About 15 people attended the event “The future of your landlne” on 11th June.  For those who were unable to make it, the main presentation can be viewed here.

Some things we learned:

• The new digital landlines will not work during a power cut, unless you have a battery back-up.  Many people will be entitled to a free battery-backup, including anyone without a good indoor mobile signal, anyone “vulnerable” and anyone who might need to be contactable by a vulnerable person (as one person at the meeting noted: “it sounds as if almost anyone could blag themselves a free battery”).  If you have full-fibre broadband and don’t have a battery back-up and feel that you are entitled to one, then your supplier should give you one.  Furthermore your supplier should replace the battery when it wears out (possibly after 5 years or so).  If you really can’t get a free back-up battery then your service provider will sell you one (probably around £150).  These batteries will last around 5 hours in a power cut.  If you want more resilience, you can source your own back-up battery.  See the advice at brightling.community/staying-in-touch-during-power-cuts/
  
• If you are with Plusnet, note that Plusnet do not provide landline service over full-fibre broadband.  If you are with Plusnet, and you want to move to full-fibre broadband and retain your landline number and service, then you have a number of choices.  1.  You can move to a different provider, and (Chris Hockley confirmed this) Plusnet should release you from any existing contract without penalty.  2.  You can stay with Plusnet for broadband and buy your digital landline as a stand-alone service from another supplier.  See www.google.com/search?q=voip+for+home for a list of suppliers.  This option can work well, but it would be wise to “port” your existing landline number to the new supplier before upgrading your broadband so as not to lose your number.