Plusnet SoGEA

[Andy Burns]

My Plusnet broadband was due for renewal, I left it for a month after my
"deal" ended, but then I was paying £58.69/m for FTTC and E&W calls.

Sometimes their website would offer to let me renew with landline,
othertimes it offered me broadband without phone, for £21.99/m.

I decided to take the offer, knowing that would cease my number (in use
since 1990, though hardly at all since my parents' deaths) the switch
took place on 21st, though the phone remained working for 24h after the
supposed completion.

Today the phone was dead so I put in the porting request to my existing
voipfone account, Plusnet bills don't actually show your phone number
anywhere on them, so I provided a screenshot from their website, it has
been accepted and supposedly will take place on 29th ... we'll see.

[Graham J]

Andy Burns wrote:

[snip]

Post by Andy Burns
Today the phone was dead so I put in the porting request to my existing
voipfone account, Plusnet bills don't actually show your phone number
anywhere on them, so I provided a screenshot from their website, it has
been accepted and supposedly will take place on 29th ... we'll see.

When I did this I put in the porting request a couple of weeks in
advance, with the text added to the Voipfone form to explain the exact
date that the conversion to SOGEA was expected to take place. This had
to be done as text, because the option to specify an exact date caused
the Voipfone form to fail - not sure they've fixed it.

On the conversion date incoming calls arrived on the Voipfone ATA about
mid-morning and on checking I found the landline was dead. So no
detectable break in service.

[Spike]

Post by Andy Burns
My Plusnet broadband was due for renewal, I left it for a month after my
"deal" ended, but then I was paying £58.69/m for FTTC and E&W calls.
Sometimes their website would offer to let me renew with landline,
othertimes it offered me broadband without phone, for £21.99/m.
I decided to take the offer, knowing that would cease my number (in use
since 1990, though hardly at all since my parents' deaths) the switch
took place on 21st, though the phone remained working for 24h after the
supposed completion.
Today the phone was dead so I put in the porting request to my existing
voipfone account, Plusnet bills don't actually show your phone number
anywhere on them, so I provided a screenshot from their website, it has
been accepted and supposedly will take place on 29th ... we'll see.

I did this last month, moving from PN’s FTTC to FTTP.

Two days before the technician turned up to fit the fibre, I put in a
request to A&A to port the landline number. The fibre install went well,
and A&A ported the number when my FTTC contract ended seven days later.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Spike
moving from PN’s FTTC to FTTP.

It'll be years before they bring "real" fibre here ...

[Spike]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Spike
moving from PN’s FTTC to FTTP.

It'll be years before they bring "real" fibre here ...

:-(

[David Wade]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Spike
moving from PN’s FTTC to FTTP.

It'll be years before they bring "real" fibre here ...

You might be suprised. There are fewer holes on the map each week

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when-building-ultrafast-full-fibre-broadband

Dave

[Davey]

On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 23:21:43 +0000

Post by David Wade

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Spike
moving from PN’s FTTC to FTTP.

It'll be years before they bring "real" fibre here ...

You might be suprised. There are fewer holes on the map each week
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when-building-ultrafast-full-fibre-broadband
Dave

I live in the area bordered by Cambridge, Thetford, Bury St. Edmunds,
and Norwich, so not totally in the wilds.
I just checked that site, and got this response:

"Build planned between now and Dec-2026".

Yawn. At that rate, the 50m high electricity pylons will be here first.

[Andy Burns]

Post by David Wade

Post by Andy Burns
It'll be years before they bring "real" fibre here ...

You might be suprised. There are fewer holes on the map each week
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when-building-ultrafast-
full-fibre-broadband

Local exchange isn't even on the "we're doing you sometime soon" list,
can't complain about reliability or speed I get from FTTC though.

[Roger Mills]

Post by David Wade

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Spike
moving from PN’s FTTC to FTTP.

It'll be years before they bring "real" fibre here ...

You might be suprised. There are fewer holes on the map each week
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when-building-ultrafast-
full-fibre-broadband
Dave

It's annoying! My house is on the edge of an estate built in the 1960's,
and the best I can get is FTTC. A new estate has just been built right
next door - with the nearest new house being less than 20 metres from
mine - and FTTP was available to the new houses from day 1. There's no
indication when I might get the option!

