UK landline networks shut down Jan 31, 2027; Openreach warns deadline firm
Britain's legacy PSTN will go dark in 100 days, affecting fire alarms, payment terminals, and vulnerable elderly on TeleCare.
What to know
- The UK's legacy PSTN network will shut down permanently on January 31, 2027—exactly 100 days from the announcement—with no possibility of further delay.
- Beyond landlines, the shutdown will disable fire alarms, security systems, payment terminals, and TeleCare devices used by elderly and vulnerable populations.
- Public awareness remains critically low; analysts demand immediate, coordinated campaigns (TV, billboards, door-to-door support) targeting older users, those with dementia, and other vulnerable groups before time runs out.
“Customers need to understand what is changing, what action to take, and who will help them. Providers must take responsibility for ensuring people remain safely connected, especially those who rely on their landline or a care alarm.”
Paolo Pescatore, Telecoms analyst, PP Foresight · The Register ↗
Openreach Infrastructure provider, BT Group subsidiaryPaolo Pescatore Telecoms analyst, PP ForesightUK Government Architect of network modernization scheme
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts
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Analysts warn public awareness critically low with only three months remaining
Telecoms analyst Paolo Pescatore and unnamed officials cited in the Register article stressed that public awareness of the imminent shutdown is dangerously low. With 100 days to go, providers must launch coordinated campaigns—TV, billboards, newspaper ads—and provide door-to-door support for older and vulnerable customers, particularly those on TeleCare systems.
“Openreach and all providers need to coordinate a much more cohesive campaign that reaches customers directly…TV, billboards and newspaper advertising should reinforce a consistent message…”
— Paolo Pescatore -
Somewhat rural here (well 1/4 mile from an A road). We were supposed to be switched to digital several times, been sent a pile of hubs and extender devices and have had several letters about the switchover date. Latest one was we are apparently "switched over" a month ago, except that it actually turns out to be SOTAP [1] and everything works…
2 more of the top 3 · 33 posts in this stretch
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Copper lines have their own pitfalls. If the telco CO loses power then your phone goes out even if you have power. Copper lines can be trenched up just as easily as fiber. They can corrode and degrade over time, they're susceptible to induced currents from lightning and other EMI. They are more expensive to replace especially with the cost of…
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J
🇬🇧 UK: Landline users will be executed after January 31. ｢ The switch-off could affect businesses and consumers alike. Beyond the plain old telephone, systems that rely on PSTN connectivity include point-of-sale terminals, fire and security alarms, and personal care alarms for elderly and vulnerable people ｣ https://www…
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background
Switch-off will disrupt fire alarms, payment systems, and elderly care devices — The Register reported that systems beyond ordinary phones relying on PSTN connectivity—including point-of-sale terminals, fire and security alarms, and personal care alarms for elderly and vulnerable people—face disruption when the network switches off. Customers without fiber will be transitioned to SOTAP for Analog, a bridging technology allowing old phone lines to continue functioning.
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Openreach confirms final PSTN shutdown date as January 31, 2027
Openreach issued a formal letter to communications providers warning that the legacy public switched telephone network will be permanently switched off on January 31, 2027, with no possibility of further postponement. The shutdown was part of a decade-long government plan to transition the UK to all-digital, fiber-optic networks.
“the legacy phone network is being officially switched off on January 31, and says the deadline will not be postponed.”
— Openreach
Also covered reported alongside — the timeline has no entry for these yet
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first by HN Frontpage, 10d ago · also The Register
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first by The Independent, 10d ago · also The Register
1 more headline
What people are saying 21 voices from 3 sites · best of 33 · verbatim
- Nov 2
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Many user-hostile features in this transition. The burden of adaptive effort is quite lopsided. Anyway, for those in the UK. # pots https://www. theregister.com/networks/2026/ 11/01/landline-phones-will-switch-off-across-britland-in-100-days-no-extensions-openreach/5306673
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I hate this, this style of land line was the only thing that allowed me to know what was happening when my power went out for a few days a few years ago. And no I'm not in my 60s, I'm in my 20s, I have it for this reason.
