Is there some other method, other than using the internet, to gain access to data?
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BT phone line/service 'upgrade'
- Thread starter JohnW2
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Is there some other method, other than using the internet, to gain access to data?
Oh I think we really should tolerate any such error, most of us use the World Wide Web and the Internet to mean the same thing when they do not (If we did not allow for such common usage we would end up being as pedantic as I can be sometimes!)
The internet is just a network of networks, if your service provider and your VOIP provider are the same company then the VOIP traffic need never leave your provider's network. This can mean they can offer higher reliability than if you use VOIP over the open internet.
It's perfectly possible for a network operator to allow access to their own VOIP servers without offering access to the internet in general.
Perhaps it's worth mentioning how openreach-based broadband services work, there are essentially 3 parts.
1. "Access" - provided by openreach, carries traffic from the subscriber to the telephone exchange. In the LLU era competing communications providers connected directly to the copper lines, but for FTTC and FTTP openreach provide virtual Ethernet networks and handoff on Ethernet to the communications providers. The exchange that provides FTTC and FTTP services to an address is often not the same exchange that provides copper services (as has been mentioned before, BT would very much like to close the majority of telephone exchanges, concentrating FTTC/FTTP service on a smaller number of locations).
2. "Backhaul" - Takes traffic from the telephone exchanges to the provider's major network locations. Different ISPs use different approaches to this, small providers will often buy a service from BT wholesale that includes the backhaul. Larger provides will often run their own backhaul networks (though the physical lines will often still be rented from BT).
3. Actually providing whatever service you have sold the customer. In most cases that service is internet access, but nothing prevents a provider from selling services that don't involve the internet. If you just want a private network between your branches, then I'm pretty sure there are providers who will sell you that.
Yes,
openreach offer 0.5Mbps FTTC and FTTP services which are intended for serving voice customers who do not also purchase a broadband service.
Afaict whether to also allow low-speed internet access would be down to the individual communications provider.
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Does that matter with FTTP? With such a system, what goes on in the cabinet?
I still think you'e being rather pedantic in the way you are using the word 'internet'.
Yes, in the absence of the PTSN, one could not have a phone (which would have to be VoIP) unless it had a connection to 'the internet'. However, as I keep saying, there will be some people who don't want/need a connection to the internet for any other reason (and would not pay for it if it were an 'optional addition' to the phone service).
So what was it that had battery backup? - phones can't work 'on light', so there must have been some electronics (whether called a 'router' or otherwise) on the end of the fibre cable?
Are we not playing with words to some extent in terms of what we regard as 'the internet'?
As I have said before, FTTP does not use cabinets.
FTTC goes from a telephone exchange to an "aggregation node" to a "FTTC cabinet" to a "PCP cabinet" to a "DP" to a customer. The aggregation node PCP cabinet and DP are passive, but the FTTC cabinet is active.
FTTP goes from the telephone exchange to an "aggregation node" to a "splitter node" to a "fiber DP" to a customer. The aggregation node, splitter node and fiber DP are all passive. However, there is an active box provided by openreach at the customers premesis called the ONT which converts the fiber connection to twisted-pair Ethernet. Early ONTs also had a voice port for openreach-manged VOIP services, but openreach later abandoned this and now requires communication providers or customers to provide their own VOIP equipment.
The aggregation nodes are large bullet-shaped casings usually located underground, though they may sometimes be found up poles. The splitter nodes are smaller bullet-shaped casings and can be found undeground or up poles. Most fiber DPs are now plug-in "block terminals" which again may be underground or up poles.
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My experience of what takes place on the wider network, and in the exchanges, dates from the 70's, but it's obvious to me that copper use is over, long gone. The telephone service is now almost entirely VoIP, which is data, data, just like the web pages you load, and sharing the very same fibre cables.
You seem overly keen, to keep a copper wire entering your home, which seems impossible, rather like trying to hold back the rising tide, on the beach.
OK - so it does not use 'cabinets' but, rather, uses 'nodes'. However, as you go on to write ...
.... hence presumably agreeing with my comment that the absence of batteries/power in those 'places' is not a problem for FTTP?
Your eyes seem to be seeing what you want them to see, rather than what I write!
I don't care a jot what comes into my house, and since I will always myself want access to 'the internet' (WWW etc.) I will always be able to have a VoIP phone, even though I would have to arrange my own local power back-up if I wanted it to work during power cuts (which are extremely rare).
However, I do recognise that there will be some people who want nothing other than a phone, and I just hope they will be charged less than those who want access to 'the internet' in a much wider sense (i.e. not 'subsidising' those other people). From what some people have recently posted, it seems that such probably is the case.
This discussion I started has been very interesting, but I'm still far from clear as to the answer to my question - i.e. the question of what was actually done during the 'upgrade to my service' which happened last week!
Yes, absense of power in cabinets is not a problem for openreach FTTP. Power is only required at the telephone exchange and customer premesis.
(this does not nessacerally apply to non-openreach networks, I'm aware of at least one altnet that does use active cabinets for FTTP)
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I thought we'd established that it is.
I'm not really sure what we have 'established' - but, per my recent exchanges with Sunray and plugwash, I don't think that power is actually needed at any point in the FTTP path (other than at the ends)
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