[Graham J]

Post by Roger Mills

Post by David Wade

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Spike
moving from PN’s FTTC to FTTP.

It'll be years before they bring "real" fibre here ...

You might be suprised. There are fewer holes on the map each week
https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/where-when-building-ultrafast-
full-fibre-broadband
Dave

It's annoying! My house is on the edge of an estate built in the 1960's,
and the best I can get is FTTC. A new estate has just been built right
next door - with the nearest new house being less than 20 metres from
mine - and FTTP was available to the new houses from day 1. There's no
indication when I might get the option!

This is par for the course. You may never get FTTP.

If your FTTC is sufficiently fast (perhaps anything better than 10
Mbits/sec download) you may be stuck with it. When Openreach
discontinues POTS you will probably be offered VoIP by your existing ISP
(this may depend on the ISP).

And since FTTC is susceptible to every flavour of RFI going yours might
not be very reliable. Not a problem for browsing and email traffic, but
clearly a problem for VoIP - who wants their phone calls to drop just
because a neighbour's security light comes on?

Even if you asked for a brand new telephone service you would likely be
provided with VoIP over FTTC.

So most phone services will be downgraded to the rubbish quality of a
mobile phone, such as you hear whenever anybody is interviewed by phone
for a broadcast news radio programme.

[Mark Carver]

This is par for the course.  You may never get FTTP.

Everybody (except for some wacky edge cases where the property is 10
miles away from anything else etc) will get FTTP, but possibly not until
the next decade.

Openreach's model for FTTP requires no street cabinets, so whatever,
they will be going (or rather taken over and converted by local
communities into bookcases)

[David Wade]

Post by Mark Carver

This is par for the course.  You may never get FTTP.

Everybody (except for some wacky edge cases where the property is 10
miles away from anything else etc) will get FTTP, but possibly not until
the next decade.
Openreach's model for FTTP requires no street cabinets, so whatever,
they will be going (or rather taken over and converted by local
communities into bookcases)

There were suggestions from OpenReach that the FTTC cabs with power
could be converted to EV chargers.

Dave

[Graham J]

Post by Mark Carver

This is par for the course.  You may never get FTTP.

Everybody (except for some wacky edge cases where the property is 10
miles away from anything else etc) will get FTTP, but possibly not until
the next decade.

I would like to see that in a legal form - can you advise where this can
be found?

I know of one case where the householder has POTS over about a 10km
copper pair and has been told that they will never get any form of
digital access. They do get 4G using an external antenna from an
upstairs window, but it's not very reliable.

Post by Mark Carver
Openreach's model for FTTP requires no street cabinets, so whatever,
they will be going (or rather taken over and converted by local
communities into bookcases)

But it does require that the fibre cable be brought to the premises. In
the case I cite above this would mean a dedicated fibre run of about a
mile from the nearest public road.

[Andy Burns]

In the case I cite above this would mean a dedicated fibre run of about
a mile from the nearest public road.

I think Mark was considering your example one of the "wacky edge cases"

[Tweed]

Post by Graham J

Post by Mark Carver

This is par for the course.  You may never get FTTP.

Everybody (except for some wacky edge cases where the property is 10
miles away from anything else etc) will get FTTP, but possibly not until
the next decade.

I would like to see that in a legal form - can you advise where this can
be found?
I know of one case where the householder has POTS over about a 10km
copper pair and has been told that they will never get any form of
digital access. They do get 4G using an external antenna from an
upstairs window, but it's not very reliable.

Post by Mark Carver
Openreach's model for FTTP requires no street cabinets, so whatever,
they will be going (or rather taken over and converted by local
communities into bookcases)

But it does require that the fibre cable be brought to the premises. In
the case I cite above this would mean a dedicated fibre run of about a
mile from the nearest public road.

Why is it any harder to run a mile of fibre instead of copper? Eventually
that copper line will need to be replaced. The extreme edge cases can
consider Starlink.

