ISP BT Publish UK Regional Rollout Schedule for Digital Voice
Broadband ISP BT has today published a wider region-by-region UK rollout schedule for their new Internet Protocol (IP) based home phone service, Digital Voice, which covers the remaining regions across England, Wales and Scotland. But not everybody will be happy when it happens.
Just to recap. The Digital Voice product was designed to replace BT’s old analogue phone service, which will cease to function once the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is completely withdrawn by December 2025. After that point, all future phone services – whether delivered via copper (ADSL, FTTC, G.fast) or full fibre (FTTP) lines – will become IP (internet) based and require broadband to function. This means users will generally plug their phone handset into the broadband router or an ATA [analogue] adapter instead of a wall socket (more details).
In fact this process has technically already begun after Openreach introduced a “stop sell” on sales of new Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) and related broadband ISP products this month (details). This means that customers who have access to broadband sign up for a new contract – or when they switch, upgrade or re-grade their service via their provider – they’ll be moved onto a new digital phone service (if requested) rather than an analogue one.
So far BT has already started (or rather restarted – after a long pause) their Digital Voice deployment in the East Midlands during July (here), before moving to Yorkshire and the Humber in August (here) and Northern Ireland in September (here). The product, despite being more widely deployed, is still technically a pilot and so customers may still encounter the odd issue (e.g. switching from BT to EE’s Digital Voice product currently seems to be restricted).
Otherwise, the big change today is that BT has now finally revealed their rollout timetable for future regions over the next year. But the provider said that they would also be contacting some broadband customers in England, “inviting them to switch their landline to Digital Voice in advance of local and regional campaigning in their area.”
BT’s Regional Digital Voice Rollout Plan – 2023/24
Autumn 2023
- North West
- London
Spring 2024
- West Midlands
- South East
- Wales
- East Anglia
Summer 2024
- North East
- Scotland
- South West
The provider’s decision to adopt a regional deployment followed complaints from customers, particularly vulnerable users, who discovered some of the caveats of modern IP based systems. For example, without battery backup, the service won’t work during power outages and some kit, such as older home alarms and remote medical monitoring alarms (telecare), may cease to function.
Lucy Baker MBE, All-IP Director of BT Consumer, said:
“Through the work with our Digital Voice Advisory Group and our regional engagement, we’ve held 40 events, placed local radio and newspaper ads and met over 4,000 customers in person.
We understand that any change can be unsettling, and we’re here to support our customers every step of the way. First-hand experience shows that once people have the facts and have spoken to one of our advisors, they feel confident to make the switch.
If we’ve not been in touch or visited your area yet, don’t worry. We’ll be in touch when it’s time to switch. For anyone who has any issues, questions or concerns, then I’d encourage them to get in touch and let us know.”
As before, customers can expect to be contacted at least 4 weeks before being upgraded, to ensure they’re ready for the switch. The regional approach is also being supported by general awareness communications and advertising campaigns, delivered across local and regional media to help explain the change (they’ll also be present on some high streets and at local town hall drop-in sessions).
Initially, BT still aren’t proactively switching anyone who falls under the below criteria, where it has this information available. Customers who fall into any of these categories should contact BT to ensure their data is up-to-date, otherwise they may not get the right support.
➤ Customers with a healthcare pendant
➤ Customers who only use landlines
➤ Customers with no mobile signal
➤ Customers who have disclosed any additional needs.
The provider states that customers over the age of 70 are “not being proactively switched to Digital Voice“. However, since July 2023, BT has been trialling switching customers between 70-74 who live in urban areas and are ready to make the switch (i.e. they have the latest broadband router and are not frequent landline users). BT states that these trials have gone well to date, with 98% of customers choosing to make the switch, and pending further consultation with the Digital Voice Advisory Group, BT will look to extend this trial nationally.
Despite this, the non-profit Silver Voices organisation, which campaigns on behalf of senior UK citizens, recently withdrew its support for BT’s transition to Digital Voice services after the provider allegedly “reneged” on a deal with the group to help safeguard the interests of those over the age of 70 (here). But like it or not, everybody will need to make the transition by the end of 2025 and this process is industry-wide (i.e. it’s not limited to BT, even though the wider media often seems to fixate on them).
BT’s Other Digital Voice Related Improvements
➤ The ability for customers to nominate a family member, friend or carer who will receive all the information about switching on their behalf.
➤ When vulnerable customers start to make the switch, they’ll automatically receive equipment and an engineer appointment. Their switch won’t go ahead until they have spoken to an advisor and booked an appointment.
➤ BT / EE are also continuing to invest in the Shared Rural Network, improving 4G mobile coverage in more than 900 areas across the UK by the end of 2023.
➤ BT are continuing to work with healthcare pendant and burglar alarm providers to ensure the most vulnerable customers continue to get the service they need.
