Homeport Red Fault Light

[hpgsmith]

Hi - We have are on UFO in York and now on a Full fibre tariff £36 pm.  The red fault light on our wall Homeport has been permanently on for few days and indicates a possible fault with backup battery. How critical is this and does it need attention? Internet speed and connection seems fine, although I cannot get a report on the connection line status check - "We tried to test your network connection but we can’t provide status updates on your current package."

Will the Homeport be upgraded as I understand we are possibly getting a change in kit as UFO is being phased out. Thanks H

[peteb99]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

It's interesting that they offered you a new 18 month contract in October.       I presume at some point they are going to have to come to us and tell us that the service is closing down and we have to leave (they've alread said it is going to happen but haven't said when exactly).    City Fibre now seem to offer some good packages with people like Vodafone etc.  and I presume it will be using the fibre that is already there but replace the white HomePort box with their own.     I don't know anyone who has left UFO yet and moved to someone else through CityFibre.   Everyone seems to be in the same boat as either you or me.    Down my street practically everyone is on UFO and they all come to me to ask me what is going on and I have to answer that I have no idea, haha.

I guess at some point it will happen - but I am very reluctant to be transferred across to Future Fibre which has nowhere near as good upload speeds as UFO.

[hpgsmith]

Hi peteb99, 

We haven't moved on from UFO yet, (probably a bit misleading that I described it as change to 'full fibre' tariff) but they applied an increase from £27.50 to £36 PM in October to either stay without contract or commit to 18 months. I chose not to commit to new contract until the UFO product is phased out. They didn't specify a new speed guarantee. Evidently there will be a change from UFO soon, but no info about what new kit that will entail. We've never had the 900mbps claimed. Currently or Speeds are between 200-300 via 5ghz and not much more on ethernet. Main positive thing is stability which has been very good over last couple of years, so I don't know want new changes to upset that.

[peteb99]

Glad I can help.   I hope you dont mind me being a bit cheeky but I notice you said you've moved to Future Fibre now. When did you move?

Are you still getting the same 900mb/s up and down for £36?     How did the move go - was it seemless (i.e. you came to the end of the contract with UFO and were just moved across to Future Fibre).

Did they replace anything at all in your house or are you still on the same equipment?

Hope you don't mind me asking but my UFO contract finishes in August so I'm interested to see what the options are.

[hpgsmith]

Hi peteb99,

Many thanks for your advice, good to know. I'll just tape over the light 🙂 

[peteb99]

Hi hpgsmith,

The backup battery is purely so that if you have a power outage the batteries will keep the homeport running and therefore the phone line will still work in an emergency.  It does not affect your broadband connection at all.   All the new ONT's (ONT is the official name of the white Homeport box) that are installed no longer have the battery backup anymore so it's not really required (in an emergency you would use your mobile.

If you want the annoying light to go away, open the Homeport and you can get to the batteries.  If I remember rightly they are just AA batteries that you can replace with new AA rechargeable batteries (they must be rechargeable).    They are seen as user replaceable items like AA batteries in other devices.          To be honest, if mine goes I wouldn't replace the batteries and I'd probably put a little bit of tape over the annoying red light (my homeport is connected to an Uninterruptible Power Supply which keeps it up for a while in a power outages) .

In the many years of having York UFO I can confirm that the connection line status has never worked on the TalkTalk website.   It's just not compatible.  

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi hpgsmith,

I think if your service is working OK then I would just ignore it but you could try speaking to our UFO team if you're concerned?

Chris