Landlines changing to digital in 2025

[offroader]

I do wholeheartedly agree with the view that switching from a robust self contained system to one reliant on power and technology is a retrograde step even though it's one I took many moons ago.

But...

"Digital audio is a perfect representation"

It is very far from it. From the get go quantization introduced errors which require filtration on signal reconstitution. Then by the time you've rammed it through a codec twice, QAMed it for transmission, twiddled it's butterflies in an fft, dragged it through the ReedS and given it a good beating with the FECing stick it is amazing it bears even a passing resemblance to the original audio

Early DAB channels were frankly terrible compared to FM, massively range compressed, with dreadful dynamics. Even the already fairly poor BBC FM channels sounded worse on DAB. Thankfully codec hardware has improved in the intervening years and while hampered by backwards compatibility issues a decent DAB broadcast now at least approaches a decent FM quality.

Voip is similarly hampered by traditionally poor codecs and bandwidth restrictions - there will be hell if t'interfacewebagramtok slows down when granny phones, bless her - but again the passing of time has seen encouraging progress in both codecs and general decoding chain as well as the internet


Had you said "digital is a better representation than dragging a plow through a lump of unstable plastic and playing it back with a knitting needle stuck to a tuba" I'd have agreed with you!
(Full disclosure, I'm a digital designer)

[Mick F]

Why dig - they string it overhead...

.......... so it's vulnerable to lightening?

Just coz it's fibre and not conductive like a metal is, doesn't mean it won't get struck.

[[XAP]Bob]

Define poor?
I am not technical so I don't have the vocab.
Perhaps unusually high pitched and of constantly varying volume might be an attempt.

I would say, above all, more difficult to understand.
Especially in the car.

A far far less clear sound than the studio voice.

Well frequency effects and varying volume are generally analogue artefacts, dropouts and sharp edges on sounds are more likely to be digital artefacts.
Varying volume in particular sounds very much like an analogue transmission failure - it's not something that can happen with a digital signal (where you either have the signal or you don't, although with ECC transmission the breakdown can be smeared and interesting).

Digital audio is a perfect representation of the appropriately band limited input signal

Not by the time it's been compressed it isn't.

Depends on the compression - FLAC is lossless, obviously lossy compression isn’t perfect, but that’s an artefact of the implementation, not an inherent feature of it “being digital”.

I do wholeheartedly agree with the view that switching from a robust self contained system to one reliant on power and technology is a retrograde step even though it's one I took many moons ago.

To be fair even current phone systems are reliant on power and technology, although that reliance is more centralised.

But...

"Digital audio is a perfect representation"

It is very far from it. From the get go quantization introduced errors which require filtration on signal reconstitution. Then by the time you've rammed it through a codec twice, QAMed it for transmission, twiddled it's butterflies in an fft, dragged it through the ReedS and given it a good beating with the FECing stick it is amazing it bears even a passing resemblance to the original audio

Early DAB channels were frankly terrible compared to FM, massively range compressed, with dreadful dynamics. Even the already fairly poor BBC FM channels sounded worse on DAB. Thankfully codec hardware has improved in the intervening years and while hampered by backwards compatibility issues a decent DAB broadcast now at least approaches a decent FM quality.

Voip is similarly hampered by traditionally poor codecs and bandwidth restrictions - there will be hell if t'interfacewebagramtok slows down when granny phones, bless her - but again the passing of time has seen encouraging progress in both codecs and general decoding chain as well as the internet


Had you said "digital is a better representation than dragging a plow through a lump of unstable plastic and playing it back with a knitting needle stuck to a tuba" I'd have agreed with you!
(Full disclosure, I'm a digital designer)

Read the rest of the sentence as well (I'll even add the next two as relevant):

Digital audio is a perfect representation of the appropriately band limited input signal, with quantisation and dither adding a hair of very carefully shaped noise. But well below that of any analogue audio system. The difference isn't analog to digital, it's implementations of either.

Sampled audio is a perfect representation of a band limited signal, the quantisation (generally with dither) is the first (and only mandatory) time at which information is lost. The advantage of dither is that it shapes that noise into minimally offensive frequencies, and with any reasonable bit depth has a much lower noise floor than the best analogue recording technology.

Codec choice is very much an implementation issue, lossy compression isn't a weakness of digital audio per se.