For peace of mind in the event of a temporary power cut, BT will provide additional resilience to those who need it most, including:
➤ Free battery back-up units for Digital Voice customers with additional needs, who identify as vulnerable and/or live in an area without mobile signal. Customers without additional needs can also optionally choose to purchase a battery back-up unit.
➤ A hybrid phone that can switch to a mobile network and has an in-built battery, for Digital Voice customers without a mobile phone.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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So what happens when broadband goes down for these people that rely on a home phone? this morning my internet went down, for a while, not sure how long for. Even the so-called super-duper reliable fibre is not super-duper reliable.
this was not just me, this was network wide.
if somone reallised on thier home phone that would have ben connected to Voipm, they would be stuffed.
Technoloogy is fine as long as it is reliable and to be honest the more I see of new technology, the more I think why the hell do we bother?
To the same effect, what happens when the copper line goes down due to an MSO or Network fault? Technology changes, the underlying poroblems remain the same. I’ve never undersood the argument on that front as it’s not as if copper lines are issue free.
PSTN lines go down too. My parents have recently had two faults – their home line was somehow shorted (that was the word the OR tech used) at the cabinet, probably accidentally when someone else was connected up. They are on DV there, but the fault would have affected PSTN if they still had it.
My dad’s business line at a nearby location was down for a day as a JCB thoughtfully cut the cable during roadworks. If he had moved that line to BT’s business VoIP and had the 4G solution, it’d have worked seamlessly. Even without the 4G he could have set up a redirect to his mobile, which he couldn’t get organised for the PSTN line.
Fibre + VoIP, power cuts aside (get a UPS!), is likely more reliable. It has none of the weather and age issues of copper. It can be made even more reliable still with 4G backup solutions as offered by BT and others. HD Voice means it can sound so much better too.
It’s your service provider’s responsibility to offer a back-up solution. Talk to them.
No network is 100%. The existing copper PSTN can suffer damage, cable theft or other that can take out large number of users.
Individually a full fibre service (particularly if fully passive) will be far more resilient and a fraction of the maintenance.
Those likely to suffer power loss need to address it with a UPS solution however I am disappointed that there is a lack of availability of more low power products for resilience that could be sustained at a lower cost and for longer periods such as an ATA with SIM backup.
Its not the tech that’s unreliable – Its the cost to make it reliable. I suspect if you had a bad copper line you may be similarly annoyed (or even worse Aluminum line). With everything driven by profits now don’t expect anything but the bare minimum. No one is going to be putting resilience in when they are not required too.
(As a counter to this hopefully those at most risk will be covered by the last point – A hybrid phone).
reamer
People often didn’t realise when their PSTN line was down – as they only used it a few times a day and would not realise if an incoming call was not arriving. But they notice immediately when broadband fails as they use it for more of the day, so it can ‘feel’ like a broadband line is less reliable when it might actually be more reliable – especially if on fibre.
We lost our pstn line for a week back in 2007 when flooding damaged the main cable from the exchange to the green cabinet. Loads of people were off in the area. Unbelievably the adsl just about managed to hang on. Same in 2014 when water got into an underground joint, the vdsl hung on at about 20mb while the phone line was down. It’s worth keeping an old mobile phone charged up and to hand as you can dial 999 even without a sim card in it
You use the seemingly unreliable zzoomm though don’t you Ad47uk so your input here is irrelevant.
Care, lift and security alarm companies have know about the PSTN switch off for many years, and are only now beginning to do anything about it.
Two options for most people are mobiles or something like mobile backup integrated as part of the CPE.
The former is what we used when our copper lines suffered from issues e.g. corrosion.
My nan also has a ‘lifeline’ thing and they sent someone over for a welfare check after she had a power cut and they lost communication, I’d expect something similar would happen in the case of an isolated Internet failure.
@bigdave
It’s a myth that a sim-less mobile can call 999. It’s technically feasible but is not enacted by any network in the UK. A regulatory decision was taken a long time ago to only allow 112/999 calls from phones with a known location (pay phones) or a known account holder.
Why not just keep your actual mobile phone charged instead?
>It’s a myth that a sim-less mobile can call 999.
it’s not. Try it. I have. Because I had my car stolen and they also took my watch and my wallet and left the £10 dumb phone I had with no SIM in it. Called 999 just fine on it. A quick goolge search will also tell you that it’s not just a theory. That’s why they often say “Emergency calls only”.
(and to add) that’s only looking at the last mile. The PSTN equipment is ancient and practically EOL/EOS with its suppliers, one of whom doesn’t really exist anymore anyway. Those who built it and know it best have either retired or aren’t far off doing so. How can BT hope to offer a reliable service?
