Phone guide: ‘You won’t be able to call 999’

sir – When landlines are disconnected, BT sends customers a new router and a phone with instructions on how to connect the phone to the internet (Leading Article, March 8).

Our landline phones then become junk. BT’S guide reads: “You won’t be able to call 999 (or any other numbers) from this phone if there’s a power cut or you have a problem with your broadband connection. So make sure you’ve got another way to call for help in an emergency.”

During Storm Arwen the only phone we could use was the BT landline into the master socket using a simple cabled handset. The digital (portable) phones were down – as were all the mobile networks – for two days. If we were on the “Digital Voice” system we would have been unable to phone 999 at all. Surely Digital Voice is making communications less safe and secure.

William Loneskie

Lauder, Berwickshire

sir – Living in Anglesey, North Wales, I am well used to power cuts over the winter, most lasting six to eight hours. What I am not used to is being unable to use my landline, having been switched without consultation to the Digital Voice network in June 2021.

There is a poor or non-existent mobile signal here, and a battery pack that lasts “more than one hour” (Letters, February 28) is of little use.

I am 70, live alone, and keep sheep. It is frequently necessary to call a vet for a difficult lambing or other emergency, and the vet needs to call me about their arrival time. Family and friends often ring to check on me during a bad storm.

All of this is now threatened by a company that seems to be putting customers’ needs second to its own. Alison M Thompson

Llanfaethlu, Anglesey

sir – Am I alone in wondering how it is that BT, a private company, should have the power to decide what the nature of an essential public communications system should be? David Evans

Ashbourne, Derbyshire