The UK is retiring its old copper telephone network. Traditional landlines and ISDN lines are being switched off and replaced with digital, internet-based calling. For most businesses this is an opportunity rather than a problem, but only if you plan for it. Leave it too late and you risk phones, alarms or card machines that suddenly stop working.
Here’s what’s changing, what it means for your business, and how to move over smoothly while keeping your numbers.
What’s changing
For decades, phone calls in the UK have travelled over the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), the copper wires that connect your premises to the local exchange. Businesses with several lines often use ISDN, which runs over the same network.
That network is now being shut down. Openreach and the phone providers are moving everyone to digital phone services that carry calls over broadband instead. New analogue and ISDN lines are no longer being sold, and the national switch-off is scheduled to finish by January 2027. Many areas have already been moved over.
Once your line is switched, anything that relies on a traditional phone line will either need to work over a digital connection or be replaced.
What it means for your business
Your phone calls themselves will carry on. The question is what else is plugged into your phone lines, because that’s where the surprises happen.
Check for:
- Desk phones and phone systems plugged into the wall or into an older office phone system
- Alarm systems that call a monitoring centre over the phone line
- Card machines that connect by phone line rather than broadband or mobile data
- Lift emergency phones, which must keep working
- Door entry systems, fax machines and franking machines
- CCTV, building management or telemetry systems that use a dial-up connection
- Telecare devices for vulnerable people, if you provide care services
Some of these will work through an adapter plugged into your new router. Others won’t, or will need checking by the supplier. Alarms and lift lines are the ones that matter most, so speak to those suppliers early.
A note on power cuts: a traditional landline works during a power cut, because the line itself carries power. Digital phone services need your router to be powered. If a working line during a power cut is important, for example for an alarm or lift, ask about battery backup.
Your options
Do nothing and wait
Your provider will eventually move you to its own digital service, often with an adapter for existing phones. It works, but you’ll be moved on their timetable, with little choice about what you get, and you may find out what doesn’t work only after the switch.
Move to a cloud phone system
For most small businesses, a cloud phone system (often called hosted VoIP) is the best option. Instead of phone lines and a box in the cupboard, your phone system runs online and calls travel over your internet connection.
What you get:
- Keep your existing numbers. Numbers can almost always be moved across, a process called porting.
- Answer calls anywhere: on desk phones, on a computer, or through an app on your mobile, so staff can work from home or on the road without giving out personal numbers.
- Call routing: ring several phones at once, route calls to different people at different times, or send calls to a mobile when the office is closed.
- Voicemail to email, so messages arrive in your inbox.
- Easy changes: add a user, change a greeting or set up holiday hours from a web page, without an engineer visit.
For most small businesses, a cloud phone system costs the same as, or less than, the old lines and maintenance contract it replaces.
Keep your existing phone system
If you have a newer on-site phone system that you’re happy with, it may be possible to connect it to a digital service using SIP trunks instead of ISDN. This is worth considering if the system is relatively new, but if it’s getting old, the switch-off is a good moment to move to the cloud instead.
Is your internet ready?
With calls running over the internet, your broadband becomes even more important.
- Speed: each call only needs a small amount of bandwidth, but you need enough headroom for calls and everything else your business does online at the same time.
- Reliability: if your internet goes down, so do your calls. Cloud systems can automatically redirect calls to mobiles when this happens, and a backup connection, such as a 4G or 5G router, is worth considering for businesses that depend on the phone.
- Your network: a good router that prioritises call traffic makes a noticeable difference to call quality in busy offices.
A simple plan
- List everything that uses a phone line: phones, alarms, card machines, lifts and anything else. Note who supplies each one.
- Contact the suppliers of alarms, lifts and card machines and ask whether their equipment will work after the switch, and what they recommend.
- Check your broadband is fast and reliable enough, and consider a backup connection.
- Choose your new phone system and arrange to move your numbers.
- Switch over on your timetable, ideally at a quiet time, and test everything afterwards, including alarms.
Don’t leave it to the last minute
With the deadline approaching, suppliers and engineers are getting busier. Moving early means you choose the system, the timing and the features, instead of being moved over in a rush.
We help small businesses move to cloud phone systems, keeping their numbers and handling the switch from start to finish. Take a look at our VoIP phone systems service to see how it works, or get in touch and we’ll help you work out what’s connected to your lines today.