[Graham J]

Tweed wrote:

[snip]

Post by Tweed
Why is it any harder to run a mile of fibre instead of copper? Eventually
that copper line will need to be replaced. The extreme edge cases can
consider Starlink.

I know that, you know that, but it appears Openreach does not. Typical
quotes are £100,000 - see:

<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54718673>

[Tweed]

Post by Graham J
[snip]

Post by Tweed
Why is it any harder to run a mile of fibre instead of copper? Eventually
that copper line will need to be replaced. The extreme edge cases can
consider Starlink.

I know that, you know that, but it appears Openreach does not. Typical
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54718673>

That’s because they don’t want to do it at the moment, better use of their
installation resources elsewhere. But it doesn’t mean they won’t change
their tune once they decide that supporting legacy services is increasingly
expensive.

[David Wade]

Post by Tweed

Post by Graham J
[snip]

Post by Tweed
Why is it any harder to run a mile of fibre instead of copper? Eventually
that copper line will need to be replaced. The extreme edge cases can
consider Starlink.

They were also talks with OneWeb .....
... but the copper was laid when labour was cheap and health and safety
was in its infancy.

Post by Tweed

Post by Graham J
I know that, you know that, but it appears Openreach does not. Typical
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54718673>

That’s because they don’t want to do it at the moment, better use of their
installation resources elsewhere. But it doesn’t mean they won’t change
their tune once they decide that supporting legacy services is increasingly
expensive.

Its very odd. OpenReach claims to have solutions which allow them to
deliver Fibre up to 45km from the Exchange so distance should not be a
problem. Perhaps if the distribution is via poles and new poles are
needed....

Dave

[Theo]

Post by David Wade

Post by Tweed

Post by Graham J
[snip]

Post by Tweed
Why is it any harder to run a mile of fibre instead of copper? Eventually
that copper line will need to be replaced. The extreme edge cases can
consider Starlink.

They were also talks with OneWeb .....
... but the copper was laid when labour was cheap and health and safety
was in its infancy.

Post by Tweed

Post by Graham J
I know that, you know that, but it appears Openreach does not. Typical
<https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54718673>

Note that was 2020. I think those kinds of prices are based on Openreach
not having any nearby infrastructure - FTTPoD was based on running a fibre
back to the nearest FTTC cabinet, and out in the sticks that can be quite
some way away - several villages away perhaps.

Nowadays there's much more fibre around so, while the last mile may still
need poles or ducts, it only has to run to the nearest location with fibre.
As those villages get fibred up nearest fibre gets closer and the cost to
add one more connection becomes lower and lower.

[yes, there are extremes like Graham's customer in the middle of the Fen or
a Scottish moor with nothing for 20 miles in any direction, but those aren't
what we're talking about here]

Post by David Wade

Post by Tweed
That’s because they don’t want to do it at the moment, better use of their
installation resources elsewhere. But it doesn’t mean they won’t change
their tune once they decide that supporting legacy services is increasingly
expensive.

Eventually the legacy copper is going to degrade. OR will have to decide
whether to abandon customers or install fibre. It's possible they may
abandon some people who are well supplied by somebody else, but I think it
would be politically difficult to just cease copper service without any
replacement. In the US AT&T took over the copper lines and just let them
decay, but OR have taken enough government cash that they would have some
questions to answer if they did that.

Probably it'll be like rural electrification, where the government pays to
get the last few difficult cases hooked up - this went on into 1960s:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1958-05-01/debates/047ffad6-3087-4e92-9d2b-78ba9cd43e7c/RuralElectrification

Post by David Wade
Its very odd. OpenReach claims to have solutions which allow them to
deliver Fibre up to 45km from the Exchange so distance should not be a
problem. Perhaps if the distribution is via poles and new poles are
needed....

FTTP isn't supplied from exchanges, but from regional concentrators (ok you
might call those exchanges, but they're not the village garden-shed kind).
The wiring isn't bothered by the length - it's the amount of civils needed
to get there.

Theo

[Angus Robertson - Magenta Systems Ltd]

An old house in my road was recently demolished and replaced with a three floor
building with seven apartments with massive insulation and seven heat pumps in
a bank (four month delay for planning permission, then too noisy and they had
to be replaced, fun new world without gas boilers).

