Openreach Expand Pilot to Help UK Telecare Users Switch to Digital Phones

Openreach (BT) has today announced that they’ve expanded their small scale ‘Prove Telecare’ trial into a full pilot, which aims to help UK consumers with old analogue based phone (PSTN / WLR) and telecare systems to safely migrate to modern broadband (FTTP etc.) connections with IP / digital phone (VoIP) services.

Just to recap. BT and Openreach recently delayed their planned switch-off of copper-based analogue line services (PSTN phones and WLR) from the end of December 2025 to 31st January 2027 (here and here) in order to give broadband ISPs, Telecare providers and vulnerable users more time to adapt (other groups should still expect Dec 2025 to be the deadline).

The delay was not unexpected (here), due primarily to the fact that the old 2025 date was deemed to be putting telecare users at risk (i.e. vital health / medical monitoring services for vulnerable and seriously ill people). The main problem being that many older systems aren’t compatible with modern Internet Protocol (IP / VoIP) based phone services. Not to mention that, without battery backup, they may cease to function during protracted power cuts.

The issue of poor telecare support is largely the fault of telecare and alarm providers (i.e. failing to upgrade their systems), but the reality is that around 1.8 million UK people use these vital systems and a more cross-industry approach has been adopted to tackle that. Often such users exist in rural and isolated areas, where mobile services may also go down during power cuts, but that’s another matter that Ofcom are separately examining (here).

Shortly after all this, in July 2024, Openreach introduce their new Prove Telecare Trial. This was a small volume field engineering trial with limited availability that had been designed to support ISPs and customers to “safely migrate” their fixed line telecare devices to modern broadband lines (FTTP, FTTC/SOGEA) with IP voice services. The operator has today announced that they will expand this to a full pilot (here), which will run from 1st February 2025 to 31st August 2025.

Openreach Statement

This Pilot is testing a new Openreach field engineering SVR [Site Visit Reason] providing support to CPs [ISPs] to safely migrate their customers fixed line telecare devices to SOGEA and FTTP with new CP-provided IP voice services (VoIP).

The Pilot will test the systems, engineering training, on the day processes and procedures associated with migrating end customers’ fixed voice telecare device(s) safely to new IP broadband and VoIP services.

The Pilot will include a new reversion capability whereby in the scenario that the telecare device is found to be incompatible with the CP provided IP voice service, the Openreach engineer will fail the provision order and reconnect the phone and telecare device to the legacy voice service.

We assume the pilot includes the same stipulations as the previous trial, which required participating ISPs to have agreements in place with telecare providers to ensure that the telecare provider could arrange for a telecare engineer to be present with an Openreach engineer at the migration appointment (we’re querying this now). This was intended to ensure that the end customer is always left with a working telecare service.

Openreach and BT are separately also piloting a new SOTAP for Analogue product (here), which is a phone line service that does NOT require broadband to work and can harness modern networks to function like the older analogue service. But it’s currently unclear when the final product for this will become available.