Phonely Claim 59 Percent of Older UK Adults Unaware of Analogue Phone Switch-Off
A new poll of 4,298 UK adults aged 50+, which was conducted by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Phonely (vested interest), has claimed that 58.7% of UK adults aged over 50 are still unaware that the country’s ancient legacy phone network is being switched off on 31st January 2027.
The survey also found that 14.8% of respondents plan to delay switching until forced, while 4.8% said the whole thing sounded too complicated and only 21.6% said they had already made the switch. This suggests that almost four in five over-50s are either unaware, hesitant or planning to delay action, despite years of warnings from telecom providers, the government and Ofcom.
Just to recap. The legacy phone switch-off was already delayed once in order to give broadband ISPs, phone, telecare providers, councils and consumers more time to adapt (details), but there will not be another delay. The main focus of this delay was also on the 1.8 million UK people who use vital home telecare systems (e.g. elderly, disabled – vulnerable users), which aren’t always compatible with digital phone services (i.e. telecare providers were slow to adapt).
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However, Openreach did recently confirm that there are currently still c.2.8 million lines on the old phone network that need to migrate, with more than half a million of those serving business premises. The operator has also previously stated that prices for these legacy lines are set to double by October 2026 (details), which is another good reason not to leave upgrading until the last minute.
In most cases such upgrades merely involve a fairly seamless change of service by your ISP, which often results in you needing to connect your home phone into the back of either a broadband router or small Analogue Terminal Adapter (ATA), instead of directly into the NTE5A/B/C socket on your wall or skirting board. Special solutions also exist for telecare users.
Just to clarify something that catches a lot of people out, only the PSTN phone service is being removed – copper lines still exist and can also handle digital IP-based voice and broadband services, so this isn’t just about the wider switch to full fibre (FTTP) lines (yet).
Bryn Thompson, Director of Phonely, said:
“We are now inside the final year. The extension to 2027 has clearly created a false sense of security. If millions wait until the last minute, we could see real disruption, particularly for older and rural households who rely on their landline the most.”
Phonely claims that if households delay action until autumn or winter, the industry could face a series of problems including – 1) Equipment shortages, 2) Engineer appointment backlogs, 3) Rural installation delays and 4) Increased pressure on vulnerable customers. One additional risk is that some lines may end up losing connectivity, but ISPs and network operators are naturally incentivised to do everything they can to avoid that outcome.
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Plenty of solutions now existing for tackling difficult switches, so the best advice is to get in touch with your fixed line phone or broadband provider now in order to discuss your specific needs, rather than wait until the last minute. Take note that anybody who has switched broadband and phone provider within the past few years may already be on a digital phone service. But if in doubt, ask your provider.
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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I was until recently a Plusnet FTTC broadband with phone customer, I was offered a 12 month extension to that current contract earlier this year.
Various ISP’s have kicked this PTSN switch off can down the road far to long & it will be the customers that suffer when they either get an unexpected email about loss of phone service OR worse go to use the phone & find its been cut off.
You can be changed over to VoIP / digital voice mid contract. It works over FTTC just fine.
I’ve moved provider including network to FTTP with digital voice as I want everything in one place, plus I want nothing to do with Openreach.
I’d be surprised if BT / EE keep the Plusnet brand around much longer, the phone offering will shortly get the chop & the current debacle about the Email service makes grim reading on the forum.
The amount of people who claim to have never received (or more likely ignored) the numerous communications and only ring up once the legacy product stops working is truly astounding. Scale that up to those that haven’t switched yet and I’d say it sounds about right.
Definitely more than 14.8% of people will delay it until forced tho.
I think a lot of that communication was not clear/too technical, and the solutions to deliver a “like for like” replacement for a NTE5 socket but VoIP including support for existing wired extensions and dECT handsets) in a standard, easy to communicate and install way, have been lacking.
Some suppliers offer routers that act as DECT base station (and most DECT phones can be paired to any base station), others just a BT socket on back of router (and router may be some distance from NTE5 master and start of wired extensions). Others even less!
What’s needed are low cost easy to set up standalone ATAs which convert WiFi to DECT (base station) or WiFI to BT analogue.
If such things exist, maybe ISPreview can provide a list or do reviews.
Also would be useful to know which ISP offer DECT or VoIP in the router, and which require you to VoIP using the router (3rd party ATA not supported). @Mark?