The developer paid Openreach £10,000 to install full fibre in all seven
apartments, new manhole and duct under the road, 300m of fibre to the nearest
cabinet. But worth it to him for marketing.

That new manhole is 20m from my house, but no-one else in the road can yet get
full fibre.

Our road has Community Fibre in the same ducts, but they refuse to sell service
to our road, only the next road, two years so far.

Angus

[Mark Carver]

Today the phone was dead ....

Out of interest, dead (as in silence and no 50 volts) or dead as in dial
tone still there that you can't make 'go away' by dialling ?

I SoGEA'd with Plusnet in March, I still had the latter, until some
point in October, where the line is completely 'dead' now

[Andy Burns]

Post by Mark Carver

Today the phone was dead ....

Out of interest, dead (as in silence and no 50 volts) or dead as in dial
tone still there that you can't make 'go away' by dialling ?
I SoGEA'd with Plusnet in March, I still had the latter, until some
point in October, where the line is completely 'dead' now

dead as in inbound call from mobile gives "the number you have called
has not been recognised" probably have to dig out a real phone rather
than DECT handset to tell what the actual line is doing.

I'll report back ...

[Andy Burns]

dead (as in silence and no 50 volts) or dead as in dial tone still there
that you can't make 'go away' by dialling ?

It just gives a NU tone ...

[Mark Carver]

Post by Andy Burns

dead (as in silence and no 50 volts) or dead as in dial tone still
there that you can't make 'go away' by dialling ?

It just gives a NU tone ...

Different to mine, a friend had that flavour of SoGEA

[grinch]

Post by Mark Carver

Post by Andy Burns

dead (as in silence and no 50 volts) or dead as in dial tone still
there that you can't make 'go away' by dialling ?

It just gives a NU tone ...

Different to mine, a friend had that flavour of SoGEA

They should have dial tone to stop the OR techs pinching the pairs. That
was what I was told by OR before I retired 5 years ago.

[David Wade]

Post by grinch

Post by Mark Carver

Post by Andy Burns

dead (as in silence and no 50 volts) or dead as in dial tone still
there that you can't make 'go away' by dialling ?

It just gives a NU tone ...

Different to mine, a friend had that flavour of SoGEA

They should have dial tone to stop the OR techs pinching the pairs. That
was what I was told by OR before I retired 5 years ago.

Unlikely to be a problem these days. If you order a new line where there
is FTTC or FTTP it will be provisioned by VOIP so no exchange pair required.

Dave

[Andy Burns]

Post by grinch

Post by Mark Carver

Post by Andy Burns
It just gives a NU tone ...

Different to mine, a friend had that flavour of SoGEA

They should have dial tone to stop the OR techs pinching the pairs. That
was what I was told by OR before I retired 5 years ago.

The E-side copper is no longer required (presumably the NU tone is
coming from the line-card in the exchange) maybe my pair at the exchange
gets put on a list to be un-jumpered on a day when the technicians are
bored?

[Andy Burns]

Post by Andy Burns

dead (as in silence and no 50 volts) or dead as in dial tone still
there that you can't make 'go away' by dialling ?

It just gives a NU tone ...

And no "howler" ...

[Andy Burns]

Post by Andy Burns
the phone was dead so I put in the porting request to my existing
voipfone account, Plusnet bills don't actually show your phone number
anywhere on them, so I provided a screenshot from their website, it has
been accepted and supposedly will take place on 29th ... we'll see.

Voipfone doesn't say the port is complete yet, but it is now working to
my gigaset phones, for some reason the DECT handsets ring properly, but
the deskphone doesn't (though it can be answered there).

[Graham J]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Andy Burns
the phone was dead so I put in the porting request to my existing
voipfone account, Plusnet bills don't actually show your phone number
anywhere on them, so I provided a screenshot from their website, it
has been accepted and supposedly will take place on 29th ... we'll see.

Voipfone doesn't say the port is complete yet, but it is now working to
my gigaset phones, for some reason the DECT handsets ring properly, but
the deskphone doesn't (though it can be answered there).