[[XAP]Bob]

Why dig - they string it overhead...

.......... so it's vulnerable to lightening?

Just coz it's fibre and not conductive like a metal is, doesn't mean it won't get struck.

Erm - it might get struck, but it won't blow your equipment up - but it's not all that likely to get struck...

In fact it's far more likely that a pole will get struck, since they tend to be somewhat taller than the high point of any strung cable (there is an approximate 60m sphere rule - fun reference: https://what-if.xkcd.com/16/. The video link isn't working any more, but is still available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N__yW-Rz2M more recent camera footage, at insane frame rates is also available e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQKhIK4pvYo ).

And being fibre it isn't going to have induced currents from close strikes either.

[Mick F]

Like trees?

[thirdcrank]

We seem to have drifted a long way from the imminent and apparently inevitable scrapping of what I believe bright sparks would describe as legacy equipment. FWIW, my own landline has been rubbish for quite some time. At one point it died completely and after a chat on a mobile with somebody on the far side of the who planet did a remote test - could they do any other at that distance? - and confirmed it wasn't working so it was referred to BT (or whatever they were calling themselves at the time.) A very obliging chap came and had it working again, but hardly crystal clear. As a sort of independent verification of what I'm saying, our bank uses voice identification software to obviate the need for silly security questions and our line is so poor it no longer works (the software, that is.) If I complain and want anything doing, there's the threat of a £100 sting if they judge their line to be ok.

I'm not talking about a squabble between audio buffs but having a phone clear enough for basic communication.

As the 2025 change seems to be inevitable, a big issue is how this comes about. BT / Openreach / whatever seems to be a state-sponsored private monopoly controlled only by a toothless, spineless watchdoggy.

[Cowsham]

I suppose that means there's no point wearing something like this

38e18a18c348d73f86fdb03cd5dcec9ca6961d0b.jpeg

They're not too worried about lightning on the isle of man

[Jdsk]

We seem to have drifted a long way from the imminent and apparently inevitable scrapping of what I believe bright sparks would describe as legacy equipment.

Yes. Usual neophobia and too much argument for the sake for it (which is any amount > 0).

But "bright sparks" is excellent and shouldn't go unnoticed. : - )

Openreach / whatever seems to be a state-sponsored private monopoly controlled only by a toothless, spineless watchdoggy.

The linked documents upthread describe who's responsible for what in this change. The complexity of that landscape provides lots of opportunities for the needs of users to fall between the gaps and for unnecessary expenditure on overlaps and points of friction and contracts. Anyone thinking of railways at this point?

Jonathan

[[XAP]Bob]

We seem to have drifted a long way from the imminent and apparently inevitable scrapping of what I believe bright sparks would describe as legacy equipment. FWIW, my own landline has been rubbish for quite some time. At one point it died completely and after a chat on a mobile with somebody on the far side of the who planet did a remote test - could they do any other at that distance? - and confirmed it wasn't working so it was referred to BT (or whatever they were calling themselves at the time.) A very obliging chap came and had it working again, but hardly crystal clear. As a sort of independent verification of what I'm saying, our bank uses voice identification software to obviate the need for silly security questions and our line is so poor it no longer works (the software, that is.) If I complain and want anything doing, there's the threat of a £100 sting if they judge their line to be ok.

I'm not talking about a squabble between audio buffs but having a phone clear enough for basic communication.

It is legacy equipment, it isn't yet obsolete.

Given some reasonable effort at a connection you'll get better audio with a digital phone line than an analogue one.
How many people here have cordless phones plugged into their landline?

The major advantage I have with a fibre connection is that it is rock solid, and utterly consistent. It doesn't matter if there is rain about, or wind... the fibre is surrounded by a significant amount of protective coatings - I imagine that if a tree fell into the cable it would probably snap, although there is probably a steel core in the fibre between the poles (there isn't in the run from the junction box to inside my house).

[thirdcrank]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my new router is on its way by Royal Mail (48 Hour tracked IIRC) I had the text to say it would be arriving around lunchtime tomorrow. I've just had a text from Royal Mail to say they have cocked up (my words.)

I've been online and checked and apparently it been sent in error to Leeds MC. I hope that's not a US zip code.

