Virgin analogue phone switch off by stealth?

[JonathanM]

My Auntie's whole street has suffered an outage on its Virgin phone lines today.

Virgin are refusing to fix the problem. Instead, they are saying everyone has to go digital and accept a VOIP system plugged into their router.

Is this standard practice now?

Is there anything they can do to force Virgin to repair the phone connection?

 

[cross thread]

BT have gone the same way in my area ,we have ,dropped the landline and just using mobile.

 

[DP]

BT has the infrastructure that carries the landline calls, ie, the phone, the line to the pole, then the exchange finally the network.

Many years ago the monopoly was taken off BT that allowed the "competitors" to hook up to the BT structure.

About 50 years ago if you want a phone, it was not uncommon to be put on a party line if there was a shortage of line plant in the locality. This entailed two people being on a common line. If you were on the phone, other party could pick up their phone and listen to your conversation.

Fast forward. PCM came to the rescue along with fibre optics. What previously occupied a building (local exchange) now often is housed in a cabinet able to carry infinitely more telephone traffic.

Is it any wonder analogue is on the way out?

 

[JonathanM]

After being told by the engineer yesterday that the problem couldn't/wouldn't be repaired, in the early evening today the phones in my Auntie's street came back on. Apparently, what you have to do is get three customers to report the fault. At least that is what the final engineer told us. Virgin will then treat it as an outage and come and repair the actual fault.

Lots of people seem to be having problems with the changeover to Digital because it doesn't always work with their existing wiring. Also, if you use cordless phones, often the base station needs to be relocated to a position next to the router and as a result sometimes it will no longer cover the whole house. That would have been my Auntie's situation.

I agree with ditching the landline entirely.