Getting rid of landlines means you can't dial 999 during a power outage unless you have a mobile phone. This is not the progress I am talking about

BT came up with a wonderful way to prevent people from calling and complaining when the broadband fails. In the future, if your broadband is unavailable, your mobile phone will also be unavailable. This is because something called digital voice will be launched on the BT network before the end of 2025.

Digital voice does not mean that everyone who calls sounds like a robot, although that would be fun. This means that instead of plugging your phone into a telephone socket on the wall, you plug it into the back of the "wireless router". You know, the object that makes wifi happen-it has a light to show whether it is working, and a series of lights that may not work. The rainbow-like lights tell you that now is not the time to allow you to buy movie tickets.

Obviously, this is an inconvenient development. You may not want your home phone to be a wire away from the router. This may not be how your furniture is organized. Having said that, if your phone is a wireless phone installed in a charging dock, then it is not so annoying, because you only need to plug the "main" of it into the router. The rest of the phones can then be soaked in the invisible sound juice that the main phone has farted (please forgive all the technical terms). Therefore, you can still call people without being in the same room as the router. When will I be alive!

However, if you have something I like to call a "normal phone", then only one can work, and it must be connected to a router. For each other adapter, you need a "digital voice adapter" (you can get one for free, but you must purchase any other adapter from BT), and then plug it in, instead of connecting to a telephone socket, but to a normal Plug socket.

This is annoying in two ways: First, it ran out of a socket, which is very precious in this age when there are too many things to charge. Second, it makes all old telephone sockets obsolete, like a small cut on the wall. BT will not send painters and decorators to eliminate these no longer disfigurements that it makes us adapt to. Perhaps, over time, they will develop some charm and historical interest, such as bakelite light switches or servant bells, especially those marked with the original British Telecom "T" logo, which can be traced back to the "Inphone" event In the early 1980s, the company was still publicly owned.

But these are not the main disadvantages. The annoying fact is that for some reason, even if you call someone in the same town as you, you must now dial the full area code. No, its big problem is that if your broadband is not connected to the phone, it will not work. This also means that, unlike all previous types of landlines, it will not work during a power outage. If the grid loses power, you will not be able to call anyone, including 999. But, who has heard of emergency situations during power outages?

What does BT suggest to do about this? In the description of the digital voice adapter, it explains the new defects introduced, and adds: "So please make sure you have other ways to ask for help in an emergency." Is it okay to shout?

In the "Digital Voice Migration" FAQ section of the BT website, near the bottom, it carefully mentions the same thing, saying: "If you don't have a mobile phone or other ways to dial 999, please contact us on 0800 800 150." Of course, you This must be done before powering off. Maybe they will send you a cell phone? The postal system can still work without wifi.

For the fixed-line provider, this is an acknowledgement of what a failure: make sure you have a spare phone. It's like Ocado telling people to make sure they have food. The fixed telephone is a backup telephone. Recently, this is what it is all about: emergency situations and to make your own phone ring when you misplace it.

But I get it. The landline is not used much. It's like a phone booth. Last week, it was reported that more than 1,000 phone booths in the UK did not receive a single call throughout the year. Telecommunications is changing, and most people own mobile phones, so this new system may not have a significant impact on connectivity. I don't like it, but I can live with it.

However, what I cannot bear is the way BT presents it to customers. I know this because my landline was transferred to Digital Voice last week. An email with the title "You are very happy" heralded this sad development. The message was announced from the start with jaw-dropping self-importance: "This is the moment you have been waiting for."

The website continues this theme, and is characterized by reduced services, inconvenience, and cumbersome requirements for inserting things in different ways, as if it were a huge boon. It asked the question "Do I need to pay extra for digital voice?" and proudly gave a negative answer. But what kind of hit, self-loathing, Ryanair frequent flyers would ask such questions? Do I have to pay extra for something worse? Do not? A free deterioration! Oh my star!

Some people talk about marginal benefits "such as crystal clear calls and the ability to block harassing calls" and the nightmarish opportunity to buy a new phone with Amazon Alexa built-in, but the basic statement is that "upgrading to digital voice will not affect how you use your phone today. ". However, the slogan of the plan is "digital voice. Your home phone can only be better." Surely "Your home phone is just not available sometimes" would be more appropriate?

This kind of empty positivity conceals a deep-rooted contempt for customers. BT is trying to blackmail those who are imposed on them by a system they did not require. How easily does it think we are fooled? It is not safe to let powerful companies speak to us like this.