- Nov 1
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They’ve been preparing for this for over a decade sending letters / phoning customers etc
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Somebody please remind the ISPs that they are now an essential service.Around 2am to 4am about twice a month my phone line and internet are down for randomly timed maintenance.This is the peak time for people to die in their sleep
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Our POTS provider here (Kansas) seems to have given up recently.Over the last 2 years we've had to call in to get repairs done many times, and I don't know if we ever did in the 20 years before that.And in the last couple months, our phones regularly quit working completely and we have to call in and go through lots of troubleshooting steps before…
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There are a couple of quirky services that have been introduced as part of this. One is SOGEA (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access), effectively FTTC internet access without the baseband POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) facility, so that you still connect via copper but now need a router at home to connect your POTS phone.[0] There is also…
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> An interesting component of the switching off of POTS is that the quality of service requirements are different. POTS is regulated to require the phone company to maintain a certain legal quality of service with negative consequences for failing to do so.Yeah we've had a similar thing happen in Australia. Most VoIP services require you to either…
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Australia hasn't had a POTS for a while now, since the National Broadband Network was "complete". They literally ripped the copper out of the ground and sold it for scrap, they even made specialised machines to make the task easier: https://www.rg.com.au/2022/09/29/telstra-mirait-take-deliver...Hasn't really been much of an issue day-to-day. My…
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The phone company was amazingly reliable, at least in the States.In all of my decades I recall only one telephone outage one time, at home. A truck (or something) had snagged a line feeding the house. It was repaired less than an hour after reporting it.And I'm nostalgic for that kind of reliability, but it's gone now.I was chatting with a tech…
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The economic incentives are different. AT&T was the monopoly phone company subject to rate-of-return regulation. The more they spent on CAPEX the more they could raise prices. So naturally they spared no expense in maximizing the reliability (99.999% uptime) and quality of their network.Then cellphones and the Internet happened (as much as they…
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It’s really one of the biggest failures on all of our societies that there are not only clear QoS requirements but also clear and strictly enforced consequences, including for politicians and their lies and people having to pay for the things they support.
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Replacing simple dedicated circuits with "best effort" highly complex packet-switched networks? I bet it's a great money-maker for those involved in the work, but a huge step backwards for reliability.The move is part of a wider government scheme to get the UK onto all-digital high-speed networks running on fiber-optic infrastructure, and the…
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> need to coordinate a much more cohesive campaign that reaches customers directlyI think this is the crux. You should definitely mail everyone affected.Send a letter 2 years before. 1 year before. 1 month before. Do a scream test at termination date (switch off for a day and see who pipes up), keep operating for two weeks and that's it.Some…
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In some places in Europe, the home internet ADSL technology on the copper wires, the same as used for PSTN phones, delivers higher speed (realistically an order of a few Mbps, stable) compared to congested LTE/4G mobile networks (typical 1-3 Mbps). The mobile network providers don't guarantee minumim speeds in the contracts, and customers…
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This assumes that anyone has maintained the 48V infrastructure, which doesn’t seem like something that will be feasible considering the insignificant quantity of customers using true copper landline service.The other problem with customers preferring not to have landlines is that by the time they need them, it’s too late to convince them to buy a…
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AT&T is using old people to market their new cellular-to-POTS bridge product.The premise is she needs something as reliable as a landline, because during California wildfires the cell towers and power go down.Maybe someone should have whispered to her that this product uses the same cell towers, or equally-vulnerable broadband. I could not stop…
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How many people still have a corded phone, and how many of those would remember that those phones still work when there's no power?It's much more important to ensure that the cell network is resilient. Backup power, mobile towers that can be deployed to disaster areas, and continuing the rollout of satellite connectivity will help far more people…
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> Now you’ll have a router with a battery that the owner doesn’t know about and won’t serviceIn Canada, Bell has actually discontinued battery backup in their latest modems, supposedly because they were having trouble with modems not rebooting correctly.
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The biggest problems is power. The phone company power the POTS line — you can even make an emergency call from an abandoned building with no electrical service (and no phone subscription) if you find a jack and plug in. Under those huge central office buildings are huge banks of -48 V batteries which are required to provide a week of power (or…
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> … public awareness seems low that analog phone services will soon be disconnected.What’s the level of public awareness that they’re even using the landline service? My 98yo grandmother has had the “same” phone service (with the same phone number) for decades. She’s completely unaware of the infrastructure it runs on.I happen to know that her…
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Finland a few months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48786868California's also been fighting this: