Openreach Reveal New Closure Dates for Two UK Pilot Exchange Exits UPDATE
Network access provider Openreach (BT) has confirmed new closure dates for the two legacy exchanges in Ballyclare (9,500 premises in N.Ireland) and Kenton Road (9,500 premises in London), which were originally due to be switched off on 30th November 2025. The new Network Cease Date for both has now been set back almost a year to 2nd of November 2026.
Openreach is currently in the early pilot stages of closing around 4,600 of their 5,600 UK exchanges, which is occurring because only c.1,000 of these are needed to provide nationwide coverage of modern “fibre broadband” services (FTTC / SOGEA, FTTP etc.) – the Openreach Handover Points (OHPs or “Super Digital Exchanges“). The rollout of full fibre (FTTP) technology, combined with the retirement of copper lines and legacy services (ADSL, WLR, PSTN etc.), will soon make it economically unviable to support both the old and new exchanges.
The operator has thus long developed a gradual plan for closing the thousands of older exchanges – the Exchange Exit Programme, which starts with an initial pilot of 3 exchanges and then extends to a closure of 105 “priority exchanges” by 2030 (i.e. taking place in four phases), with the rest then following through the early 2030s. The tentative dates for these have previously been announced (here).
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Closing an exchange and migrating affected customers is of course a very complex process, which typically takes around 4-7 years (depending upon the complexity of each site) – starting with a Stop Sell of old products and eventually ending with everything being switched off. After that it takes several more months for Openreach and ISPs to remove their physical kit.
So far one of the three initial pilot exchanges, Deddington (serving c.1,800 copper lines), has already completed this process (here). The Ballyclare and Kenton Road exchanges were then due to follow last year, but when the time came Openreach noted that the exchanges still had a few active consumer broadband and phone lines (i.e. they’ve not been migrated yet), which meant they had to delay the closure while working closely with ISPs, Ofcom, the Government (DSIT) and the Office of the Telecoms Adjudicator (OTA) to find solutions (here).
On the one hand, nobody likes long delays. On the other hand, the whole point of this pilot is to confront difficult problems like this and establish the best solutions, before adopting those for the main exchange exit scheme. As part of that they first needed to identify what kind of users were still active and how to deal with them (nobody wants to disconnect customers, particularly if some of them may turn out to be classified as “vulnerable“). Except for business lines, which don’t benefit from the same consumer protections and are more likely to be disconnected on the deadline.
The latest update is that Openreach have now set a new Network Cease Date for both Ballyclare and Kenton Road, which is 2nd of November 2026. Openreach are still in the process of developing their approach for these and clearly has no desire to disconnect consumers if they can possibly help it, hence the long extension.
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ISPreview understands that there are currently less than 300 lines left to move across on both exchanges from WLR (Wholesale Line Rental) and MPF (fully unbundled) services to FTTP (full fibre) or SOGEA (FTTC) solutions. This might not seem like much, but given the sizes of these exchanges it’s still more than they’d like and is a warning of what could happen on even larger exchanges; hence the need to finalise an effective process for tackling them.
UPDATE 18th May 2026 @ 10:22am
Openreach has clarified that they’ve instructed Communication Providers to get all lines (inc. backhaul) off the two exchanges by October 30th to meet the network cease date of 2nd November 2026. The CPs are the ones that will be ceasing at this point, rather than Openreach.
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Spain closed its last copper exchange in 2025. Uk hasn’t even started
We ain’t the furthest down the road to full fibre in Europe but we’re far from the worst either. We were behind but catching up fast.
Yes, it has and the article points that out – Deddington closed last November.
How much did Spain’s cost and who paid for it?
No point in complaining. BT will do whatever BT wants to do on a timeline that suits its profit margin, shareholders and share prices. Just like its FTTP roll out in rural areas. And OFCOM/Gov will not say a word. Welcome to the joys of a virtual monopoly being held by a publicly-traded company.
Hopefully this deadline won’t slip again. People have had enough notice by now, if they’re left without service then that’s on them.
What difference does it make to you?
Most people would not care if it slipped or not as long as they can get their internet.
Most of the stuff on ISP Review makes no personal difference to any of us, the comments section is there for people to give personal views (well or badly informed). If people only gave their views on stuff that affected them there would no point having a comments section. Personally Openreach should be getting on with it and not letting foot draggers hold back what’s going to happen eventually anyway.
Given the entirely negative comments that Ad47uk makes on every BT/Openreach article, not just here but on various other boards etc , companies that he or she doesn’t use , presumably the irony is lost on them when they ask ‘what difference does it make to you ‘ , if the same standard were applied to themselves , their contributions here would fall dramatically
You beat me to it. It’s predictable and tedious.
So that’s a “holdout”/”laggard” percentage of something like 1.5%-3%.
Does not bode well for larger exchanges unless there is a significant proactive process improvement
And some of the “laggards” lines will be for purposes like “lift alarms”, which can be easy for businesses (or building owners of residential blocks) to miss if they are not diligent, and would need special resilience handling (Pre-Digital/SOTAP for analogue is a nice transitional solution for these; it would make sense to that all “laggard” phone lines are just automatically reconnected as Pre-Digital as a fallback in the exchange exit, at the risk of needing to continue with that product for an extended period)
PDPL or SoTAP would not be a viable/workable alternative after the exchange has closed .
Ok, if not exactly PDPL/SOTAP for analogue as currently conceived, then a powered phone line converter that effectively provides PDPL that could be installed in the street cabinet as an exceptional transitional need. Ideally something that automatically rings the line a few times per day at varying times (as an “nudging” alert/testing the REN level as connectivity check) and otherwise the use of the line is monitored–offhook and calls (and the line also plays out a short message before connecting any call).
Keeping the legacy exchanges going id a massive cost which results in higher broadband bills. The switch off is not going well. Spain converted all their exchanges to digital years ago and Spain is a sizable country with a population of about 48M
At the rate BT are going it will be next century before they complete the close down
The date for PSTN shutdown is 31 January 2027. Once the PSTN Kit is switched off and any remaining copper-based broadband services (like DSL) running out of that exchange are also switched off, the exchange ceases to function and can be regarded as ‘closed’.
I do wonder if some of these ‘laggard’ lines are down to previously used (rented) kit such as personal alarms for older people. Kit that is no longer used or monitored but hasn’t been recovered. In the B-i-L’s his parents had such an alarm system. The kit is still there but hasn’t been needed or paid for in 4 years, never been recovered but is hard wired to both mains and phone line. Last time I was there tried to use the landline to have loads of problems; to be told we never make outgoing calls on the landline because we never can get through.
After much chasing around I disconnected everything related to the alarm system.
But the question is who tells BT/OR that the alarm system is no longer connected?