Now Appearing

The hidden connector on the router Some revolutions happen so quietly that many people don't notice - and one such revolution is happening to the telephone system right now.  Our traditional phone system is, frankly, an anachronism. We have a connection to the house designed to bring us voice calls. The internet - frankly our main use of these copper wires now - is clumsily piggybacked onto this antiquated system via the dreaded ADSL filter. But, without any fuss - without, I suspect, most people yet knowing about it - this approach is being phased out. As of today, the phone sockets in our house no longer work. Instead, the phone is plugged into the back of the broadband router, into a connector hidden behind a sticker. Our 'phone number' is now a dummy thing, with calls arriving across the fibre optic link as Voice over IP and being translated to a fake old phone signal at the box. Gone but not missed It was only a matter of time. The old system was well past its sell-by