Swedish preparedness pamphlet

[slowworm]

My Mum has a fall alarm that uses the land line to call for help. There's no mobile phone reception in her house on any network, so she needs the landline to call for help occasionally. It's not unusual to have power cuts and some last for several hours, probably the most likely time she needs the landline to work and I gather the current backup options will only last for an hour.

Just an update on this. Mum has received an update from BT that didn't give much info but stated she will get an upgrade but there's no need to change equipment.

A quick call to BT has confirmed they are upgrading her exchange to turn the digital signal to analogue to send down the existing copper cable. I gather the technology is SOTAP and it means her line will stay old copper for a couple of years so her alarm should still work.

Hopefully the exchange will have backup power...

 

[slowworm]

Another little update on this. I've come across this about the SOTAP or analogue SOTAP upgrade.

Openreach Prep Alternative UK Analogue Style Phone Product

Openreach is developing an additional phone line product, which does NOT require a broadband connection to function and will be targetted at vulnerable and edge

www.ispreview.co.uk

 

[slowworm]

Now our own home phone line is being moved to digital. Annoyingly it appears our provider has tried to move us without ensuring we wouldn't be left without any means of contacting people during a power cut as we don't have mobile reception at home. (See https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/landline-phones/future-of-landline-calls ).

Although it's not a perfect solution as we can get power cuts for well over 12 hours it seems we are being sent one of the new battery back up boxes that could last 4-7 hours. An improvement over earlier ones, so I'll see how it performs. I think it might be this one but we've not been given any details. https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.p...-zen-internet-prep-new-uk-battery-backup.html

 

[TLM]

One solution that I have not seen anyone state (I am sure someone has as it is so obvious) is to fall back to text messaging. Energy requirements are at least a decade less.

 

[Falstaff]

I think the main problem is that there is no alternative mobile reception for a given area, like in Slowworms' case.. If somebody is not able to travel or get to somewhere with a signal they are stuck.
(Or, (horror's of horror's for youngsters,) may not have a working & charged up mobile phone or remember how to use it, e.g. password?)

 

[TLM]

I think the main problem is that there is no alternative mobile reception for a given area

OK, then back to smoke signals I guess ...

 

[Broch]

To be honest, with an area wide power cut, our analogue system used to go down too. We are now on digital/fibre only with no mobile signal. I have various reversionary modes to keep the system running. The main router and fibre connection consumes less than 5A so a standard 12v lead acid will keep the connection for a couple of days continuous running. Add a 150W cheap solar panel or a small silent generator and you're even more independent.

 

[slowworm]

The UK does have a text warning system but when we had a 'danger to life' storm hit locally no warning was sent, so a bit useless. Our land line survived but we had no power for over 24 hours and the local mobile transmitters were also down so no mobile signal anywhere in a wide area. This is why I'm not a fan of the digital switchover in it's current state.

For general day to day comms there are many places with no or very unreliable mobile reception so texting isn't any use. I have also noticed my elderly mum struggle to type in and remember how to send texts, they are not as useful for her as a working landline.

Now weve got our battery backup I was just thinking of the difference between the two services. On the old analogue system I need a phone, costing less than £10. I can keep a cheap spare in case that one gets a fault. Our analogue phone line has been much more reliable than the internet connection it provides.

Now we have to have a new router and battery backup, which would cost around £300 and if we get a powercut or the internet drops (which frequently happens when we get heavy rain) we will not have a phone connection. I don't view that as an improvement.

We can easily sort things out, which is why we've got Starlink, but I don't think some of the most vulnerable people will be able to and will be at more risk than before.

 

[TLM]

The UK does have a text warning system but when we had a 'danger to life' storm hit locally no warning was sent, so a bit useless.

With our recent drone incidents our system stayed mute, but the Holy Bureaucracy did not know what to do so they did nothing - the "safe" option - "I did not do anything wrong". It was also found out that it did not work like designed, well I guess better they did finally notice.

Maybe we should send a Thank You card to Ukraine.

 

[demented dale]

Just an update on this. Mum has received an update from BT that didn't give much info but stated she will get an upgrade but there's no need to change equipment.

A quick call to BT has confirmed they are upgrading her exchange to turn the digital signal to analogue to send down the existing copper cable. I gather the technology is SOTAP and it means her line will stay old copper for a couple of years so her alarm should still work.

Hopefully the exchange will have backup power...

I remember a land line I had that worked during power cuts. x

 

[Falstaff]

To be honest, with an area wide power cut, our analogue system used to go down too. We are now on digital/fibre only with no mobile signal. I have various reversionary modes to keep the system running. The main router and fibre connection consumes less than 5A so a standard 12v lead acid will keep the connection for a couple of days continuous running. Add a 150W cheap solar panel or a small silent generator and you're even more independent.

So if you have the means etc to keep your end powered up - will there be anything working at the other end, or will that have gone down too? I imagine in an area outage the answer might be No - ?

 

[GeraldTheBonsai]

So if you have the means etc to keep your end powered up - will there be anything working at the other end, or will that have gone down too? I imagine in an area outage the answer might be No - ?

In the event of a regional outage - substation goes down or wider - then the infrastructure will go as well. Some cell base stations have battery backup, but it won't last long.

Few years back we had this happen - local substation went. Took out half the town. Everything went down - internet, mobiles, the lot. Even when the power came back we still had no internet - that took a day to come back.

 

[GreyCat]

That's why I have Starlink plus an Ecoflow system.... add a VoIP phone and it's back to the level of reliability of the old analogue exchange.....

......I am not convinced that's progress, and it's not cheap either (although neither were phone lines back in the day- but there were many more phone boxes then).

Not surprisingly, the update of Starlink increased very quickly around here in the wake of Storm Darragh.

GC