45 Percent of UK Landline Users Confused by Analogue Phone Switch-Off, Survey Claims
A new OnePoll survey of 2,000 UK adults with a landline telephone at home, commissioned by London-focused alternative broadband ISP CommunityFibre, has claimed that 45% of respondents are still unclear about what the looming switch-off of the country’s ageing analogue telephone network means for them.
Just to recap. The legacy phone switch-off on the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is currently due to take place on 31st January 2027. As a result broadband ISPs, phone, telecare providers, councils and consumers have been working to migrate everybody across (details). But the main focus of this remains on the people who use vital home telecare systems (e.g. elderly, disabled – vulnerable users), which aren’t always compatible with newer IP-based digital phone services (telecare providers were slow to adapt).
According to CommunityFibre’s new survey, half of respondents say their home phone is important to them, while 49% of those who value their landline say it is important in case of an emergency and 36% rely on it when their mobile phone has no signal. Similarly, 57% of respondents agree landlines provide older people with peace of mind in case of an emergency.
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Despite this, nearly half of those who have not already switched say they are not confident they know what they need to do to replace their traditional landline service. Among those who are not confident, 47% say they have not seen enough information about the switchover, 33% are confused about what changes they need to make and “many are unsure what happens when they switch“. Nearly 4 in 10 who took the survey also say they’d had the same landline number for many years and a fifth don’t want to change it.
Additional Survey Findings
➤ Before taking the survey, 48% were unaware that the switch-off of the PSTN service could affect devices in the home other than telephones, such as telecare alarms, personal emergency pendants and security alarms.
➤ Almost a quarter say they or someone they know uses a personal alarm or telecare alarm that may be affected.
➤ 71% say they would be concerned if a device in their home, or the home of someone they know, stopped working.
➤ 60% say they are likely to prepare by compare deals from other providers.
➤ 53% of those yet to switch say they have not taken any action to prepare.
➤ Only 12% have checked whether their equipment would still work after the switch-off.
In most cases such upgrades merely involve a fairly seamless change of service, managed by your broadband or phone provider, which often results in customers needing to connect their home phone into the back of either a broadband router or Analogue Terminal Adapter (ATA); instead of directly into the socket on your wall or skirting board (NTE5 sockets). Special solutions also exist for telecare users.
The good news is that most UK people have already been transitioned to newer products, with Openreach reporting at the end of July 2026 that just 1.5 million UK lines (down from 1.9m in June 2026) are still operating on legacy copper phones, including roughly 350,000 business premises. Suffice to say it’s likely that many of those responding to the survey above may have already been switched and simply don’t realise it.
Peter Rampling, Community Fibre, said:
“The switch from analogue to digital phone services is a nationwide change that is affecting millions of households. But unfortunately, many of those needing to switch may not be offered the best available full fibre service by their existing provider, so it’s important to explore what else is out there before committing.
Naturally, CommunityFibre has a vested interest in plugging their own phone and broadband connectivity here. The operator has already deployed their 5Gbps speed full fibre network to cover 1.4 million homes (mostly in London and the South East – inc. 450,000 customers) and aims to reach 2m premises by 2028-2029 (here). Suffice to say, BT (Openreach) and Virgin Media’s alternative digital phone solutions aren’t the only ones available.
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However, it is worth remembering that the 2027 date mentioned earlier is only really a strict deadline for businesses, while consumer lines won’t face a hard disconnection on the same date and there will be a temporary Emergency Voice Access (eVAC) solution for those who fail to migrate (here). But even they will still need to switch by 2030, when thousands of older exchanges will start being retired at scale.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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At first I thought that number had to be quite high, but then I realised that this is only polling people who still have a landline in 2026 – so prominently older people who are of course generally less technical.
If only there was some way to contact these people to let them know about the coming changes. If only there was some device in all of their homes that could be used to communicate with them directly. If only.
You would think it is that simple. But the number of people who don’t answer and when they do refuse to discuss it and refuse to switch is remarkable. There is only so much this industry can do, it’s more of a personal responsibility of the person and/or their family/care giver.
They’ll be in for a shock next year.
If I was CF I’d probably not crow on about other providers, considering that any customer who switches to them would need an invasive install process and a load of new boxes installed in their home, even if they don’t actually want broadband.
As compared to the major ISPs whose routers do it all in one box (except ONT if required) and all have signed up to provide a free battery backup unit if needed. Or indeed the providers who are continuing to provide copper landlines for the foreseeable future which mean the customer doesn’t need to do anything at all. This includes BT with its PDPL.
A friend with BT/EE went full fibre 18 months ago, and was told to plug the landline phone into the EE hub, never worked, still plugged into the old copper socket.
I’m with CF and enjoy their LL service and yes an extra box, (wall plate, fibre converter, router, and LL box and 3 power plugs) but it’s the dammed brights LEDs that’s annoying – good black insulation tape solves that.
I presume the 1.5 million are only WLR customers and don’t include MPF LLU customers (Sky/TalkTalk). Would be interesting to know how many of those lines are still working.
See https://www.offta.org.uk/kpis
@Anon
Unfortunately that total (3.383 million lines) includes both MPF and SMPF lines.
