Don’t Get Caught Out: Are Your Lifts Ready for the Digital Switch
By Matt Davies, Head of Strategic Marketing at Avire.
Over the last few years Openreach, the UK’s telephone line infrastructure provider, has been rolling out fibre telephone lines as part of their ‘fibre first’ program. The legacy, copper telephone line based, public switch telephone network (PSTN) has served the UK well for many years but is no longer able to keep pace with our ever-increasing demand for data over voice services. The UK government estimates that the deployment of fibre phone lines will provide a £59bn boost to productivity and bring a million people back into the workforce by the end of 2025.
However, telephone lines service several applications other than internet connections and telephone handsets, notably: lift alarms.
Lifts are an essential part of the operation of any multi-storey building. Both in terms of how people & goods flow through your building and ensuring your building is accessible to everyone regardless of their abilities. Every day, thousands of passengers travel in lifts without giving it a second thought. How many lift journeys have you taken today, or this week?
Whether we realise it or not, the lift alarm (or the knowledge that the lift alarm is there should we need it) is a key part of why most people are so comfortable using a lift. However, should the worst happen, and the lift becomes stuck, the peace of mind the lift alarm gives us becomes a genuine necessity to summon help. This availability of the lift alarm functionality is driven by a combination of the alarm equipment itself and the resilience/reliability of the communication link to the outside world.
Lift alarm equipment includes a backup battery in case of a power failure and places regular test calls to prove that the equipment is in working order. The monitoring and recording of these test calls then becomes your audit trial to show that the lift alarm was compliant to the relevant safety standards and in working order.
Traditionally lift alarms were connected to copper phone lines. The copper network was inherently resilient as the copper lines carried their own power and battery backups existing in the network to ensure the telephone line was always available. Short of the cables in the street being damaged by roadworks, or a lightning strike, copper lines were there when you needed them.
The deployment of fibre lines changes this picture dramatically. Fibre cannot carry power so relies on the mains power of the building. The Optical Network Termination (ONT) and fibre router devices which are replacing telephone sockets both depend on the mains power to function. This has led to Communication Providers (CPs) warning customers that fibre lines cannot be relied upon in the event of a power failure.
Unfortunately, power failures are also a key cause of lift trappings. This then raises the very real possibility of a lift becoming stuck, trapping a passenger and the lift alarm equipment being rendered useless due to a simultaneous failure of the telephone line!
Being trapped in a lift is a stressful situation, but a prolonged trapping over many hours can be a truly horrendous experience. An attendee at a recent event shared with me their story of being trapped in a lift from Friday night until Monday morning! The building was closed over the weekend and the lift alarm was unable to dial out meaning they could not signal for help.
Type ‘lift compensation claim’ into Google and you may be surprised by how many hits you get back. What is more surprising, are the figures injury lawyers are quoting for claims related to being trapped in a lift and suffering a ‘psychological injury’. In 2016 a Dublin woman, who suffered from claustrophobia, was awarded £23,000 by the courts after being trapped in a lift for only four and a half minutes. Whilst that is an extreme example the risk of a compensation claims and the resulting bad press and potential reputational damage to an organisation is very real.
It’s estimated that over 80% of all lift alarms in the UK are connected to telephones landlines today. Understanding what type of lines your lifts are connected too is now of critical importance.
Many people think they will have to specifically request fibre telephones lines be installed, but that’s not strictly true. Openreach announced in 2020 the beginning of their ‘Stop Sell’ programme. This means that when an exchange area reaches the point where 75% of the lines are fibre, no ‘new’ copper services will be provided. Reading a little deeper you find that the programme also includes no changes to existing copper lines either. This means that, for example, if you were to change your communication provider you would be switched from a copper line to a fibre service. Equally if a tenant leaves a building and a new tenant moves in the ‘working line take over’ from one tenant to the next will generate the same result: line moved to fibre.
It's therefore entirely likely that lifts have been switched from copper to fibre lines without lift owners necessarily understanding that the change has taken place.
So, What Can Be Done To Ensure Lift Alarms Have A Resilient Communication Link?
Some communication providers have an optional battery backup available for their fibre routers which can also serve the ONT. Whilst this is an option, you’ll need to think about where that battery backup is located and how it will be monitored and maintained to ensure it’s in working order when it’s needed.
The alternative is to move away from fixed lines all together and switch to a GSM gateway connection for the lift alarm. This approach has several benefits:
- The gateway can be installed by your existing lift maintenance provider
- The on-board battery backup can be monitored remotely and can pro-actively issue alerts when the battery needs replacing
- Roaming SIM cards ensure maximum signal strength and are typically cheaper than fixed lines
- All the lift alarm’s test call data and information on gateway battery health, signal strength etc. can all be reported to one platform providing a full audit trail
Speak to your lift maintenance provider as a matter of urgency to understanding the type of lift alarm you have installed on your lifts and whether those alarms are connected to telephone lines or GSM gateways.
If your lift alarms are connected to telephone lines check if those lines have been switched over to fibre. If the lines are fibre, then consider switching to GSM.
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