Comms Council UK Publish Advice for the 2025 Analogue Phone Switch-off UPDATE
The Comms Council UK (CCUK), which represents the United Kingdom’s Unified Communications (UC) and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) phone industry, will this morning publish a series of advice documents for the industry and consumers about the PSTN (analogue phone) switch-off in 2025.
Having engaged with members about the switch-off, the council found that there was “insufficient publicly available information” that would benefit providers in their preparations, as well as customers as they adjust to using IP based phone (e.g. VoIP) technology. While the Government, Openreach (BT), Ofcom and others have provided some guidance about this, CCUK believes there is a need for a more centralised public awareness campaign.
Tracey Wright, Chair of CCUK’s Industry Developments Group and the MD of Magrathea, said: “Industry is aware that this process has been coming down the track for many years, however, it is now rearing itself into view. As consumer campaigning hasn’t been the primary focus so far, we believe now is the time to provide them with more education on the impact it could have. The switch-off will have an effect on consumers and businesses alike. While we’re confident the outcomes will be positive, people must be prepared for the transition.”
The documents can be found here (consumer guide) and here (industry guide) on the Great Voice Switchover section of their website.
| Guidance document for consumers | Guidance document for industry |
| Background information | What is happening and why |
| Details about the upgrade | Challenges to overcome |
| What network changes will mean for services | What industry should be doing now |
| Access to emergency services | Events, meetings and consultations of interest |
| Other considerations | |
| Timeframes | |
| FAQs |
UPDATE 27th April 2023
The CCUK have updated some of the documents and landing page to reflect the feedback they’ve received.
Tracey Wright, Chair of CCUK’s Industry Developments Working Group, said:
“We would like to thank everybody who has provided their feedback on our PSTN guidance documents so far. We have amended these as well as the landing pages to ensure they can be as useful as possible, while reflecting the changes you would like to see. As industry continues to move along its migration path, the information we provide is likely to change further.
It’s absolutely vital that the message around the PSTN switch off gets out to as many residential customers and businesses as soon as possible. We will continue to engage with Government, Ofcom and industry stakeholders to push the message as far and wide as possible.”
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 and Linkedin.
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Why don’t they do a tv and radio campaign telling everyone to be ready for the switch off
Money?
The consumer document isn’t very consumer orientated.
It’s far too detailed yet has ambiguity about what is actually needed.
Information for service providers? VOIP is well documented… the industry pdf is useful but doesn’t add any new information.
The consumer pdf is too long and confuses FTTP with WLR withdrawal while SOGEA and SOTAP will still be copper based.
A simple booklet needs to be:
Your basic telephone/ISDN line is being changed to an all digital service.
Your old phone will plug into the back of your router or into a box the isp has provided.
The new phone line will not be available during a power outage, please use a mobile phone or contact your ISP for a backup battery. For any pendants, alarms or other devices connected to your phone line please contact either the provider of these devices or your ISP for help.
If you could throw in a few sketchy diagrams, you could send that to the local printers and then charge £100k for your services. Sounds exactly what’s needed and something they’ll employ some agency to spend hours debating and choosing the colour, logo and tagline for.
“Get switched on to the great switch off, your phone’s going digital in 2025”
> your phone’s going digital in 2025
That makes it sound like it’s still a few years down the line.
In reality, people will start being affected from September 2023, when the WLR stop-sell comes into place. Anyone renewing a contract after then will need to switch to digital phone.
That’s only 5 months away.
Even that isn’t simple enough.. what about my mother, who uses wifi that’s provided by her housing association. She pays BT for her phone but has no copper internet and no ISP. I’m actually not sure what happens – presumably BT will provide some kind of VOIP router to her, and install it, because no way she’d know what to do..
So remove any mention of routers and ISPs. Just say ‘an adapter will be provided’. Or just pretty pictures.
But of course BT have done none of this and switchoff will be a complete surprise to much of the country if they continue down this road.
There has been a great deal of confusion and misinformation around this issue and this document continues that trend.
If the organization, representing the industry, doesn’t appear to understand the difference between the switching off of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), and the switching off of the copper network, then what chance do ordinary members of the public have?
It is the PSTN that is being switched off in 2025, not the copper network. At that time all landline voice telephone services will change to VOIP services and be delivered over the broadband network.
In many areas that broadband service will continue to be delivered over the existing copper network, just as it does at present.
While the PSTN is being switched off in 2025, broadband services will continue to be provided over the copper network until FTTP is available in those areas.