Bearing in mind that this has been sent by a big organisation - EE - and I'd assume labelling and everything else would be computerised and automated, I wonder what could go wrong.

Bring back stagecoaches with a bloke blowing his trumpet.

[PDQ Mobile]

The major advantage I have with a fibre connection is that it is rock solid, and utterly consistent. It doesn't matter if there is rain about, or wind... the fibre is surrounded by a significant amount of protective coatings - I imagine that if a tree fell into the cable it would probably snap, although there is probably a steel core in the fibre between the poles (there isn't in the run from the junction box to inside my house).

And a major disadvantage is that it costs quite a bit more- here anyway.

And yes if a tree falls on it it will break and what's more it's the very devil to rejoin. Specialist stuff.

You can't just twist it together.
No matter how bitter you are.

[[XAP]Bob]

It costs more than I used to pay for ADSL, but I upgraded speeds as well since I need a good, reliable, connection for work - it's not something I want to compromise on.
I left the twisted pair alongside, so if the fibre gets damaged then BT can hook me up with a temporary ADSL if it's going to take any significant time to fix (or I can use 4G)



Just had a look at the BT site... the options range from £28/month for the base 36Mbps, but they don't appear to offer ADSL on the road at all. I'm not interested in the additional £5 for a phone service - but I would expect that to be a rock solid 36Mbps based on my experience of a somewhat higher tariff.

Plusnet offers £38.20 (discounted to £24 for the start of the contract) for "up to 36"Mbps, that does include line rental.


So it's not actually more expensive than the default alternative...


Rejoining it isn't that bad, assuming you have the tools. The splicer they used outside my house basically puts the fibre in a pair of magnetic catches which allow the machine to strip, cut and clean the fibres then align and fuse them automatically. I think it took a couple of attempts though. The bigger issue is that you'd need to replace a run of cable - but that's not significantly different to now...
If it's your drop line then it actually plugs in at the top of the pole, no joint needed there.
If it's a line between poles then I don't actually know - it must have joints at one end or the other.

[Psamathe]

....
And yes if a tree falls on it it will break and what's more it's the very devil to rejoin. Specialist stuff.

You can't just twist it together. :shock:
No matter how bitter you are. :shock: :shock:

Which in many respects is a benefit in that as as cable through trees (at multiple points along it's run) degrades and data speeds plummet and become unreliable and voice becomes unusable much of the time (or in rain) it can be all but impossible to motivate OpenReach to locate and repair (which may involve many segments). A clean "completely non-functioning" is much more lack and white - nothing getting through needs fixing not denial games.

Ian

[PDQ Mobile]

....
And yes if a tree falls on it it will break and what's more it's the very devil to rejoin. Specialist stuff.

You can't just twist it together.
No matter how bitter you are.

Which in many respects is a benefit in that as as cable through trees (at multiple points along it's run) degrades and data speeds plummet and become unreliable and voice becomes unusable much of the time (or in rain) it can be all but impossible to motivate OpenReach to locate and repair (which may involve many segments). A clean "completely non-functioning" is much more lack and white - nothing getting through needs fixing not denial games.

Ian

Ah but lack of maintenance (of trees etc) is another issue.
Leccy is much better maintained in that respect for good reason.
And my leccy bill is around half that of the phone and internet!!

But the point about easier repair of copper stands.

I just want simple, cheap(affordable) and reliable. Super high speeds are irrelevant to me.
I have all the speed I need through copper, which runs through trees in a hefty reinforced cable but seldom fails. I have seen it bowed to the ground by a fallen tree and still working. It serves everybody not just me.
To the house is armoured underground copper. Laid it myself! Donkey's years ago.


I liked the "lack and white"!
No pun intended??!

[Psamathe]

....I just want simple, cheap(affordable) and reliable. Super high speeds are irrelevant to me.
I have all the speed I need through copper, which runs through trees in a hefty reinforced cable but seldom fails. ......

The risk is that you "have all the speed I need through copper" now but as web sites become more complex and designed around widespread faster connections, so before too much longer you wont have adequate speed for sites in the future (just compare the graphics and photos most web site use these days and they'd be a nightmare over many dial-up connections!).

And if the ISPs don't install better technology now then in 5 years you might be complaining how slow it all is, not because your requirements has changed but rather that those sites you use and get info from have changed to expect greater bandwidth.

Ian