BT delays timetable to move all customers from PSTN to digital lines until January 2027

BT Group has revised its timetable for moving all customers off the PSTN and onto digital landlines, and the new target date is January 2027 rather than December 2025.

The company states that it has improved the programme to better protect vulnerable customers and those with additional needs and will bring migration more in line with Openreach’s fibre rollout.

Its statement reads: “The revised approach will result in a single switch for the majority of customers (businesses and consumers) – from copper to fibre - with all customers now expected to have moved off the old analogue PSTN by the end of January 2027.”

BT Group’s Consumer division has re-started switching zero-use landline customers who have a broadband connection to its Digital Voice landline service after s an industry-wide pause.

As I understand it, a major reason for the delay is the need to ensure that vulnerable customers who use safety systems such as Telcare do not have their service interrupted or disrupted by the change.

For customers who don’t use broadband the company is working on an interim, dedicated landline service designed to keep these customers connected while moving them off the analogue PSTN.

New equipment will be installed in local telephone exchanges that will allow consumer and business customers who do not have broadband to use their landline in the same way as they do today until a digital solution becomes available or 2030, if that comes sooner.

From Spring 2025, BT Consumer will contact customers who identify as vulnerable or with additional needs about the switch in areas where data sharing agreements with Local Authorities or Telecare companies are in place and in-home support for telecare users is available.

Howard Watson, Chief Security and Networks Officer, BT Group, said: “Managing customer migrations from analogue to digital as quickly and smoothly as possible, while making the necessary provisions for those customers with additional needs, including telecare users, is critically important.

“Our priority remains doing this safely and the work we’re doing with our peers, local authorities, telecare providers and key Government organisations is key.”


EXPLANATION OF TERMS USED

PSTN - stands for "Public Switched Telephone Network." This means the old-fashioned analogue telephone network delivered over copper wires.

Digital Landlines - term used for the new solutions which provide telephone or telephone and broadband services using digital rather than analogue transmission, over a physical connection. For most customers this will be provided using the new, faster and more reliable fibre cables.  

However, there will be a small number of  customers or places who will continue to be served by copper cables for some years beyond 2027, but using new digital technologies. 

In the interests of transparency and full disclosure, I declare that I am an Openreach employee and a BT shareholder. However I have no authority to speak on behalf of BT or Openreach and this blog post does not represent any kind of statement on behalf of either company. 

The information in this post is based on media reports of the BT announcement. With the exception of the direct quotes in inverted commas, this post does not necessarily represent the views of BT or Openreach. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more