Why do I feel like I'm being blackmailed into jumping ship early??

[#1]

@pvmb 

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"they" - Openreach - may not be physically pulling the plug on the PSTN service until "Feb 2027" (are you sure? I doubt there will be one national grand slam) but phone service providers - such as Plusnet - will surely be making their own decisions over the continuance of their services, given the background?

But in that case why give me a 12 month contract for phone/ bb in november.  All that was stated at the time was that at the end of the 12 month contract I could only renew for bb.  I understood that was the case.

They seem to have moved the goal posts.

[#2]

This is just like the conversation I have with my in-laws, mobile coverage is poor, well in a deep rural area it is your responsibility to check the providers coverage maps in preference to buying the lowest cost mobile.

[#3]

@PhilipHeyes 

We're just  troublesome oldies. 😁

When we moved here, we were younger and did due diligence and checked for phone line, bb, online shopping deliveries etc We have a wood supply and woodstove so covered the cooking and heating side too. Old school we have candles and rechargeable torches too.  Of course having a flaky mobile signal wasn't really an issue as the landline was good.

[#4]

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@Spik3y wrote:

At present I have a 3 set of dect phones.  I'm guessing as they are getting older (in phone years) that I will probably need a new set.  I have a plug in phone which we use when powers down.

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DECT  phones infers that you have 3 wireless handsets with a base unit which connected to the phone line plus simple charging bases for the other two.

If this is the case you simply plug the base station into the router rather than the phone socket and all three phones will work just as before.

[#5]

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@Spik3y wrote:

But in that case why give me a 12 month contract for phone/ bb in november.  All that was stated at the time was that at the end of the 12 month contract I could only renew for bb.  I understood that was the case.

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There is a valid argument that you have a 12 month contract, it’s simply a change of brand part way through it.

The bottom line is, like it or not, that this is the way that Plusnet are handling the demise of the old PSTN service. 
A Google search states that all EE customer service calls are answered either in the UK or Ireland.

[#6]

Re. the emergency pendant point, I've had a couple of emails from City Fibre (who will be installing the FTTP for my move to Zen Internet) that "If anyone in your home uses a personal alarm connected to your landline, we won’t be able to install full fibre. Please contact Zen Internet as soon as possible to cancel your full fibre installation."

So it's always worth double checking what the position will be. the Zen Internet page wasn't quite that conclusive about what would or would not be possible. (In my case, it's not relevant, just mentioning it for others' reference).

[#7]

A bit of an update,  weve had openreach active in the area, and it seems talking the one of chaps,  we are now looking looking at full fibre here in the next few weeks.    A few weeks back it was only fibre to cabinet with upgrades in sight so thats changed things up a bit.

So with time running out (the 30 days from when theyd notified me) and having made a final decision over keeping the phones I decided that it was going to be the least stressful to accept the migration to EE.  The plusnet staff were very helpful and then transfered me to the ones dealing with the migration who were equally helpful explaining everything clearly. They offered a very good deal on full fibre and phone with anytime calls, which is coming in at £10 a month less than I've been paying, It undercuts all the competitor deals (even allowing for the in contract rise in April) that I'd been looking at so I  have gone with a 24 month contract.  I have been given an engineers appointment for 19 May.

[#8]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

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@Spik3y wrote:

But in that case why give me a 12 month contract for phone/ bb in november.  All that was stated at the time was that at the end of the 12 month contract I could only renew for bb.  I understood that was the case.

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There is a valid argument that you have a 12 month contract, it’s simply a change of brand part way through it.

The bottom line is, like it or not, that this is the way that Plusnet are handling the demise of the old PSTN service. 
A Google search states that all EE customer service calls are answered either in the UK or Ireland.

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I did ask after I accepted the inevitable, they said the deadlines keep changing and they just have to work to the new deadline. I do wonder if plusnet has a long term future?  I suspect they had a  higher than average elderly phone using customers. If all those are migrated out, its going to leave a vacuum.

For me it came down to still wanting to have several phones (upstairs and downstairs) that were automatically kept charged.  The other thing is I do find it a lot easier to dial on a dect phone.  They are a better shape to hold, and a lot easier to find in the middle of the night, especially if not feeling 100%

FIL (next door) is with BT for phone only.  Thus far hes heard nothing about changing over. I'm not looking forward to dealing with that 😱.  His phone  has been on/off twice this week (both times identified as an exchange fault), and my bb has been sluggish, so assuming they are making changes at the exchange.  We took the spare mobile round for him (the work of the 👹) -  didn't go well!!

