Fitting a landline fibre connection for Dotty

Hull pensioner Dotty Verity doesn’t have the internet – and she doesn’t particularly want it either.

But as part of the UK-wide landline phone network upgrade, replacing old copper wires with state of the art fibre cables, everyone will soon need to have an internet connection if they want their old landline to keep working.

If, like Dotty, you don’t already have an internet connection to your home, it’s a simple process to have one fitted, as she recently discovered when KCOM engineers visited her Hull home.

“When they first told me they needed to do it, I thought ‘I don’t have the internet and I don’t really want it, says Dotty, 79. “But I want my phone to keep working, so I’m pleased they’ve done it now.

“The engineers were very nice, very helpful, gentlemen actually! They just talked me through what they were going to do and they cleared up after themselves too, which is good.”

To upgrade her phoneline from copper to fibre, the KCOM engineers first fitted a ‘Customer Termination Unit’ or CTU box to the outside of her house. This is the box that delivers the internet to your home. They then fitted an Optical Network Terminal or ONT box inside her home where her old phone socket was.

Dotty’s phone was then plugged into the ONT through an adapter and her service was restored exactly the same as it was before. The only change is that your phone calls are now carried over the internet, rather than the old copper wires.”

Just like it was for Dotty, if you need a fibre connection to your home the KCOM engineer visits are completely free, your phone bill won’t change and you won’t notice any difference to your landline phone service.

Dotty may not be convinced she needs the internet, she already has enough to keep her occupied with friends and weekly social activities at Age UK Hull and East Yorkshire, although her family has been encouraging her to get online so she can video call and access things like Netflix and iPlayer. But now she has the fibre connection ready to go, she says she’ll give it some serious thought – and she realises a good internet connection is an attractive feature if she ever decided to move.

“It’ll be good if I ever sell my house,” she says. ”it’s already connected up to the internet for someone else, I’m all geared up for it, so what’s not to like?”

KCOM field technician Gary Hodgson, said the upgrade process is usually simple and stress-free.

“I’ll go into the customer’s home and I’ll explain what we need to do,” he says.

“They’ll then tell me where they want our equipment which is usually where the old socket is – so it’s replacing old for new. We’ll mount it on the wall, run a cable from it to our box on the outside of the property and connect it up.

“Then we make a few phones call to get it working and, before we leave, we’ll make sure the customer is satisfied and everything is in perfect working order. The customer’s  landline phone will be working just as it did before – they shouldn’t notice any difference to their service.”

You can watch the video of Dotty upgrading to fibre here.

For more details about Hull’s big switchover, or if you need a fibre connection adding to your home, visit www.kcom.com/switchover