Home phones “going digital” — PSTN ending?

—- DRAFT —-

Those of us who still use a fixed telephone at home – not a mobile phone – may have heard the these “landlines” are ending soon, and if we want to keep a landline, we’ll have to “go digital”. This is fine for Internet users, but if – as well or instead – you still want to want a traditional line, you’ll also need “Digital Voice” – and this has some big implosions. This article is about “full fibre” or FTTP – Fibre To The Premises. This isn’t FTTC – Fibre To The Cabinet – which is very different, but also called Fibre on some websites. Confusingly!

1. We’ll all have to go fully digital eventually, because they are going to turn off our copper wires. But it won’t be for at least a year.

2. When the country goes fully digital the copper lines (“the PSTN”) won’t work any more – switch off is currently scheduled for the end of January 2027, although it’s already been put back once.

3. if anyone want a telecoms line into their house after that (and many people won’t, they’ll just use mobile devices for some or all of phone, text, internet) it will have to be optical glass fibre (“fibre”).

4. The fibre can be installed by Openreach, or in some cases by Virgin. Some cities or areas (e.g. business centres) may have other fibre supplies.

5. Openreach don’t sell directly to customers. Instead, dozen of other companies – EE, Vodafone, Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet, Zen, Eclipse, etc – uses Openreach fibre to sell their own “package” with different facilities and prices. There are many comparison sites, such as

Some companies aren’t on comparison site:

https://www.zen.co.uk/full-fibre-broadband-checker

6. Fibre into your house (FTTP) does NOT give you a phone socket, it is terminated in an Ethernet socket called NTE. The NTE needs mains power and has various other considerations that a phone sucker doesn’t. It won’t work in a power cut, so battery backup for it may be needed if that’s important.

7. You will need to connect a fibre router (not the one you have now) onto the NTE. you can buy your own, or take one (sometimes free, sometimes not) from your fibre supplier. The Openreach engineer who fits your NTE may also connect your fibre router, if you have one available.

8. If you need to plug-in a normal landline telephone that you use now (a PSTN phone) you will need a router which has one or two BT phone sockets on it. You also need to signup (and pay) for “Digital Voice” from your fibre supplier. Not all suppliers offer digital voice, and all have different faculties and charges. Can you keep your old number? What calls to what numbers cost what? Are 0800 actually free. Is there a calls package? “Friend and Family”? Cheap calls to nominated overseas countries. A message service/1572. Call return? Last number/1471? Spam call blocking? Call minute packages? Etc. it needs a lot of research, depending on what matters to you.

9. Potential pitfalls.

It quite often goes wrong! Even if the installation goes fine (and it needs work outside in the phone exchange and street cabinets, as well as in your house the fit the NTE), you still sometimes (for example) get a temporary phone number and it takes a few days for it to change to your old number if you retained that.
The new NTE and a router both require electric power from your mains. There will neen to be a mains socket near where you want the NTE, and there is normally no batter backup – if there’s a power cut, your landline won’t work. How will you dial 999? This can be important for some people (for example, anyone who has a [personal alarm connected to their landline).
if you currently have more than one phone socket on the same number – i.e. extension socket(s) – or things other than a phone (handset or base station) plugged in (other than a router) it needs some extra discussion.

Gone are the days when you just had “a BT phone line”.

PD 14 March 2025 draft 0.1