Only the first of which will be unaffected by the impending PSTN closure of course.
Are separate numbers, for MPF and SMPF publicly available?
Has there been any messaging about this other than a letter? In the past similar transitions (e.g. analogue TV switch-off) would have campaigns (billboard posters / TV ads) to make the public aware.
Seems to have been poorly communicated…
“Has there been any messaging about this other than a letter”??
Can’t see what more they could have done. It’s been mooted and advertised for years: there’ve been national TV ads, exhortations by BT and Virgin, ads in GP surgeries and post offices, ads on FB and YT (Claire Balding’s TV ad), ads on billboards and bus shelters.
Some people can’t be bothered if a timeline for completion is not tomorrow or yesterday.
Problem is tho it goes off in stormy weather etc so is.nt a reliable phone goes off just when you need it whereas the old system was always there
Not necessarily, copper wires are subject to storm damage and water ingress. Our landline was down for a week during the summer storms of 2007 when the main cable feeding our estate was damaged by flooding. Unbelievably ADSL just about managed to keep going.
What proportion of _broadband call centre advisors_ are confused by analogue switch-off? Urgent follow-up survey needed!
I’ve been assured that ‘all UK will be converted to full fibre in 2027’ (oh, if only…!)
Two major lacks in this switchover campaign
1/ A simple “one box” replacement for the current master socket. A single box that combines fibre and VDSL input capabilities with ATA type capabilities and has a single analogue phone socket on the other side (with NTE5 type extension wiring connection capability), and a battery backup. Only apparent change after is “wall wart” power supply to be plugged in (with a long low voltage extension cable for optional use if needed).
WiFi capability optional.
2/ A very simple one page infographic / flow chart in big print to post to remaining unaltered landline customers (and publish in national and local newspapers as a full page ad), contact leading to an industry wide telephone help desk so the right requests can be made to the right operator.
and who is going to pay for such a device to be developed, especially when the major ISPs already achieve all of your desired criteria with their own routers plus an optional BBU for those who actually need it?
People who need to take action have already been repeatedly told about it. Associated charities and support groups have been involved. There have already been expensive publicity campaigns and yet people still ignore them. At some point personal responsibility has to take over, and if that means someone loses their dialtone and their landline number of 50 years then that’s on them at this point.
The development would have been commercially viable if an order had been placed 3-4 years go, with a target price in the low tens of £.
There are companies like Unihertz that develop much more complex devices (niche mobile phones) profitability. And not much development would have been needed, a simplified version of off the shelf kits of parts/platforms with some more specilaist packaging. Only a little more complex than an ONT.
Poor change management by the industry and Ofcom means that opportunity was lost (comparison with various TV switchover campaigns is relevant here), with a non-customer centric view that Ivor aptly portrays.
The target audience is to some degree unwilling to accept a multi-box ISP router with analogue phone port solution (and most ISPs don’t even offer that, would need a separate ATA).
The cost of advertising is not strongly correlated of the success, beyond the obvious that zero spend gets you zero awareness. The modes and call to action messaging has been clearly ineffective with certain groups who have a (somewhat reasonable historically) expectation that “the phone company won’t cut me off as I always pay my bill”, and may of course be suffering cognitive difficulties and lack of reading capability later life.
I dare say that this is very much an armchair level view.
Your idea wouldn’t have been commercially viable back then either. It would have necessitated high R&D costs for a small group of very low revenue customers. And again, what would it offer that the ISPs aren’t doing with their router plus a BBU?
How would such a device have supported Virgin’s cable network, given that they are the other major operator of legacy TDM voice infrastructure?
In some ways BT already had a solution for FTTP customers in that they were using the voice port of the earlier Openreach ONTs, but then they made a business decision to switch to supplying all voice services through the hub instead where they can offer HD voice and have an identical product regardless of access type.
1.5 million lines is a lot but it’s a huge reduction from where they were a few years ago, so that suggests the publicity has largely worked and now it is down to those who think they don’t need to engage. What would a newspaper ad do that endless personalised letters, emails and phone calls couldn’t achieve?
The media with their scary clickbait headlines are to blame for a lot of the fear mongering. Most people don’t realise it’s a case of unplugging their phones from the master socket, and plugging it into the back of their router. It’s not that difficult to comprehend but I’ve seen examples of customers demanding engineers to do this simple task because they want someone to move their furniture and other such things. Or those who complain their phone will go off in a power cut when they are already using cordless phones anyway. On one hand I feel sorry for these customers but on the other hand, get a grip! It’s not that difficult or demanding of your time.
For many of BT’s Rural customers this Digital switchover is a complete nightmare.One of my relatives, has persistent problems with Noise on the BT copper line, an intermittant fault that Openreach have, despite numerous requests failed to fix. While on analogue voice this presented little problem. Except for the DSL connection dropping out every day and terminating internet access. Come the move to Digital voice, this will become an existential one, with the Digital phone dropping out every day. Mobile coverage inside is non existent. This serious problem, haas resulted in them requesting a Gigaclear connection. Because for them, being elderly having a functioning landline is not an optional extra it’s essential…