So will I lose my free calls package?

[thesled]

I'm nearly at the end of my 24 month contract and I had a text message to renew on a new 24-month contract which I was fine to do as it all works OK and it would save me a £3 price increase. 

However I have a free calls package which it looks like I will lose on renewal. I chatted with Vodafone and the guy said 'we don't do those anymore'. But he also said I would keep the package if I didn't renew the contract. To add a new package would be £8 a month. 

So it seems a no-brainer. I bale out of the renewal on the 14-day getout, swallow the £3 increase and keep the calls package for free rather than save the £3 and pay an extra £8 for the calls package. On balance I probably benefit from the calls package as I do make quite a lot. 

However what I wouldn't want to happen is that I cancel the renewal and find my calls package mysteriously doesn't come back. Then the fun really starts !

Any thoughts on this very welcome, especially if you know if I would automatically keep the calls package by not renewing the contract. Or not. 

[thesled]

Dammit !

Well no foiling them that way them. 

[Racal-Yodafone]

Please bear in mind though that the planned switch-off of the UK PSTN (traditional copper wire) phone network was meant to be next year, 2025. With some controversies involving the legacy PSTN network provider, this switch-off is now estimated to take place during 2027 but, when it does get turned off, anyone wanting a landline phone will need to have a VoIP based system. New build houses now don't come with a copper phone line. I moved into my current home in March 2023, a new build, and it only has fibre so I had to get a VoIP line. A solution during power cuts is to have your router and phone powered via an uninterruptible power supply (UPS). I've done a fair bit of research into a UPS solution and, although I haven't implemented it yet, I believe it will cover me for fairly lengthy power cuts. My main point though is that, sometime between 2025 and 2027, the copper wire PSTN network is getting switched off so best to be prepared and research the alternatives, such as VoIP, now.

[Cynric]

Slightly off topic, but yesterday I read an article saying that there will eventually be 800,000 tons of scrap Cu wire worth about £7bn. I guess that when it's recycled we will not see any discount or rebate 😁

[Racal-Yodafone]

Probably not but, if telephone companies were building societies then customers would probably each get a cheque for £100 or something similar. Regardless of that, I think it would be nice if landline customers who have already, or who will have to, give(n) up their almost foolproof PSTN connection for something that, for most people will become useless during a power outage, were given some small financial recompense but I think the chances are most unlikely.

[thesled]

Yes, that is ultimately the bottom line, I don't dispute it. It might have been better if Vodafone had explained that to me in the first place. To compare, I've had endless communication about the 3G switch off from various mobiles but zilch about the PSTN switchoff. 

However, I don't see why I can't keep my copper until the 'bitter end' and I intend to if I can. After all it's not as though they will be along to rip it out anytime soon. 

I can sort out battery backup for my router if I have to but its not something I want to be fussed with at the moment when there is a perfectly good alternative, ie do nothing. 

I would add I've still heard diddley squat from Vodafone after me supposedly agreeing to a new contract and that was several days ago. 'My Vodafone' says I'm still on the old one which expires 6th June.

[Racal-Yodafone]

Thanks for the update and I totally get your frustration. For various reasons, mostly time, I have pretty much zero exposure to mainstream media so I don't know if the legacy PSTN network operator has made the public aware of the forthcoming end to traditional landlines or not. I agree with you though, I got many SMS text messages from Vodafone warning me that 3G was going to be switched off and then the final one saying that 3G was now gone but, as you say, no communication yet about the coming end of the copper landline network. I suspect it's a generational thing, a misperception as to what's important to other age groups? There are now people in middle management and possibly even the lower echelons of higher management in big corporations who are in their mid-30s. My boss's boss, as an example, is circa 35. That generation probably had personal mobile phones at an age before people from older generations even had permission to use mum and dad's landline to phone a friend. 35-year old telecoms managers probably attach little importance to landlines because they grew up with mobile phones. My daughter has no landline phone in her house and my son did have one, but the cordless handset got lost and they never replaced it, deleting the landline from their account instead. Their ages are 37 and 33 and they have zero interest in landlines. My wife, despite being in her early 60s, is very trendy and tapped into the zeitgeist and she has zero interest in our landline which she refers to as "my toy" 🤷🏼‍♂️  So, despite copper PSTN lines being very important to a large number of people, those in charge of them possibly think no-one cares about them and therefore it's probable that little importance has been attached to keeping everyone informed about the day PSTN has the fuse pulled out or to the many people who will struggle to cope without it.

[Jayach]

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@thesled wrote:
However, I don't see why I can't keep my copper until the 'bitter end' and I intend to if I can. After all it's not as though they will be along to rip it out anytime soon. 

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It's not the bits of copper wire running from the cabinets to out homes they want to recover, the cost of doing that would be prohibitive.

Its the large multicore cables running from the exchanges to the cabinets they will want, as those can easily be removed. Some exchanges have become redundant already.

[Cynric]

@Jayach I'm not so sure. Consider a future where OR/CF extend fibre to the house using existing overhead spans via telegraph poles. They would have to take down the Cu cable to make space for the fibre.

[Jayach]

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@Cynric wrote:

@Jayach I'm not so sure. Consider a future where OR/CF extend fibre to the house using existing overhead spans via telegraph poles. They would have to take down the Cu cable to make space for the fibre.

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That is not the future, that is happening now.

But yes they will probably remove the copper in that case, but they wouldn't make a special visit so there would be no cost to doing so.

A friend has just been upgraded to Full Fibre via the same pole that was used for FTTC, but the copper was left in place.

It was done by a Kelly engineer working for Openreach and he said Openreach would have removed the copper cable.

[Racal-Yodafone]

There's a street in Braintree where I think every property has a copper line going into to it at attic level from a wooden telephone pole in the street. Those poles are super crowded as it is.