Still Got a Phone Line? Here's Why That's a Problem in 2027

The old copper phone network is being switched off on 31 January 2027. If you're not sure whether that affects your business, this post is for you.

There's a decent chance you've seen the phrase "PSTN switch off" in an email from a supplier, ignored it, and moved on with your day. Fair enough. It sounds like industry jargon, and it's been talked about for years without much appearing to happen.

But the date is now roughly six months away, and this time it isn't moving. Openreach has confirmed 31 January 2027 as the final date. It already slipped once (from December 2025) to give providers time to safely move vulnerable users on telecare alarms, and that work is now done. There's no third date coming.

So the question worth answering today is a simple one: is any part of your business still running over a copper phone line?

A lot of business owners genuinely don't know. That's not a criticism. Your phones work, your broadband works, and nobody has any reason to think about the technology underneath until something breaks. Here's how to find out.

What the PSTN actually is

The Public Switched Telephone Network is the copper wire system that has carried UK phone calls for over a century. Every traditional landline, every ISDN phone system, and older broadband types like ADSL and FTTC (fibre to the cabinet, which still uses copper for the last stretch to your building) all depend on it.

It's being retired because it's old, expensive to maintain, and can't carry what modern businesses need. BT can't run two national networks side by side forever, so the copper one is going.

What replaces it is voice over the internet (VoIP) running on a proper fibre connection. Your calls travel over your broadband instead of a dedicated copper circuit.

Six quick checks to see if you're affected

You don't need to be technical to work this out. Go through these:

1. Look at where your desk phone plugs in. If the cable runs into a small square socket on the wall (the same shape as a home phone socket), you're likely still on a traditional line. If it plugs into a network point, the same sort your computer uses, you're probably already on VoIP.

2. Check your bill for "line rental". Any charge described as line rental, WLR, analogue line, ISDN2 or ISDN30 means you're still on the old network. VoIP services don't have line rental because there's no physical line to rent.

3. Check what your broadband actually is. If it's described as ADSL or FTTC, there's copper involved and it's going. FTTP (full fibre) or SOGEA are fine.

4. Think about your alarm. Intruder alarms, fire alarms and monitored systems often dial out over a phone line. So do lift emergency phones, which are a legal requirement to keep working.

5. Anything else that dials. Card payment terminals, door entry intercoms, gate systems, fax machines, franking machines, care alarms. If it needs a dial tone, it needs looking at.

6. The building you forgot about. Storerooms, workshops, unmanned sites, an old office you still hold the lease on. These are where stray lines hide.

If you ticked any of those, you've got something to do before January.

The cost of doing nothing is already going up

This isn't just a deadline problem, it's a bill problem right now.

Openreach is deliberately pushing legacy line prices up to force the last stragglers to move. Wholesale line rental went up 20% in April 2026, another 40% in July, and there's a further 40% due in October. By the autumn, legacy lines cost roughly double what they did in 2025, and providers pass that straight on.

The blunt version: in a lot of cases it is now cheaper to be on modern fibre and VoIP than to stay on the old lines. Businesses that move early stop paying the increases. Businesses that wait pay more, and then still have to move anyway.

And if you leave it until January 2027 and do nothing? Lines don't get a graceful retirement. Anything expecting a dial tone stops working. There's a very basic emergency-only fallback for stragglers, with no normal calling.

The things people worry about (and shouldn't)

"I'll lose my number." You won't. Numbers port across to a VoIP service, usually in a couple of weeks. No reprinting letterheads, no updating your website, no telling every customer.

"VoIP calls sound rubbish." That was true fifteen years ago on bad broadband. On a decent fibre connection, modern hosted platforms are clearer than analogue and considerably more reliable, because the infrastructure is new and actively maintained rather than slowly rotting in a duct.

"It'll be a nightmare to switch." Done properly it's planned, scheduled and dull. Done in a panic in December 2026, with every other business in the country trying to migrate at the same time, it's a nightmare. The difference is entirely about timing.

"We'll be fine, we barely use the phones." Possibly. But the alarm, the lift line and the card machine don't care how many calls you make.

What actually needs to happen

A sensible migration looks like this:

• Audit every line. Not just the ones you know about. We pull the full list of what's registered to your business.

• Map what depends on each one. Phones, alarms, lifts, terminals, anything that dials.

• Check your connectivity. VoIP needs a solid internet connection. If your site is still on FTTC or a stretched ADSL service, that gets sorted first.

• Plan the port. Numbers move, new handsets or softphones go live, old lines cease. Sequenced so there's no gap where nothing works.

• Sort the odd bits. Alarm and lift lines often need a specific solution rather than just a VoIP handset. These are the things that catch people out in the last month.

We'll do the checking for you

If you've read this and you're still not sure where your business stands, that's the normal reaction, and it's a five minute conversation to resolve.

Britannia IT looks after telecoms and connectivity for businesses across Southport, Liverpool, Manchester and Lancashire. We'll audit what you've got, tell you plainly what's affected and what isn't, and give you a straight price on what moving looks like. If it turns out you're already fully digital, we'll tell you that too and you can get on with your day.

There are still hundreds of thousands of business lines in the UK yet to move, and only so many engineers to move them. The businesses that book in now get a calm, planned switch. The ones that wait get whatever's left.

Get in touch and we'll check your lines.