[#9]

@Spik3y Are you aware that there are mobile phones that are designed to sit in a cradle and appear more like a conventional DECT phone, often with large buttons and emergency buttons etc. more suitable for elderly/vulnerable/disabled/anyone?

We provided one for my late father-in-law and it was ideal, only did calls and texts. Models change so I won't specify it, but we have passed it on to an elderly (older than us!) housebound friend. It still works fine despite the withdrawal of 3G as those basic services continue OK. "Users with 3G-only phones will lose internet access, but voice and text will continue over 2G".

[#10]

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@HPsauce wrote:

@Spik3y Are you aware that there are mobile phones that are designed to sit in a cradle and appear more like a conventional DECT phone, often with large buttons and emergency buttons etc. more suitable for elderly/vulnerable/disabled/anyone?

We provided one for my late father-in-law and it was ideal, only did calls and texts. Models change so I won't specify it, but we have passed it on to an elderly (older than us!) housebound friend. It still works fine despite the withdrawal of 3G as those basic services continue OK. "Users with 3G-only phones will lose internet access, but voice and text will continue over 2G".

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I am thanks, it wasn't a good option for me with the 3 phones, so 3 different sims / numbers.

FIL seems to have stubbornly set himself against mobile phones, its not a case of not understanding its just a point hes set and wont budge. Any or all attempts to get him to have one in the car  have failed.  Weve set him up with 3 over the years, all relegated to a drawer uncharged, then declared broken as the sim card had expired. 

The 2g signal is our most reliable here, plus the old phones are small enough to carry around all day in my   pocket. If I fall in the garden I can get help. 

[#11]

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@Yorkie6 wrote:

Re. the emergency pendant point, I've had a couple of emails from City Fibre (who will be installing the FTTP for my move to Zen Internet) that "If anyone in your home uses a personal alarm connected to your landline, we won’t be able to install full fibre. Please contact Zen Internet as soon as possible to cancel your full fibre installation."

So it's always worth double checking what the position will be. the Zen Internet page wasn't quite that conclusive about what would or would not be possible. (In my case, it's not relevant, just mentioning it for others' reference).

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Most of the pendants are now run on a mobile network.  So while true the FTTP upgrade conversations can fall over on the detail of whether the pendant system REALLY uses the landline

[#12]

FIL had the local helpline system but gave it up when they switched him to a mobile system.  They couldn't get it to work reliably (signal drops regularly). They wouldn't allow him to roll back to the old model so he was just paying monthly for a lump of plastic on the windowsill.  When he cancelled they came round and took the smoke detectors away too, as they'd been provided by their team.  😲 No notice at all, luckily I had a couple of spares to fit.

There is sotap analoque for those without access to fibre, and in poor mobile signal areas  but only for helpline users.  Its a temporary solution but they dont say how long temporary will be.

[#13]

Oh well thought that was going too well with the change to EE.

The activation date came and went with no show from Openreach.  I phoned today to be told EE have cancelled the order.  Very little information from EE customers services they hadn't got much from openreach so were at a loss.   

So I phoned Plusnet and they were equally confused, they can see the cancellation but have nothing else.  Customer services wondered how they were supposed to migrate me, as without reasons from Openreach, its likely  EE will just cancel again.

I suspect it might be something to do with the length of cable.  I rather foolishly assumed that if they encountered issues with FTTP they'd go for FTTC at least temporarily. 

We'd done quite a bit of work to make sure the engineer had access, including taking down a patio roof sheet, cutting down some brances and moving stuff about in the back room to give plenty of work room in there.  So really frustrated right now, especially as it was all forced on us due to wanting to keep the landline.

[#14]

e

[#15]

I've been back on to EE and customer services, who was able to get a bit more info from openreach.  Length of cable, planning issues were mentioned.  Reading between the lines the cost of the install is over the maximim allowed (£340 I think) over that openreach expect the isp to cough up, they dont so it all got cancelled.   I dont know how far over budget it was estimated, but it would have been nice to have been given the chance to cover the excess it it wasn't too horrendous.

They couldn't drop down to FTTC as the exchange has a stop/sell order on it, which seems to mean they cant sell new FTTC or asdl packages, I didn't think that applied to those migrating but evidently it does.  Theyve sent forms in to remove the stop/sell  as FTTP is off the cards for these 2 properties for the forseable future, but could take a few weeks to go through.

I've had enough for the minute so I asked plusnet to put the migration on hold, which they have for 3 months. So at the moment things will continue with copper landline.  it will at least get us past holiday season.