@EE Anon — “The amount of people who claim to have never received (or more likely ignored) the numerous communications and only ring up once the legacy product stops working is truly astounding”
Bottom left corner of my BT Bill for the past few years has said:
“Changes to your landline are coming
We’ll be moving our existing phone lines to a new digital
home phone service. It’s an update all providers will be
making across the UK. When it’s time to switch we’ll be
in touch. During the switch to your home phone service,
we’ll give you all the information you need, and we’ll be
with you every step of the way.”
I’ve phoned BT, they’ve had *no interest* in discussing it or saying what/when it’ll happen. They just kick the can further down the road, saying ‘Openreach’ will be in contact when the time comes. Of course they know each month longer they can-kick they get the monthly fee for a little-used landline.
My (separate) Broadband provider has admittedly taken a bit more interest, but only in as far as they want me to re-contract on to a more expensive package on full fibre (and losing the fixed-price features I’ve already got), and move my landline to them, so really just a sales pitch rather than anything proactive.
Sitting it out at the moment, but expecting a mad last minute rush Dec/Jan time.
I’m not surprised BT aren’t pushing it. You are not the typical customer. They have no alternative product for people who have broadband with another ISP. Their PDPL stopgap is only for customers who do not have a broadband service at all, and their mainstream digital voice service is tied to BT or EE broadband.
Are you the commenter who mentioned (in a previous article or on the forum) that you have a Zen price for life line and don’t want to lose that. In which case it’d be for Zen to figure out how to get you onto their VoIP service (or go broadband only if you don’t care about the landline.
BT is not holding a crisis meeting because they might lose your £20 a month. They’d probably prefer you resolved the situation yourself, ie with the ISP
Simon M – customers on a ~15 year old package like yourself with split services are being handled differently than a normal migration. Ultimately, you will not be able to have separate providers like you always have. It’s probably best for you to upgrade with BT and add broadband onto your existing LL package.
In my area sky are actively pushing a switch with no change of contract needed. I’m on an major city exchange that is relatively early in the closure list.
Indeed when I threatened to leave when they pushed first time (the timing was not convenient personally at that point) they negotiated a great re-contracting discount.
Note: can only book an appointment within 3 month range; an attempt to book for this summer was rejected as too far away.
Not surprised, unless you are attempting to move providers, chances are that the it has gone unnoticed by the majority of people who don’t follow the technological trends. Even I wasn’t aware of it until a little over a year ago and I follow the tech news, it was only because I was forced off Plusnet business and had to go looking for a new ISP that I discovered what was going on.
I suspect a huge portion are waiting for the date to be pushed back again.
I saw an article shared the other day where they were stating it shouldn’t be switched off due to issues with resilience in terms of storms etc. IMHO the time for that debate has long passed.
Don’t expect this to go well. Many ISPs don’t do digital voice and many that do charge extra. They are also not telling their customers about it and how they can switch to digital voice. I remember the switch off of analogue TV. The BBC did loads of adverts and everyone knew they needed a box or new TV months ahead.
The major ISPs that make up the vast majority of UK internet users all have a replacement product, whether it is literally called “digital voice” or something else.
In the BT world, those who do not have broadband at all will be moved to something like PDPL (exchange based VoIP) for the next few years until the exchange building is closed. BT/EE broadband customers will have their voice service moved to digital voice.
Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone, etc can keep their exchange based voice services going until exchange closure too.
Virgin is sticking to a similar deadline although they have absolutely no dependence on BT (but they do have the same problems of maintaining a decrepit and more complex PSTN than BT’s). I think their phone-only customers get a Super Hub with voice-only service provisioned on it.
The main problems now stem from people who have complex situations eg where the landline stayed with BT and the internet is provided by someone else.
Yeah but how many of the ‘unaware’ even have a landline and specifically a PSTN landline? I also have to wonder how many of the 14.8% of ‘hold outs’ even know whether they’re on PSTN or not. Most people haven’t got a clue about technical terms like that.
Just so, and notices buried at the bottom of a paper or online bill won’t get read either
I don’t understand why people are so nervous about this. I switched to BT’s Digital Voice over two years ago, while still on a copper connection. No problems and the phone works just the same as before. Six months ago I upgraded to Full Fibre (FTTP). Again, very smooth, no problems and it works even better than the old copper connection.
I think people are nervous because it is a switch to a fundamentally less reliable network. Until now the PSTN voice connection has always been there in case of emergency, usually still working even in a total blackout because of the independent power supplied via the telephone pair.
VoIP doesn’t work in a power cut and the alternatives aren’t reassuring – does anyone really think the local battery backup devices (if fitted) will still work effectively in 5 years time?
