If you live in one of 137 newly-identified areas across the UK, you’ll need to prepare for a significant shake-up to phone and broadband services.
BT-owned Openreach has announced that 137 new exchanges, which deliver landline and broadband services to 854,000 households in the surrounding area, will switch off traditional copper-based connections in the next 12 months.
This is known as a “Stop Sell” notice and is the first step in this process sees Openreach inform providers that rely on its cable infrastructure — such as Sky, EE, TalkTalk, BT, and Vodafone, to name a few — that they must halt new sales of traditional landlines over the course of the next year. Openreach only kickstarts this process when full-fibre broadband is available to 75% or more premises served by an exchange.
BT PRESS OFFICE | Digital Voice handsets, pictured here, connect to the back of the Wi-Fi router supplied by your broadband provider and route calls over the internet — not a traditional phone line
It’s all part of nationwide plans to upgrade broadband to full-fibre connections, which offer faster, more reliable connections. Broadband suppliers can still offer a landline phone, which relies on fibre-optic broadband cables to make calls. Some providers refer to this as “Digital Voice”
Using fibre-optic technology to make calls offers a number of benefits. If you’ve used WhatsApp, FaceTime, or Skype to make a call to someone on the other side of the planet, you’ll know these all-digital connections can offer much clearer calls, especially over longer distances.
Calls via fibre-optic cable are also less likely to be impacted by bad weather, since this technology is immune to several environmental factors, like temperature and electromagnetic fluctuations, that negatively impact copper cables.
Lastly, functionality typically associated with mobile phone calls, like the ability to block incoming calls from a specific number or all withheld numbers, and placing calls in a queue when you’re already speaking on the line, is all possible with these newer broadband-powered landlines. The shift affects diverse locations from Antrim to Edinburgh, Chelmsford to Stoke-on-Trent, and numerous rural communities.
OPENREACH PRESS OFFICE
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Engineer switches households to fibre-optic technology so they can experience much clearer calls, especially over longer distances
Plans to move away from traditional copper-based landlines were first announced back in November 2017. This was not something proposed by the Government; instead, it came from the industry itself.
At the time, industry heavyweights said they were struggling to find parts to maintain and repair analogue phone lines, as few companies are still making the components used by this ageing system. However, the move isn’t only about sourcing the nuts and bolts to keep copper landlines functioning. This latest announcement forms part of a broader initiative to modernise Britain’s communications network.
For those who don’t know, an exchange is the central point for the telecommunications equipment that connects your local area to the internet or telephone services. Cables extend from the exchange to either those dark green cabinets you’ll see on the streets across the UK, or directly into your home (if you have a faster, full-fibre connection).
If you want to know if you’re impacted by the latest shake-up, we’ve listed all of the exchanges impacted in the latest tranche further down in this article. Alternatively, you can verify whether your address falls within these zones by checking Openreach’s online postcode tool or contacting your service provider directly.
As part of this effort, 1,041 local telephone exchanges are now included in the programme. By August 19th, new internet or phone services won’t be sold to about 8.9 million homes and businesses in those areas because they’re switching to newer technology.
This represents 46% of Openreach’s full fibre coverage. Your exchange might already be among those where copper products cannot be purchased if full fibre reaches most properties in the area.
Openreach currently provides full fibre access to 19 million UK households. Their ambitious targets aim for 25 million connections by December 2026, with aspirations to extend this to 30 million by 2030.
“The stop sell programme is a critical part of ensuring that the UK’s communication infrastructure is ready to meet the demands of the future,” said James Lilley, managed customer migrations manager at Openreach.
He explained that maintaining both copper and fibre networks simultaneously makes little operational or commercial sense. “As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future-proofed technologies,” Lilley stated.
The new digital services offer enhanced features unavailable on traditional landlines, including multi-call functionality, three-way conference calling, and call diversion to any number, including mobiles, which allows for enhanced productivity.
If you currently lack full fibre access, you needn’t worry about immediate disruption. Your existing copper-based broadband will continue functioning until the fibre infrastructure reaches your property. The withdrawal of copper services occurs considerably later, allowing sufficient time for migration to newer technologies.
