Reply to post: Re: Bye Bye Fax

Switch about to get real: Openreach bod on the challenge of shuttering UK's copper phone lines

SImon Hobson Bronze badge

Re: Bye Bye Fax

Finally, the death of the traditional fax machine is in sight.

Why ?

The idea is that there will still be a POTS socket the user can plug into, and it'll still work just as the old POTS line did. You forget that ALL phone calls in this country (UK) are already carried digitally using 64kbps channels - but at the moment with POTS lines the conversion takes place in teh line card at the exchange.

With ISDN (2 or 30) which has been around for "a lot of years", the conversion point is moved to the users' premises - and at one time BT had a service where the NTE had two POTS sockets and a built in TA.

All that will happen is that the NTE (or for a while, a separate box) will have a POTS to <something digital> converter and the user will still have a "POTS line" for all intents. My assumption is that it will be a closed system so BT and OpenRetch will have a closed system to manage, and they'll use a separate VLAN (or two) to carry the phone traffic so they can properly manage traffic and ensure no latency issues during high data rate periods.

And I also believe that in trials that have already been done, the NTE was main power but had backup batteries so the POTS line still worked with the power out.

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