People may also have experience of dodgy VoIP calls dropping or becoming garbled by compression, and fear similarly poor call quality after the switch over.
Reliability can be defined in a number of ways.
Is the PSTN more reliable when someone puts a mains powered phone on the end of it? – this is the big one that has driven years of regulatory decisions that have led to where we are now
Is it more reliable when a JCB can take it out for days? A VoIP service could alternatively be delivered over 4G/5G until the fixed line is restored.
Is it more reliable when the exchange has a major failure (as happened recently in Wales) or is ravaged by fire (as happened recently in Scotland)? It’ll be simpler to restore PON fibre trunks as opposed to tens of thousands of copper pairs.
Is it more reliable when the oldest equipment is over 40 years old and surely well on its way up the bathtub curve?
Is it more reliable when the copper network it relies upon is older still and suffers from all sorts of weather related issues that simply don’t impact fibre services?
@Ezra – It is not fundamentally less reliable than a network where the very newest exchange is from the last millenium. The last new local exchange in the UK was installed in 1998. Last Time Buy for new spare parts from Ericsson was 25 years ago for AXE10 and Marconi no longer exist for SystemX. Most other countries switched years ago and so spares for DMS100 and 5ESS and so on are equally thin on the ground.
The PSTN is kept alive by ageing people using ageing equipment and cannibalisation of redundant switches. If it is not turned off, and soon, in a controlled fashion it might just do it all by itself and be irrecoverable.
The vast majority of people with a landline have DECT phones which also don’t work in a powercut.
@Ezra Actually, just fundamentally not true. This is how naïve people are. For example, my own area code is flagged, on Openreach’s database, for routine maintenance on the 10th of this month. Midnight to six am, total outage. And this happens two or three times a year in my experience. The idea that the PSTN is always there is just nonsense.
@Ezra: I’m a Virgin Media user. A few years ago a had three landline failures, each lasting a few days at most, no dial tone on every occasion. OTOH I can hardly recall an occasion when my broadband went down even though it’s delivered over a coaxial cable that almost 21 years old. My belief is that this is quite typical as landlines are more failure-prone, being old and quite vulnerable to a variety of issues including ageing joints and connectors and moisture and water ingress. Landline depends on a continuous electrical circuit, so anything that interrupts that circuit causes the dial tone dropout I experienced. In other words, it either works or it doesn’t. In contrast, broadband is a packet-based digital system designed to survive imperfect links, so you’ll get a degraded service such as reduced speed or more latency due to fixes such as forward error correction (FEC), interleaving, adaptive modulation and retransmission – but not a complete failure. I migrated to VoIP last year and so far there’s been no problem.
The PSTN is not “more reliable” and will only get worse, not better. People fixate on the fact that its centrally powered, ignoring that the exchange hardware itself is now at risk from catastrophic failure
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/moving-landlines-to-digital-technologies
“The PSTN is failing due to lack of parts and, increasingly, environmental factors such as storms or heat related faults. Suppliers are no longer manufacturing spare parts and repairs of the network now rely on recycling parts from decommissioned parts of the network. Ofcom, the independent telecommunications regulator, reported that 2024 saw a 45% increase in the number of PSTN incidents reported. In 2024/25 there were over 2,600 major incidents on the PSTN”
I agree with all of you saying that the PSTN s it stands today is pretty unreliable and will only continue to decline as it is abandoned.
However perceptions matter and people are comparing the offered replacement to their lifetime of experience with a PSTN while it was well maintained and dominant way people communicated over long distances.
All else being equal (I.e comparing well maintained networks) – VoIP digital voice is less reliable because it needs external power and much more complicated equipment in the home to make it work.
People reluctant to switch won’t wake up to the declining state of the PSTN unless it directly affects them, focusing only on the downsides of a digital voice connection that relies on a local battery to work in an emergency.
I also think the options for connecting up internal phone extensions have been very poorly communicated to customers. My elderly father resisted switching to fibre and digital voice because BT mislead him that he would have to give up his internal phone extensions if he did, and he really wanted to continue using the wired phone on his bedside table.
In reality after a switch to fibre it’s pretty simple to connect internal extensions to digital voice, you simply need to disconnect the incoming copper pair from the master socket, then use a male-male phone extension between the router or ATA and the master socket.
