The analogue phone network switches off on 31 January 2027

Openreach announced its intention to retire the network back in 2017, and set December 2025 as the date. Migrations were running at over 80,000 a week and it looked comfortable.

Then, on another provider’s network, two vulnerable customers died shortly after their health pendants failed following the switch-off of their analogue lines. The deaths were not formally attributed to the devices, but the industry stopped. Migrations slowed sharply, and in May 2024 BT and Openreach announced a 13-month reset to 31 January 2027.

What has changed since: a government PSTN Charter, a joint Telecare National Action Plan from the health and science departments published in February 2025, and Openreach’s Prove Telecare service — launched nationwide in October 2025 with more than 4,000 specially trained engineers and 40-plus telecare providers, after a pilot that moved a thousand telecare customers with no loss of service.

Openreach says the technical barriers including telecare protection are resolved and the date is final. Its own senior manager has also said there “won’t be a big bang on 1st February 2027” — lines will not simply go dead, but you will end up on whatever the network defaults you to rather than something you chose.

Compounded, that roughly doubles the wholesale price of a legacy line by October 2026. Openreach has been explicit that this is deliberate: in many cases it is already cheaper to be on a modern all-IP product than to stay on the old one.

These are wholesale prices charged to communications providers, not directly to you — but they reach your bill. If your provider has been quiet about migration and your line rental has crept up this year, this is why.

Anything that dials out over a copper line. Openreach counts more than 300 recognised use cases, and this is the shortlist most people miss.

The test is simple: if it has a phone socket, it needs checking before 31 January 2027.

This is the genuine loss, and it is the same one facing rural New Zealand as its copper goes. An analogue landline draws its power from the exchange. When your house loses electricity, the phone still works. A digital phone runs through your broadband router and stops the moment the power does.

But there is a rule, and most people do not know it. Under Ofcom’s General Condition C5, your provider must offer you a solution giving at least one hour of uninterrupted access to emergency services in a power cut — typically a battery back-up unit. Under the industry PSTN Charter, providers went further and committed to back-up beyond Ofcom’s minimum, and to not migrate telecare users at all unless their device has a working, compatible equivalent in place first.

You generally have to ask. If your phone is a lifeline — a medical pendant, a telecare alarm, or simply the only phone in a house with poor mobile signal — contact your provider, say so explicitly, and ask to be recorded as a vulnerable customer. The protections exist; they are not applied automatically to everyone.

General Condition C5 and the PSTN Charter commitments are published; the Telecare National Action Plan was issued jointly by DHSC and DSIT in February 2025. An hour of battery is an hour. In a rural power cut lasting a day, it is a way to make one call, not a way to stay connected — and that is worth planning around rather than assuming otherwise.

You will not be cut off on 1 February 2027, but you will lose the choice. Openreach has set out where people land by default:

If fibre reaches your property: you are migrated to SOGEA — broadband without a separate phone service — and given a router to plug your phone into.

If fibre does not reach you: you are likely moved to SOTAP for Analogue, a digital product that works from the exchange and emulates an analogue line, so your existing phone still plugs into the wall.

If you do nothing at all: Openreach says you will most likely end up on Emergency Voice Access, described as a “no frills” version of SOTAP.

The practical advice is the same as everywhere else on this site: choose before somebody chooses for you. Ring your provider, ask what you are being moved to and when, and tell them about every device in the house with a phone socket.

For most of the UK it does not — you will move to fibre or to a digital line over your existing broadband, and satellite never enters the picture.

It matters for the 39,000 premises that cannot get decent broadband from a fixed line or fixed wireless network at all. If that is you, the phone switch-off and the broadband question become the same question, because your digital phone will run over whatever broadband you end up with. Ofcom now counts cheap Starlink as closing that gap, and its own figures put the number with no affordable option at around 4,000.

And it sharpens the power-cut point rather than solving it. A Starlink dish draws real power continuously — more than a router alone. If your phone will run over satellite and you are somewhere power cuts last hours, a one-hour battery on the router is not the whole answer. Plan for the dish too.