“Autumn 2023” eh, some folk will believe anything.
What about those of us who have not yet (and according to Openreach *never will*) have any FTTP option?
I suppose you have to accept it eating into your 63 megabit (or whaever) FTTC ..?
“I suppose you have to accept it eating into your 63 megabit (or whaever) FTTC ..?” – Yes – thankfully audio is ~100Kbs so you shouldn’t notice.
(At least you have 63Mb… I have a 30Mb ‘super fast’ connection.)
BT’s digital voice rollout and Openreach’s FTTP rollout are not linked, though anyone who upgrades to BT FTTP will likely also have to shift the voice over at the same time. FTTC customers will be moved to DV too.
Yes, you will have to take the loss of speed – all 100kbit/s of it, and only while you’re on the phone. How will you cope?
VoIP/Digital voice is independent of fibre connection type. Hell, you can even get it over copper! And the 0.1Mbps is insignificant.
A voice channel uses 100kbps. 0.1mbps. And you only give up that bandwidth when actively on a call.
“London” as a region is a very woolly and broad definition. Where does it end?.
Surely BT has a list somewhere grouping changeover by e.g. regional exchange prefix (the 2 letters at the start of the exchange name) as more accurate indication of when it will be done.
I personally can’t see how Openreach could “switch” everyone in London in Autumn 2023 (which is effectively now). Millions of lines to do. Maybe starting Autumn 2023 (i.e. issuing a bunch of “stop sell” orders) but continuing through 2025, groups of exchanges at a time to prevent everyone’s call centres getting swamped with customers asking all the questions, especially those who ignore email and postal bumpf about the changes (because it is “bumpf”) and wake up with no dialtone on their landline.
English and UK regions have been defined as such since 1974, at UK governmental (NUTS) and international levels (ITL). Opposite of wooly really. (And regions can have other official identities in other contexts e.g. Scotland, Wales and the north of Ireland not only London!)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_England
They don’t need to switch by this date – just stop selling it as I understand it. So if you order a new phone line or switch provider after this date you’ll get a router with a phone port that you use instead of the master socket. Otherwise for ~95% of users nothing will change. Its just those with legacy systems (such as call alarm) that might be impacted as you can’t just convert that to VoIP.
BT will not want to be too specific at this time as it may simply be incorrect.
As highlighted BT have already stated they are not focusing on those that have a healthcare pendant, only use a landline, have no mobile signal or those who have disclosed any additional needs that mean they will not be proactively switched.
The focus will be on FTTP with customers offered migration at no extra cost and FTTC areas not in current FTTP plans.
Providers know (not just BT) that a significant percentage will simply choose to lose the landline and consequently scale their VoIP capacity and spend accordingly.
They need to manage the overall task down and hope there are fewer exceptions before they tackle the line only and long line ADSL. Most of the property and the E Side recovery benefits will be in suburban areas.
I am assuming BT’s telephony obligations will no longer apply if there is an Altnet going forward
@Robin Sims.
Noted, but that assumes the people at Openreach/BT were basing their comms on the precise statistical definitions (and positively confirmed that point in the text, at least as a footnote).
I’m not that confident that Openreach are precisely aligning to NUTS/ITL definitions in the announcement, I suspect they have been deliberately imprecise.
Really early for London. I know it doesn’t take much bandwidth but you need all you can on 1mp upload adsl
“The provider states that customers over the age of 70 are “not being proactively switched to Digital Voice
That’s dam right.. My dad who is 79 went from Sky to BT and they killed his landline. VoIP was not even a choice even though he would have taken it. he lost his phone number of 49 years.
number porting issues could just as easily occur when porting between PSTN providers
but your dad’s case is irrelevant here, because this is BT moving their existing customers to digital voice. There is no reason for numbers to be lost in this case.
> Maybe starting Autumn 2023 (i.e. issuing a bunch of “stop sell” orders)
A *national* stop sell for analogue phone lines (WLR/PSTN) is already in place, and has been since 5th September 2023.
There will be natural migration as people reach the end of their contracts, recontract or change ISP, and will be forced onto digital voice (or drop voice entirely).
But since it must be completed by December 2025 PSTN switchoff, they’ll want to get as many in the bag as possible – especially the vulnerable customers who need to be supported via engineer visits.
Internet is so poor where I live in St Asaph, if you had to rely on digital for telephone calls u may as well not have it.
By poor I mean circa 10 to 20 drop outs a day.
what happens if the existing ISP doesn’t offer a digital voice option?
