduced the weight. Fibre is not affected by rain or storms neither
Fibre also reduced power consumption
@Sunil Sood
Community Fibre did retail their own fibre but now they are opening it up to wholesale to other retail ISP’S (apparently it has always been open to other ISP’S but they felt they needed to do their own retail to gain traction in take up). Richard Tang’s video here is we’ll worth a watch:-https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2023/09/video-richard-tang-interviews-graeme-oxby-ceo-of-community-fibre.html
All credit to TalkTalk. The faster the country moves to FTTP, the better. Consumers may not be aware that running parallel networks raises costs, which eventually get passed on to them. It is going to happen eventually, so why not accept the inevitable.
You have published a complete mobile telephone number in the above article.
Last 3 digits of 2 number hidden with asterix then a few paragraphs later you published the last 3 digits
You’re confusing TalkTalk’s mobile support numbers with the customer’s number. The first two numbers are the ones TT use to send out notifications from engineers etc.
No they haven’t published the whole mobile number.Re-read the article,then you will see there are still numbers omitted
No they haven’t published the whole mobile number.Re-read the article,then you will see there are still numbers omitted
It does make sense to do this. The underlying costs of FTTH are lower than for FTTC
Exactly and TalkTalk need to reduce their debt so any reduction they can make to their costs, the better.
And the consumer wins too with a better product and the ability to move providers with ease which will become more important when more areas have stop sell on FTTC/ADSL.
BT have already put a Stop sell on analogue lines in most cases and I think it may also apply if you switch ISP’s
@Bob
Yes you can no longer get a new copper voice line but you can still in the vast majority of areas order ADSL/FTTC with a digital voice (VOIP) component or no VOIP.
In the majority of areas the stop sell only applies to WLR products, including SMPF. Full unbundled MPF is not affected so TalkTalk can still offer traditional voice.
ADSL (except unbundled) is available as an ethernet only product.
In FTTP priority exchanges if FTTP is available no copper services at all are available.
Openreach’s Equinoxe 2 scheme is having the desired effect then. I understand BT are now pushing customers over to FTTP when recontracting as you might expect.
I received a similar inertia selling email from Vodafone Connect. A few extracts..
–
As a Vodafone Broadband customer, we’re prioritising your upgrade. Plus, to ensure you’re able to experience an even better connection with full fibre – we’re giving you a free speed boost to our Full Fibre 100 plan, offering average speeds of up to 100Mbps. That’s 65 Mbps faster than the average speed of your Superfast 1 plan today.
–
Your existing contract, monthly bill and telephone number will remain the same.
–
There’s nothing for you to do right now, we’ll process your upgrade for you. As this upgrade will require an engineer visit to install full fibre in your home, we’ll be in touch to confirm an appointment at a time that suits you.
You’ll soon receive an order confirmation message once we’ve processed your upgrade
Shortly after, we’ll contact you with a proposed installation date
Once you receive the email/SMS, please respond to confirm the appointment time or re-arrange it if it isn’t suitable
Important: if you do not confirm the appointment, we will be unable to proceed with your upgrade at this point in time.
–
Observations…
I don’t have to opt out. I can ignore the appointment and it won’t happen.
They haven’t said whether they are using BT-Openreach or Cityfibre – they are both available in my street.
They are trying to up-sell to their 100Mb plan, presumably so that you pay a higher price when your contract expires. But I’m not in a contract so it can never expire.
When BT switches off the PSTN, or maybe sooner, I plan to stop the landline and use mobile broadband. My understanding is that Openreach have not announced any intention to shut down VDSL 40/10.
If you are not in contract the price can increase
If with the switch to Fibre can increase after the contract expires they should tell you what the cost would be when out of contract
“They haven’t said whether they are using BT-Openreach or Cityfibre – they are both available in my street”
Assume it would be CityFibre as it’s the cheaper option – you can always contact them to see
If you have CityFibre and Openreach then Vodafone only allow CityFibre connections. You get no choice in which supplier. As an exercise, try getting a quote for a neighbour’s house and you will see that the system picks CityFibre as shown by the speeds offered being symmetric.
