Dear LPG, 

The other day I got a telephone call from a young lady with a foreign accent, which is an indicator that a scam is on the way. She gave a name and introduced herself so quickly that I only understood the company she said she represented. She then told me that I did not need to worry, before she launched into a lot of technical talk about the wonderful new things the company would do with my phone line free of charge. The interesting thing is that I have two landline phones and pay different service providers for each one, and she called me on one phone and introduced herself as a representative of the other.

I became very suspicious and told her I would call them back, but when I did, I realised there was no scam. 
It was a genuine call from the telephone company, and they were talking about their plans for my phone regarding the switchover of my landline from analogue to digital.

I have heard that there is to be a switchover much like the one we all went through with televisions in 2012, but I have to admit that I hear but don’t listen to all the details until it affects me.

It is all very technical, but from what I now understand, once it is all working correctly, it will not make a lot of difference to picking up the phone and using it, but if you don’t have a broadband router, you will need one. It is all about retiring the old cables and wires which have carried our words from A to B and getting them there via broadband instead.  

Older people are most likely not to have a mobile phone, and telephone companies will need to fit one in every home with a landline before the telephone switchover.

If you already have broadband, it might get done automatically. But you might have to check that all the other things that work through your telephone still do once you are switched, such as alarm systems and Link lines. 
The first thing that came to me about this was my concerns regarding the washer/dryer question. Suppose you have a washing machine that doubles as a tumble dryer. If it goes wrong, you can’t do either thing. At least if they are separate, you can do half the job. I was concerned that nothing would work if the broadband went down, but the companies have thought of that and will install special equipment allowing calls to the emergency services just in case.

Now that it affects me, I have looked at the information surrounding all this. While I don’t understand all of it, I thought it would be a good idea to pass it on to the LPG readers who find themselves at the end of a phone call that might sound a bit like a sales call but is not.  

 OK, Lee

OK offers a little information she found on the subject of another analogue to digital switchover…

(►►►)   (►►►)