The future of landlines and analogue telephones is changing as we know it.
In the past (and even up to current times), you could walk into a ‘telephone exchange’ building and see how everyone across the country talks to each other. You’d find cables on either side of the room connecting individuals to both homes and businesses on the network, but also connecting to the rest of the world.
Since 1891, copper cables have allowed people to dial in a unique number and reach anyone, anywhere in the world, all without the need for a human operator. These were the roots of Britain’s PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) but in just 3 short years, most of these lines will be silent.
Thousands of Openreach engineers are working to update Britain’s telephone network and to decommission PSTN landlines for good, and they have until the end of 2025 to do so. From that point onwards, landlines in any home or business will need to be connected to the internet to work.
Copper networks still operate as a major part of the UK, but it is taking more time and effort to keep it up to the necessary standard. The required hardware is no longer being manufactured and the skills that are needed to maintain it are no longer being taught. It only seems logical that this then signals the end of the copper network.
When the changeover is finally complete, it will signify the end of the dominance of landline phone numbers – many to become either disused or forgotten. Older handsets will stop working and become obsolete museum pieces, just like the rotary dial telephone; and many phones will no longer use tone dialling.
With thousands of miles of cables across the UK, as well as green cabinets, telephone poles and junction boxes, replacing the copper network with fibre will require a large upfront cost of £12bn to roll out FTTP to 20 million premises across the country. However, there are hopes that it will end up being more effective in the long run. Openreach has planned to reach 25 million premises by the end of 2026 and has already switched over 5.5 million. To do so, engineers will have to go to each telephone exchange, unhook the copper cables and replace them with the necessary fibre connections, until they reach 75% coverage. Once this happens, it will trigger a ‘stop sell’, which means that products on the copper platform will stop being sold and people will be driven towards an FTTP upgrade instead.
5th October is planned as the first real move of exchanges, with around 1.4 million customers will be forced to swap for the first time when they switch providers or ask for an upgrade to their network. It’s the first time that there is a widespread switchover planned, as previously it had only been carried out in Openreach’s test sites. People will be forcibly pushed onto the new system once the stop-sell comes into effect as it makes little sense to run two networks at the same time, the old analogue telephone network and the fibre network.
Work on the network is long overdue. There are sections of the old network that have been around for so long that they are unreliable and fragile they don’t stand up to continue existing. These wires weren’t built with the internet in mind and so are rather limited in the amount of data they can carry over certain distances. Repairs and upgrades can also be costly because often, the cables need to be dug up to find the fault. So far, fibre optic cables have more capacity than we know what to do with and thus are perfect for the current and the future.
According to uSwitch, since 2000, approximately 4 million homes have disconnected their landline altogether. Of the 80% that do still have a landline, 25% don’t have a handset plugged into the wall. The legacy of thousands of phone numbers is simple customers who are interested in broadband only and therefore are left unused. People are not using landlines or home phone systems anymore.
With the new system, people who want voice services will have to ensure that they have broadband capabilities and use them through that. And for those who are elderly or vulnerable, this could become a major challenge – particularly if they live in a rural area with poor connectivity or have no internet, full stop. There are approximately 1 million people in the UK that don’t have an internet connection.
Additionally, the transition won’t happen all at, if ever. It will occur over different regions at different times making the transition more challenging.
Some devices rely on analogue phones that aren’t simple landlines. For example, care and security systems use analogue systems as it is deemed as more reliable. Alarm buttons, emergency phones in lifts, intercoms, traffic lights, motorway signals are all but a few of the systems that could be forgotten about with the transition and remain key pieces of equipment for numerous people.
Whilst the deadline is the easy bit, these extras outside of the simple landline phone are the ones that going to affect the final outcome. Therefore, making sure that nothing and no one is forgotten is crucial for the full transition.