> My understanding is that Openreach have not announced any intention to shut down VDSL 40/10.
Correct – there’s also no intention of shutting down VDSL 80/20, nor G.Fast where available, except in areas with FTTP coverage and a copper “stop sell”.
However from last week, new copper broadband connections are always sold as digital only (SOGEA or SOGfast). If your provider offers a voice service then it will be digital voice via the router.
No new analogue exchange connections are being provided, and all current ones will have to migrate to digital by Dec 2025.
@occasionally factual
I did actually manage to get Vodafone to process a Openreach order once while I had a cityfibre line, took a lot of attempts to get an adviser that gave a monkeys, and I can tell from the order number they had to use their old system new advisors aren’t trained on to do it, so it’s totally possible, your milage will definitely vary though.
(I was having a fiasco with CityFibre not releasing a line if anyone’s wondering)
No mention in the email about the extra power socket required for the ONT?
Not in the email, but it has this link, I haven’t looked at it:
–
Please note, this may impact how you use your landline today, for more information on this please see our FAQs page (https://www.vodafone.co.uk/fullfibreupgrade)
If you go to the link they mentioned it has a nice wee video you can watch
I really wish they would deploy ONTs that support Power Over Ethernet, do that the power supplied to the gateway/router/access point would suffice.
Nah, they would not think about doing that, hidden in the small text.
Anyone who remains with FTTC when FTTP is available for them. I just think there is something mentally wrong with them. Like the sort of people who stuck with Black and White TV’s when offered a free Colour TV upgrade.
Yes..Same goes for people who have lots of options but still whinge one is not available to them. it’s like they are wanting a FTTP/Altnet full house which is sad
I hate our FTTC line and would switch immediately if it wasn’t the freeholder putting spanner in the works. Hopefully forcing it through could give them the proverbial bird and then I can enjoy normal net speeds.
I have 80/20 vdsl on a Zen no price increase ever contact. We have just had OR provision our estate for fttp. I’m staying right where I am until I can get at least 300 down and 300 up for less than I pay for 80/20 as that is the minimum upgrade that I feel would balance the loss of a guaranteed maximum price.
Some people don’t want the hassle and as i said before some people may not be able to get it because they are renting. I was fine on FTTC, I changed because of price. If I was on Talk Talk, not that I would touch them with a barge pole, but if I was and on FTTC and had that letter i would ignore it and if they persisted I would ask to let go of my contract and either go to another provider with FTTc or as I have now go for an Altnet since there is one here.
Once you switch they will upsell, so nothing is free.
I don’t remember anyone getting a free colour TV upgrade? My gran had a black and white TV for years as a colour one would cost more to rent, also a colour TV licence cost more, even then. the only reason she did go to colour is that the company she rented from stopped doing black and white TVs and from what I remember, my parents gave her their old one. I presume she paid the higher price for the licence, she was not paying for rental. Very little is free and Talk Talk is not doing this out of the goodness of their heart
@Ad47uk
Love your treacle.
The move to colour TV was different. Initially colour TV’s were very expensive
The more relevant analogy is when TV moved from Analogue to Digital. Both system operated initially but eventually the analogue network was shut down and if you wanted t watch TV you had to switch to digital
@Bob and look how bad that was handled and the lies of the better quality with digital TV, it was and after all these years is still awful. Even now, TV sets and set-top boxes can’t cope with channels vanishing or new ones arriving without a complete rescan, we have lost the ability to archive stuff as even DVD recorders are not sold these days or if they are few and far between. Years ago we had a major fire here in the city centre, and it was on the news, I recorded it with my DVD recorder, so now I have an archive of something that happened her. Try doing that now.
Don’t get me wrong I like the streaming as it is convenient, I don’t watch normal TV at all these days, don’t even have a TV licence, but it is sad the way it is gone and as i said above, Digital Terrestrial TV is still awful, it was a mess when on digital first started it and it is a mess now
it seems in some way, things have not changed , with forcing people to digital voice and you chat to a lot of people they have no idea it was happening, the communication about it is to be honest, total rubbish. They are doing with FTTP what have been happening with pushing people onto smart meters, You will have it, we WILL make an appointment and you will have it installed. these companies need to remember that if it was not for us the public, they would not exist, their CEO’s would not be getting their million. that goes for supermarkets as well. who keep pushing us to use their self scan and their spy cards.
