Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

Probably because of this part of the ISP Review article.

"Aside from the obvious improvements to WiFi coverage and performance, one other benefit that customers might see when replacing an older Hub with the Hub 5 is in areas that suffer from high utilisations (i.e. where local lines are being heavily used / congested). Both the Hub 4 and 5 can bond more channels together than earlier kit, which can help to tackle such issues (provided VMO2 supports such a change in your area)."

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

That's being discussed over here, as it's not specific to the Hub 5

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/show...php?t=33707359

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

Just received a confirmation from Virgin: https://prntscr.com/1wymnnd

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

Did you get an email invite?

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

Yes it was an invite, like this: https://prnt.sc/1wmqr6o

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

I always miss out on this stuff. I don't understand how they decide who gets them and who doesn't.

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

I think you have to live south of watford gap. :)

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

I'm going to check again in the morning to see if Gig 1 is in my area yet and if so, I will ask them for a Superhub 5.

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

… and you won’t get one. You’ll get a Hub4.

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

This is where the industry is going the world over, including BT, over the next few years. The fact is few people want or care about an a landline, so they are dying out.

BT will provide over FTTP with battery backup, as will VM. This is what you'll get.

I'd submit that given that power cuts are much rarer than they used to be, telephone systems are more reliable (no more "all lines engaged, please try later" like in the late 80s), and everyone has mobile phones, the odds of being in a situation where you need emergency assistance and there is a power cut and you don't have a mobile and the battery on the hub has run out are lower than they would have been back then.

Landlines are dead, and no amount of moaning about it will change that. If you desperately want a "traditional" landline, well, BT will still sell you one, as long as you're not in a stop-sell copper area. Best get ordering because in 10 years that will be gone too.

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

I know very few people who have landlines and of those who do I do not think any of them still use a corded landline in favour of cordless rendering them just as useless in a powercut anyway

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

VM's solution doesn't work for those with landline based fall monitors, alarms etc. They usually have their own battery backup built in, but if the hub is off power it wont work so will need to be updated with a mobile based backup, increasing the costs to councils.

Openreach did a small battery backup unit that can keep the ONT running. But given even that's been discontinued, it looks like providers are just going to shrug as the wording of any rules by Ofcom only mention 999, not ancillary services that may be just as vital.

I'm sure once enough old people fall and die with no assistance due to this boneheadded policy something will change and VM/BT will have to go to the expense of providing some level of care, but until then I guess you just shouldn't fall over in the dark when the powers off?

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

There are industry conversations happening about it from both Virgin Media and Openreach and new products being made available that don't rely on a fixed line.

https://www.bsia.co.uk/digital-voice/
https://www.redcare.bt.com/news-and-...ignalling.html
https://personalalarms.ageco.co.uk/b...one-switchover

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

VM's solution is to give those vulnerable customers a battery backup unit for the Hub. You're still looking at a tiny percentage of the population, and even then, these people are only potentially affected if they have a fall at the same time as a power cut.

I've had 2 power cuts in 6 years, each lasting less than 30 mins, and both in the day when it is light. In actual fact this would not be a problem as VM will fit a battery unit, but even if I were having 1 fall a week necessitating such an alarm use, and there were no BBU, the odds of me having such a fall whilst unmonitored are vanishingly small. With a BBU, they are a rounding error.

A fault at the hub site could cause an issue, but it could cause an issue now!

I think I've read the VM solution also has a 4G sim in, so really, your appeal to emotion fallacy (old people will die without phone lines! Down with this sort of thing!) is baseless. The risk is vanishingly small.


Edit: So if a power cut happens once every 3 years, and lasts 30 mins, at any given moment there is a 1 in 52,260 chance of there being a power cut. If you have 1 fall a week that knocks you out and renders you unable to use your mobile, you should probably be in a home, but that's 52 falls a year. So each year, you have a ~1 in 1000 chance of having a fall while there is a power cut. However, the BBU will last 60 mins, so lets say 1 in 100 power cuts are longer than 60 mins. Now you have a 1 in 100,000 chance of falling during an outage (as the BBU has run out) during any given year.

Re: Hub 5 at no extra cost
 

But it isn't (mainly) the risk from a power cut, but of the internet going down.


I get that equipping handsets with SIMs as a fall back would work fine. But how much would that tie people into VM handsets as opposed to being able to use their own, and what would be the process if these failed?


We had a day a few weeks back where our broadband was down for most of the day (about 10 hours). Whilst I could tether to my phone (and did in order to work) to get online (I have plenty of data) we could at least report the fault by phone, and around this point it was clear it wasn't just a local issue but more of an area issue. With all comms relying on the hub being online, doing that via anything but a mobile wouldn't have been possible.

Maybe the actual solution here is to equip the hubs with a mobile data backup in the event of the main connection being offline, for the primary purpose of alerting VM to the fact the hub is offline, and to allow emergency calls still?