* Posts by Austin Allegro

3 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Oct 2015

Broadband providers can now flog Openreach's new IP voice network in bid to ditch UK's copper phone lines by 2025

Austin Allegro

Quality VOIP

When I renewed (I know, I know) my contract with BT earlier this year, I got a very hard sell about VOIP, well I think it was as I could hardly hear her. She didn't understand my point about the quality, perhaps she only heard 80% of what I said. She couldn't explain what I would do with the three phones I have (cellar, lounge, bedroom) and how VOIP would work, except that I could "carry the phone around with me". The comments about the green cabinets having batteries which last 4 hours is correct. I know, some muppet demolished/uprooted my local cabinet. It took a week to replace it and then it ran on batteries for two weeks, with a techie making a 34 mile round trip every 4 hours to replace the batteries. In the future (which is especially hard to predict as Niels Bohr said) in such circumstances ie. no VOIP due to equipment failure, what happens if I have to call 999? I have a reasonable mobile signal, if I stand against the lounge window, that too, due to the geography, is not always reliable. I'm sure all this has been thought through. I also echo the comments about very elderly only needing a cheap and reliable phone line and not broadband, my 85 year old mum, struggles with this sort of stuff. The comments, as always, are a good mixture of techie stuff and humour :-)

Caption this: WIN a 6TB Western Digital Black hard drive with El Reg

Austin Allegro

British Leyland diversify and release their mobile phone.

Austin Allegro

British Leyland diversify and produce a portable telephone.