Fed up with being told what to do by companies, you would think they run the country. Oh they do, I forgot as the government have no guts.
Speak for yourself, I archive whatever broadcast tv I want to my Plex server via a DVB-T tuner.
@Rich, good for you, but that don’t stop the digital terrestrial TV service being utter and complete rubbish. Most of the channels are filled with junk, and most of them are not even HD.
sometimes we were better
off with just Five channels, now they are all fighting for viewers, and that is why there is so much junk on there. also squeezing more and more into less space, like Dab radio.
I am so glad i dropped normal TV all those years ago, one of the better things I have done and not having to pay for the BBC.
Nothing wrong with this so long as the job is done competently. (Of course, finding someone that can do a job competently in this country lately…).
However, like it or not, virtually everybody will eventually end up being moved to vastly superior full fibre lines, it’s just a question of when. I am sure for those on ADSL/FTTC slow lines that is more of a “hurry up” than a “oh no”
The people reluctant to go over to FTTP. I don’t think they realize how superior the service is. They see it as i get all the speed I need from FTTC so why upgrade. The service is just so much cleaner all round. Ridiculously low pings/latency, no DLAM at all, turn off your router and bring it back up and get perfect line speed in seconds. No dropouts, no fluctuations no nothing.
@Anthony, a lot of people don’t care about the technology, they just want broadband, they don’t care about pings or dslams, but they also don’t want hassle and that is what installing FTTP is. Granted mine was installed quicker than I thought it would be, but only because the two people doing it were efficient, the jumped out of the van and the bloke had the ladder against the pole before I could blink and the women was in my house attaching the ONT and drilling the hole though the wall just as quick as soon as she knew where it was going to go. she did have a problem drilling the hole though the wall, but these houses were made to last.
it took under an hour to get it installed and up and running. and some of that was chatting. Next door neighbour Openreach was there for a lot longer than a hour.
As I said before I changed, if I already had FTTP it would have been an easier decision, it took me a long time to decide what I was going to do. I started looking around 4-5 months before my contract ended. Personally, I think I only know one person on Talk Talk now, and they don’t live around here. they won’t go to FTTP I doubt.
i don;t know why or other are so bothered what other people do, if Zzoomm did not give me the offer they did I think I would have changed now broadband, they don;t do FTTP. I may go back after my contract if Zzoomm puts the prices up too much
@Ad47uk
Love your treacle.
Happy to see this. I’m living in a leaseheld flat block where the management company are only ever useful if you wave money in their face, and have so far made it difficult to even get the ball rolling with installing FTTP by covering the process in red tape (I think they basically want me to sort out the waylease instead of the MC). It’s infuriating as our copper line stability is awful, so this would work instead of getting the line fixed.
Forcing it through would be much better. I’d enjoy being able to enjoy working from home with non-dialup era speeds.
Same situation as me. We had an altnet come out and provide a full report on how they would install fttp at no cost but the management company rejected it. They’re run by useless boomers.
Only chance we’ll have is when openreach upgrade the area.
I’ve just got my full fibre fitted on Tuesday 5th September and talk talk had to send me a new router as my old 1 wouldn’t connect to fibre and they sent me the exact same router
If you’re old router had an ethernet WAN port as well as the standard RJ11 DSL port it should have worked fine with FTTP. You probably need to do a hard reset on your router before connecting it to fttp to allow it to reconfigure itself.
They should have sent you a ‘Amazon Eero 6’ router
Tal
Ta
Some truly miserable ungrateful sorts. I don’t want a better service for the same money, or I don’t want an engineer visiting that is going to take three days
Three days? i suppose it may be if they have to go underground. some people work and don’t get the time off to stay at home for three days.
Also, these companies are not doing it for our good, they are doing it to reduce costs and so they can upsell.
