UK ISP Spitfire Criticise Openreach for Lack of PSTN Switch Off Contract Clarity UPDATE
Business telecommunications and UK broadband ISP Spitfire has today called on Openreach (BT) to provide “much needed clarity” for service providers, and the businesses they support, on new contracts related to the looming switch-off of the old Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) in favour of IP-based digital phone (VoIP etc.) services.
Just to recap. The big switch-off was recently delayed to 31st January 2027 in order to give broadband ISPs, phone providers, telecare operators and consumers more time to adapt (details). But the main focus of this delay was the 1.8 million people who use vital home telecare systems in the UK (e.g. elderly, disabled, and vulnerable people), which often aren’t compatible with the replacement VoIP / IP-based digital phone services (i.e. for everybody else the deadline is still technically the end of December 2025).
However, Spitfire notes that the existing contract between UK Internet Service Providers (ISP) and Openreach will expire on 31st December 2025 (i.e. for WLR), and the network access provider has already given notice that this agreement won’t be renewed in its current form.
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Openreach has previously informed ISPreview that they would introduce new terms and a three-month termination notice period to continue services, where needed, and enable some flexibility to support future processes (i.e. a new contract will be issued). But Spitfire complains that they still don’t know what the new contract will actually contain.
“Exactly what it will contain remains unknown. What is expected, however, is a marked change in support terms — most notably, less favourable service level agreements (SLAs) for repairs and response,” said the provider. “The impact could be damaging for [ISPs] and their customers – it means businesses who leave their migration until the last moment will not only face potential delays from capacity bottlenecks but could also find themselves tied to less responsive support structures. In other words: when something breaks, it’ll take longer to fix.”
Harry Bowlby, MD of Spitfire Network Services, said:
“The truth is no one yet knows what the new contracts will look like. But based on the trajectory of telecoms policy, the focus will be digital-first, and the terms for legacy support will decline. The writing is on the wall for PSTN and ISDN services, and while the final stages of this transition are still in motion, the direction is still unclear. Businesses need guidance, not guesswork.
This is where working with experienced partners, those who understand both the legacy environment and the future IP landscape, can make all the difference. It’s about making the right switch, in the right way, at the right time.”
In fairness, Openreach has released some details of the new contracts and has been engaging with the industry over this, although we have asked the network operator to respond and will report back when they furnish us with a comment. At the same time it’s worth considering that Spitfire does have a vested interest here in both promoting the issue, as it sees things, and its own related services.
UPDATE 2:04pm
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Openreach has kindly responded below.
James Lilley, Customer Migrations Director for Openreach, said:
“The PSTN is increasingly unreliable and coming to the end of its life*, so we agree that businesses who want to avoid disruption should prioritise their migrations to digital services ASAP.
We shared details of our new contracts in August 2024, and they don’t contain significant changes to the level of support we offer. The new terms simply give us more flexibility to help customers upgrade as the January 2027 deadline approaches.”
* Ofcom’s recent Connected Nations report highlights that, in 2024, the number of significant PSTN resilience incidents reported increased sharply by 45%.
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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This looks like a PR pitch dressed up as a complaint. Why is an ISP complaining that businesses (their customers) will be migrating last minute? If you’re a Spitfire customer paying for ISDN you should be questioning what your provider has been doing for the last five years.
In this story: ISP has failed to prepare for migrating to VOIP and is complaining about Openreach not acquiesing to their failure to prepare.
The onus is on Spitfire to explain why they are still trying to continue to supply PSTN/ISDN services when they’ve known for years that it was going to be withdrawn and phased out entirely. Have they not been spending time and resource to, idk, develop a VOIP solution or integrate with an existing one?
I guess some of thier customers are trying to put off spending on a new phone system, when thier existing one still works. I get that a few years ago, but not wise going forward.
SIP to ISDN gateways have existed for ages, lots of the US carriers have delivered ISDN over fibre in this way for a long time. The phone system doesn’t know any different.
Isdn over fibre was available in the 90s. It’s just a way of transporting a ISDN circuit from the switch the the customer. The issue is the switches are being decommissioned, so you can’t carry a DASS/Q931 circuit that no longer exists.
There are quite a few parts of the Openreach guidance regarding businesses that have difficulty migrating from the POTS network: CNIs, remote areas where the fibre network does not currently reach (a particular problem for remote system monitoring). The guidance does not give a clear resolution, leaving the options a little vague and perhaps dependent on local agreements.
but this is perhaps where these ISPs need to start earning their money instead of merely acting as middlemen for Openreach. There is no fully managed Openreach equivalent to the PSTN and there never will be.
the wider BT Group has thought of this with the “pre digital phone line” and SOADSL filling many of those gaps. Both are available through BT Wholesale and the LLU companies are essentially able to do their own versions of these as well.
@Ivor: The issue that is being expressed in the article is about the contractual terms, with the short period to the end date and the absence of clarity on what will be on offer is why there like is a problem.
There’s been clarity for years. If your services depend on the Openreach WLR telephony products then they are going bye-bye in 2025 (now 2027). Other exchange based services remain available until a future copper stop sell or exchange closure.
As for “contractural uncertainty” – leaving aside the response from Openreach that says they mentioned the changes ages ago – I’m also not sure what these ISPs expect here. The PSTN is an ever increasing risk and I am not surprised that OR isn’t willing to make the kinds of commitments that they once could. The point is to get people off it and onto supported products.
@Ivor: If you look at the guidance issued by Openreach, there is no clarity around the edge cases because the document is vague about what would be offered, and thus, there are reasons to be concerned about contractual details.
“Exactly what it will contain remains unknown.” …But we’re going to ignore that and make something up so we can scaremonger, complain and gain attention for ourselves.
Look at Spitfire customers low rating and let it be an explanation.