However for some reason this is not clearly explained anywhere by BT and there is a lot of misinformation online making the process seem much more complicated, with claims that you’ll need a junction box and to reterminate wires to get extensions working (which only applies if you don’t have fibre and still need your incoming copper line for internet service)
“…are still unaware that the country’s ancient legacy phone network is being switched off…”
‘Ancient legacy phone network’ makes it sound like the PSTN still uses Strowger exchanges or even switchboards and bare, uninsulated overhead copper wires landing on porcelain insulators!
Yes, System X is now old but it’s not exactly in the ancient ruins category!
Oh I don’t know – look at the state of the average human of that age
Well Almond B. Strowger was an undertaker – perhaps his soul wishes the PSTN to RIP!
Yes & Strowger invented the automatic exchange because the exchange operator was the wife of a competitor funeral director & kept putting calls through to him!
The last new SystemX was installed in 1998 and Marconi went bust not long after. You can’t rely on 30-40 year old exchanges to run a critical national service.
Whilst I had a forced switch to VoIP due to a lighting strike blasting the analogue pair, I found that it was simple to switch my LandLine phone number from BT to a well regarded (by ISPreview) ISP. No fuss. I used the analogue ports on my router which supports a traditional phone and a telecare device. However in the last few days I have received a VoIP/DECT device supplied by that well regarded ISP. Direct into my LAN – no messy analogue port. It was configured by the ISP for my LL number and woerked out of the box. The only difficulty I had was converting my partner’s mobile phone directory (VCard -.vcf files) to the DECT handset’s .xml directory. Something the old analogue phones couldn’t do very well.
So, with the right ISP/VoIP provider and support, the changeover can be painless. Yes there is a cost involved in the replacement equipment and I guess I will have to take all the old analogue phones to the (WEEE) dump!
In other news, 59% of older UK adults haven’t touched a landline phone in years.
Yes, this is going to affect some people, but many have long since switched to mobile.
My pushing 80 parents haven’t used theirs in years, same for the mid 70s in-laws. They rarely even phone now, most contact is Whatsapp video calls etc.
It makes things more confusing when TalkTalk and other providers are not retiring their analogue voice service yet. I’ve been told that my TalkTalk Business resold line will still keep working beyond next year.
@Andy: The original deadline for migration to VoIP was 31 December 2025, then it was pushed back to 31 January 2027. This is regarded as a hard deadline, so you either migrate or have no phone.
There are essentially three solutions:
1. Residential and small business “plug-and-play” VoIP: they just unplug their handset from the wall socket and plug it into their hub once it’s commissioned for VoIP with the VoIP conversion done by the hub’s built-in ATA (analogue telephone adapter). This is how the big boys (BT, Virgin Media, Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk, etc) are doing it as this is what their millions of customers are accustomed to.
2. Larger businesses – PBX + IP migration: they will bite the bullet and must buy an ATA or a Gateway that sits between their old PBX and the new internet line to translate the digital signal back into something the old box understands – and move to IP Phones (like Yealink or Cisco) which plug into the Ethernet/LAN ports or run over Wi-Fi. This often requires a total overhaul of the office’s internal wiring. As an incentive to move, if they stay on a standard WLR copper line, Openreach is hiking prices by 20% in April 2026 with further hikes in July and October that will effectively double their bills by the end of the year.
3. SOTAP Analogue – the protected safety net: this was introduced in late 2025 as an interim measure for existing vulnerable users who would otherwise struggle with migrating to VoIP. By doing the VoIP conversion at the exchange, users keep their phones plugged into the wall socket. In some cases this may be extended to small business users who have to yet to upgrade their legacy equipment.
@Roger_G. In many domestic setups it is not as simple as you present it to maintain the same service at each existing analogue phone, which is what some people will want (certainly my 80+ in-laws and also in my house as the incoming number is well known for “business” reasons of my musician wife).
The router may have been positioned for optimal Wi-Fi coverage or wire lan connection to a computer, and therefore is not at the location where the analogue extension wiring spurs off (usually the NTE5 socket)
Also the extension wiring need to be disconnected from the NTE5.
Finally the router may not support as much “REN” load as the openreach line did, so not all the extensions will ring (maybe none?)
@lvor: lt has to be remembered that not all the Exchanges are closing, — the Openreach Handover Points remain.
All exchange switches are closing. In the UK we have a terrible habit of using ‘telephone exchange’ to mean both the building and the switching equipment and it can be hard to determine what is being talked about out of context. Other countries solve this by referring to the buildings as Central Offices (COs).