If someone is on 80Mb/s FTTC, and they are put on the equivalent FTTP service, is the customer going to notice a difference? no. The other reason they are putting people onto FTTP, is to try and beat the Alt networks. they know that once people are on their FTTP, they will be less chance of then changing to a alt network
Companies are crafty soles, they don’t do anything for you and I.
Personally, I think something like this should be opt-in mid-contract with only renewals/new contracts really pushing/requiring it.
When I had FTTP installed on my own volition, the OR engineer was only willing to do the bare minimum ‘by the front door’ install, which meant I then had to at my own time/expense add the extra cabling required to get the WAN connection where I needed it.
If I had to go through something like this with no on the surface benefit (e.g. faster speeds, reduced price, etc.), I’d definitely had been annoyed.
That’s very poor. Who was the ISP?
@Bobby C
The ISP was BT, however, it was the Openreach side who did the actual install.
I suppose I should balance my post out by saying I have had better OR engineers in the past and another day, a different engineer, one of them may have been willing to put it where I needed it.
Although given my actual experience, I stand by my stance on how ISPs should approach any FTTP switchover with no ‘on the surface’ upgrades.
Not sure what you mean? They are not going to run a wan cable from the ONT to where you want to put the router. One of my brothers had FTTP installed last year and while they did put the ONT in an ok place, they certainly did not put it. in the ideal place, it was up to my brother to put a Ethernet cable in from the ONT to where he wanted the router. OR just done the bare stuff. They did have to move the splice box a fed day later as they put it in the wrong place.
When Zzoomm done mine, they would not put the ONT where I really wanted, it, too many corners for the fibre, I accept that, So the router was put under the TV as they only have a short Ethernet cable. i had to buy a longer Ethernet cable to move the router where I want it, it is a bit of a pain as I now have two cables running alone the skirting board. The Wan cable from the ONT to the router and then a cable from the router to the switch under the TV. I got some trunking Friday to tidy it up, but been too hot to do it, so will try today.
Saying that, I know someone who has zzoomm and they put the fibre from the front of the house, all the way though the basement, along the hall, over the dining room door, even drilled a tiny hole for the fibre to go through the door frame and fitted the ONT on the inside wall of the dining room.
@Ad47uk
To provide a comparison, when both my brother and parents had VM installed, the engineers put the connections where we wanted them.
Anyway, the point of my post is that I can see TT’s approach potentially causing problems and annoying customers.
I know there are other benefits to FTTP besides potentially faster speeds, but I reckon if I had to do the things I did post install with no descernable benefits over the old copper connection, which was exactly where I wanted it, I would be annoyed.
I could even see some people turning the engineer away on the day.
At least when better presented opt-in or on condition of contract/renewal it might mean the customer feels like they have more of a choice and/or TT could try and better promote the switchover e.g. only offer discounts on FTTP and keeping copper more expensive.
@tech3475, oh yeah, it will certainly cause problems and upset some people. I know a few who would tell them where to go 🙂 I know it is not all about speed and is supposed to be about reliability, but try telling that to someone who have had no problems with their FTTC for the last 9 years or so.
For many people, they will see no difference even if they have a faster speed, unless they have a few people in the house. the main benefit of super-duper fast speed is downloading large files and maybe watching different streams at 4K.
They are getting desperate for people to change as they realise people are not interested, so they force it onto people.
I know my next door neighbour will not change easily, one of my brothers or my brother-in-law. I have no idea what is going to happen to the service my brother have as he is with shell and they have been sold to Octopus, but I doubt Octopus will keep hold of the broadband.
It makes little odds to me at the moment, i am on Fibre, via a Alt network, but will see what happens next year when my contract ends and if they give me a decent offer, I could reduce the speed from 500Mb/s to 150Mb/s or change to now broadband, they still have FTTC, I do know one thing, I am not going to go through the hassle of having another FTTP network installed.
Surely and engineer can’t force entry into your property and install this against your will?
No but eventually the service can simply be withdrawn.
Maybe 5G broadband better option if you don’t want people messing about with your home.
