The Telecom Switch Off

Is your business ready the traditional phone line to be switched off?

What is happening?

BT Openreach will switch off the traditional analogue copper landline technology by December 2025.

These Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) services will be closed by Openreach on an exchange-by exchange basis.

What does this mean?

From September 2023 businesses will be unable to buy ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) and PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) telephone systems.

If your business is still using analogue, you’ll need to review your telephony solution over the next couple of years.

What do you need to do?

As the analogue network will be replaced with digital technology, your business will need an internet connection to make a phone call.

If you have any concerns regarding the switch-off and what this means for your business, don’t worry, we’ll work with you and advise you on replacement and transit technologies to ensure your business stays connected.

What are the replacement technologies?

• Hosted voice or cloud telephony systems use an internet connection to connect calls rather than traditional copper technology.
• Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP trunks deliver a connection to the telephone network using the internet.
• Single Order Generic Ethernet Access (SoGEA) stand-alone superfast broadband provides Fibre to the Cabinet connectivity, without the need for a traditional voice line (FTTC).
• Fibre to the Premises broadband provides all the way to the premise connectivity.

Benefits of replacement technology

These analogue replacement technologies will provide additional benefits than those ISDN or PSTN currently deliver. IP solutions enable unified communications so employees can collaborate with each other via video conferencing, conference calls, send instant messages and work on shared documents, facilitating integration with the latest technologies such as Teams, Salesforce and HubSpot.

• Hosted voice systems allow your team to access their calls remotely or from the office, using a compatible desk phone, softphone or smartphone App – providing flexible voice connectivity for your hybrid working teams.
• Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and SIP trunks offer flexibility, speed, resilience and access to cloud-based services supporting voice, video and messaging communications, facilitating video conferencing, instant messaging, multimedia messaging.
• SoGEA provides FTTC connectivity without the need for a traditional voice line.
• FTTP provides reliable high internet upload and download speeds.

Here to help

Our team are here to help you understand and migrate to all-IP technology.

The switch-off is great opportunity to review your existing telecoms solution, so start your digital transformation journey and explore the benefits which IP hosted and SIP solutions offer.

Contact us for more information on 0330 174 3181.