My in-Laws happen to have an ADSL line with such an ISP (nothing better than ADSL is available) & will want to retain their BT landline number, now *I* could migrate them to a VOIP supplier but most people wouldn’t be able to do so & I’ve not seen anything that talks about this (the email address is also supplied by the ISP so that is going to be painful to get moved). On the A&A site they’ve got their options ( https://www.aa.net.uk/etc/news/sogea-update-1st-september-2023/ ) but I’ve just tried speaking with the ISP involved with the In Laws & they won’t even speak with me 😉
BT Digital Voice is for BT customers and as far as I know there is no BT Wholesale equivalent of it, it is not available for resale. Other ISPs must build their own products or pick someone to outsource it to & organise the migration.
Openreach has set the 2025 deadline for its own network and it is up to all ISPs who offered Openreach PSTN services to figure out what to do – they’ve had years of notice! BT seem to be far more proactive than anyone else. It’s certainly going to be interesting to see how your in-laws’ ISP will handle it.
Any competent ISP would allow your in laws to add you on as an authorised person, so you could speak on their behalf. It might be worth getting them to do that.
I moved my landline to A&A at the beginning of this year. Great value, works perfectly. Whilst I’d happily recommend A&A, I’m not sure their famed support can cover third party ATAs, so there’s a degree of work involved setting it up, if I can do it you can, but it isn’t for everybody. That’s because if you buy your own ATA (in my case a Grandstream HT801) then it’s up to you to configure it and some of the technical and billing settings of your A&A VOIP account, so there’s a bit of a steep learning curve.
Once working the A&A setup just keeps working without further intervention, but you might not want that learning curve! Last time I looked, there weren’t call packages either – A&A call rates are good so that’s what I’m happy with for a little used landline, but potentially your in-laws might want the perceived comfort of a call package or unlimited UK calls – and subject to their usage that might be better value.
If you want something that feels more like a traditional landline package and where somebody else does all the setup, consider providers like Vonage for Home, which starts from just over a tenner a month. For comparison, A&A VOIP starts at £1.44 for the service plus call charges, and in this two person household it’s normally a further £2-3 each month for calls.
One minor observation, and that’s a notable reduction in nuisance calls since moving the number from Virgin Media to A&A. They still happen, but about a quarter of the number, so I guess A&A are more competent in stopping these.
The articles floating around today are about BT, a lot of people out there are assuming anyone with a BT line land (on openreach)….. looking closely, it’s about BT customers, not other providers on the openreach network, the end date for that is 2025 when PSTN ends and lines become data only.
Interestly plusnet, no mention about the fact they don’t offer landlines on FTTP and what is going to happen to existing customers on a ADSL & VSDL with a landline. made to move or lose? Interestly to see how other providers on openreach are going to respond, on those that will or won’t offer a digital line.
It spur on other ISP’s. I suspect they want to wait for BT for PR purposes, and will have waited for the stop sell to avoid people moving to keep the analog phone line.
People could move to Sky of Talktalk who could offer analog line (as they don’t rely upon WLR). Will be interesting to see if a marketing ploy is made of this, or if they will announce a switch to digital too (Virgin have switched several areas now)
Will also be interesting to see if Ofcom will try and open up the independent VOIP market by allowing users to switch without the broadband being ceased
The last part seems inevitable if the industry doesn’t do it themselves. You know the term, ‘voluntold’
> People could move to Sky of Talktalk who could offer analog line (as they don’t rely upon WLR)
However there’s no guarantee that you’ll get an analogue service even through those providers. Sky have been doing digital voice via the router for years; Talktalk have apparently just introduced a digital voice service.
If you make it clear you’re a “vulnerable” customer they might still be able to provision you with analogue voice.
Plusnet have stayed they are to become a broadband only provider. They will help anyone who wants a landline to transfer to BT/EE retail to use Digital Voice. (Apparently even mid contact if part of the close out)
Fret Ye Not. There’s always fall-backs.
When the broadband goes down in North-West London (Hardly ever) . . . .there’s always der jungle drums and da smoke signals . . the 6th emergency service ?
I expect a bit of hillside beacon lighting could make a return appearance in country districts
. . . I’ll get me coat
Just want to know.
How are they going to deal with customers who do not have bundled packages with a single supplier. I have an analogue landline only service with BT and Full fibre Broadband with IDnet both services are provided to me via the Openreach network.
What happens in this instance when the time comes to migrate?
I’ve been told by the BT Community forum that when the switch comes and even though I get my Broadband via ADSL the BB feature will still work for the foreseeable future but BT will need to supply me with their latest BT Smart Hub 2 so that my existing DECT cordless phone can plug into that. If that’s not convenient then I can have one of their DV adapters which pair with the DECT circuitry in the Hub and then the phone just plugs into the mains powered adapter
Does using Digital Voice eat into your broadband allowance? For example someone who uses 4G broadband because of their remote location from the exchange might pay for 100Gb of mobile data. Will they need a higher data allowance to cover calls going through the broadband connection in addition to the usual call charges that are incurred?