All the telephone exchange switches close when the PSTN does. About a thousand buildings that previously housed telephone exchanges will remain open but they will not really warrant being called that past that date.
practically the same thing though. The retained exchanges will eventually be issued an end date for copper based exchange services like VoIP (PDPL and LLU equivalent), ADSL, etc. Neither Ofcom nor Openreach will want a two-tier system where towns and city centres have services that have since been denied to rural areas.
I accept the points that you make, but as the main Exchange closure system doesn’t really kick off until 2030, and is expected to take into the middle 2030’s with a fair wind, “eventually” will probably best describe your expectations.
A couple of weeks ago I visited a local accountant’s office where one room was filled with discarded IT equipment including Linksys/Cisco VoIP phones. Since there may be a shortage of new VoIP phones, perhaps some enterprising entrepreneur could gather up those discarded ‘phones, refurb them and configure them for resale to users? Just a thought without looking at the economics!
I work for BT/EE and our department has been on an outbound call campaign for weeks to book engineers for our telecare customers to move onto digital voice. Most people are aware of the change, and can accurately tell me about letters they’ve received notifying them. So far very few have said they know nothing about it.
Incredibly successful uptake of the change too, in the last week I’ve personally only had 1 person say they don’t want it and “they’ll push the date back again so go away” type response.
Some people, when I’ve spoken to them on regular inbound calls (non campaign) have said they’ll wait until they have to do it, to which I usually reply “…that’s now. You’ll switch in 2 weeks” and I get stuck in the mud of a debate with very misinformed customers who have read in newspapers that it’s still optional and to wait for Openreach to “surely push it back again if enough of us refuse to move”.
Some people just don’t like change, and will just refuse end on end. I’ve seen reports of some people deferring the switch over 40 times.
The takeaway from this is that vulnerable customers with telecare are eager to switch over and are happy that we are giving them the help to keep their essential service working, whilst regular customers are the hardest to convince even though they admit they don’t use the landline much anyway.
You’d have thought it would be the other way around.
@BT/EE Worker: You used the word ‘essential’ and this is key. I knew a woman who collapsed at home, hit the telecare pendant button and someone came round and called an ambulance which took her to hospital. Then there is an 85-year-old woman living near me who got a pendant after I submitted a request for her to the council. They know it can be a life-or-death issue to have a working phone line, whereas for most of the rest of us it isn’t.
For some, SOTAP for Analogue is an important service to keep telecare running after the PSTN shutdown deadline of 31 January 2027 until they get broadband (in some cases this will be provided by BT in partnership with Starlink).
Maybe you’ll know, as it seems the sort of thing you’ll have been trained in and will be telling people who have been calling you/called by you…
I’ve not got telecare, but I do have a BT landline, with FTTC from a separate provider. If I ‘cancel’ my BT landline (out of contract by many years) will it also cease my FTTC from the other provider? If I do nothing and just wait for a provider to take action, who will it be that calls me and does whatever is needed by the deadline? And what is the plan for people like me who are split across providers on a copper phoneline/broadband connection?
I’m keen to make a change, even if just to cut out the cost of the BT landline, but don’t feel confident enough in taking the first step and want the provider(s) to do their bit with the thought that they’ll have processes in place (what with the split of two providers) which ensure it doesn’t “go wrong”. I just need to know what steps to take, what steps not to take, or if I should just sit and wait for the “When it’s time to switch we’ll be in touch” as per the message on the bill.
@Simon M: On no account should you cancel BT as this will kill your broadband! You must contact your broadband provider and request a move to SoGEA (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access) and ask them for the Target Activation Date. SoGEA is a “data-only” version of FTTC that doesn’t require a traditional phone line. If you want a phone line ask for a migration to VoIP – but not ISPs are able to do this, in which case you pick a VoIP provider, provide the Target Activation Date and discuss the exact process for porting during SoGEA (crucially things like exact details on your BT bills).
Another thing to be aware of is that from 1 April 2026 Openreach is implementing a 20% price hike on legacy lines, rising to 100% by December – which BT will pass onto you. It’s cheaper to move now!
@Roger_Gooner: l know someone who has just received an email from BT several days ago letting them know that their contract price won’t be changing this year, although there are small changes to some calls as well as international. Not all legacy customers are going to be affected by the Openreach doubling of their charges, as it seems BT are not passing this on. Simon M should contact whoever is supplying his Broadband to determine if he will be affected, BT will contact him by email regarding any price increase to his phone calls. I’m afraid he is on borrowed time with his SMPF line, as i advised the customer upon hearing about this. Not everyone is amenable to good advice though.