The base unit for the Gigaset phones will have a management web page;
it's worth reviewing all the settings there.

What is the deskphone? Does it connect independently to the LAN, or
does it share the Gigaset base unit.

If it connects to the LAN independently it will also have a management
web page, so review its settings also.

Then it depends how you have your Voipfone account set up. If you have
zero extensions then it should be possible to get all the phones to ring
simultaneously.

If you have paid for one or more extensions then you have much finer
control, so it's worth looking at your Voipfone account web page to see
exactly what you have and how it can be configured.

If you don't understand anything the people at Voipfone are very helpful
and should be able to explain.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Graham J

Post by Andy Burns
for some reason the DECT handsets ring properly,
but the deskphone doesn't (though it can be answered there).

The base unit for the Gigaset phones will have a management web page;
it's worth reviewing all the settings there.

Oh, no doubt, incoming calls on my original voipfone number rings
everywhere though.

Post by Graham J
What is the deskphone?

Gigaset DX800A

Post by Graham J
Does it connect independently to the LAN, or
does it share the Gigaset base unit.

it's all-in-one

Post by Graham J
If it connects to the LAN independently it will also have a management
web page, so review its settings also.
Then it depends how you have your Voipfone account set up.  If you have
zero extensions then it should be possible to get all the phones to ring
simultaneously.

I've got one extn "200" and a "Master Group" which now has three
incoming numbers directed to it, two 01 numbers plus the "free" 056 number

Post by Graham J
If you have paid for one or more extensions then you have much finer
control, so it's worth looking at your Voipfone account web page to see
exactly what you have and how it can be configured.
If you don't understand anything the people at Voipfone are very helpful
and should be able to explain.

thanks.

[Graham J]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Graham J

for some reason the DECT handsets ring properly, but the deskphone
doesn't (though it can be answered there).

The base unit for the Gigaset phones will have a management web page;
it's worth reviewing all the settings there.

Oh, no doubt, incoming calls on my original voipfone number rings
everywhere though.

Post by Graham J
What is the deskphone?

Gigaset DX800A

I think you need to work through the management page for the Gigaset
DX800A, possibly with help from the people at Voipfone.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Graham J
What is the deskphone?

Gigaset DX800A

Previously it was all working except the deskphone was behaving as
though the ringer was muted (it wasn't) nothing obvious in the web
interface to change that, vol+/vol- buttons should alter ringer volume
while it's ringing, they didn't, press and hold "*" should toggle all
ringers on/off, it showed a "mute" icon, but when toggled again, still
silent, all other handsets all ok, calls could be made and answered on
the base or any handset.


It's not been rebooted in years as it's on a UPS

Decided to power it off/on, bad to worse, just acted like a 1980's VCR
flashing clock "00:00" and getting into a boot loop.

Checked PSU, nice steady 12V

Manual gives a "soft" reset mechanism that requires the phone to be
workable via the keys/display, so it can't be reset that way as it's
unresponsive.

found a south african site that has a "hard" reset method that requires
three hands

<https://phonesystem.co.za/2020/02/18/factory-reset-gigaset-dx800a-master-reset/>

power off
press and hold redial + handsfree + function6
power on
wait until boot animation has finished, release keys

eventually used both hands plus a foot to kick the wall wart back in!

then it flashes "please wait" plus a timer icon
phone does dhcp and is pingable, but no web interface

you get a random 1-2 seconds to "speed run" through the menu to before
it reboots, can't quite get through menu/settings/system/reset in time.

[Andy Burns]

Post by Andy Burns
It's not been rebooted in years as it's on a UPS
Decided to power it off/on, bad to worse, just acted like a 1980's VCR
flashing clock "00:00" and getting into a boot loop.
Checked PSU, nice steady 12V
Manual gives a "soft" reset mechanism that requires the phone to be
workable via the keys/display, so it can't be reset that way as it's
unresponsive.
found a south african site that has a "hard" reset method

Left it unpowered for a day, tried resetting again, no go.

Couldn't decide what I'd go for as replacement, so bought a secondhand
DX800A for £50 ...