@Will tell – not everywhere has access to 5g yet and if they do, you pretty much need a mast nearby for anything good to come out of it. I don’t know what the 3 5g mast just outside provides here but judging by speedtests I’ve seen at least 250mbps. Not that bad when you consider the average broadband speed around these sorts is 35-60mbps. Ours is routinely slow around 17-19mbps however OR now seem to be sorting fttp in this area. On Friday I witnessed them down this road even!
if you want to pay more for less just to avoid drilling a hole, sure, go for 5G (if it’s available). Meanwhile sensible people will get FTTP if they can.
BT/Open Reach really need to start stepping up the switchover if they are to met the 2025 Deadline
It probably take about an hour to do a typically instal probably long if your line is overhead pus some travelling time
BT will probably have at least 35% coverage by then (I am sure some one will have more accurate figure)
Assume UK population 70M that’s 21M lines of which lets say 20% already have FTTP so 17M lines to convert.
As of 12 August 2023, Openreach had 34.57% of all UK residential premises able to order FTTP.
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/9660-openreach-fttp-footprint-tracking-at-11-094-608-premises-passed
Hour and a half either way it’s delivered. I do about 8 a day at the moment
Does the conversion of FTTC to digital need an engineer visit ?
@bob
If you mean the conversion of FTTC to its replacement SOGEA then the answer is no. The phone line will simply go dead but the broadband carries on as before.
@Bob
There are approximately 32 million premises in the UK so assuming there are 27 million residential premises and 5 million commercial so if each residential needs 1 connection and say commercial 2 that would be a total of 37 million connections. At the end of 2021 incidently with Openreach, VMO2 and the altnets a total of 78 million connection were planned.
as a real world example of this – when the old man went to BT DV on FTTC, it happened just after midnight on the appointed day (yes I had stayed up to check). The hub enabled DV (ie phone port started working and DECT handset could be paired) at that time. I think it took about an hour for calls to work in and out. PSTN line went totally dead with no voltage.
Only downside was that the sync speed dropped temporarily. I assume the Openreach systems process the move between FTTC and SOGEA as if it were a new line, so the DLM resets back to the new line state and will then reoptimise over the next week or two. It’s fine now.
Lovely to hear @Ad47uk reminiscing about the Dial Up Internet days, and how his mummy used to call him to see how he was doing in the Big Bad Telecom World. Maybe in his next instalment he could tell us about the time his Granny used two tin cans and a length of wire to contact BT, (Bloated Toad) to complain, about anything really, but especially (Brokenreach) and the echo in the cans. Even if Canned Digital Voice had been available she wouldn’t have used it! The apple wouldn’t have fallen far from the tree!
At current take up of FTTP and Digital in the 2025 date realistic?
If you’ve ADSL, FTTC or FTTP you’ve a digital link than can be used for voice. No need for FTTP.
A family friend received a letter last week about this. Talktalk appear to be forcing the user to upgrade, saying the existing copper connection (Openreach network) will cease to work from 30th November. Something just smells off with this, any thoughts?
The full BT shutdown of Analogue is the end of 2025. I think a few exchanges may be shutting it down earlier
Talk Talk will probably push FTTP as that is the most sensible upgrade. You could stay on FTTC and change to Digital. Not sure if that option is widely available at present
It does not require an Engineer visit. I assume you would have to unplug the existing phone from the Master socket and plug it into the router, IT would also mean any wired extensions would cease to work
Never use talk talk, their service is terrible, I gave up after waiting o er 45 minutes for them to anawerthen they offered to send an engineer and charge me when it was their equipment that was faulty.so istoppedpayi g and they simply sold my account to debt collectors
I have used Talk Talk for some time now and had no problems. However if we change to FTTP – which I would like – it means digging up some of the garden and breaking up our drive. We have had two Openreach engineers round and both said the same. So what happens in 2025? Will I be made to do that?
Just got my first bill through since getting my “free upgrade”. They have increased my monthly bill from £23.95 to £29.95 this month and according to the billing website it is increasing to £39.95 for my December bill. Failing to see how this corresponds to my email stating “Not only are you being upgraded free of charge, but there will be no change to your current contract, monthly bill, or telephone number.”