Analogue telephone networks have been around since the 19th Century, and they’ve served us incredibly well over the last 150 years, but by January 31, 2027, those old networks of copper lines and phone exchanges will finally shut down for good, consigned to history.
Openreach is retiring the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) completely, and while most businesses associate this with old-fashioned landlines, the switch-off actually reaches far further into daily operations than you probably realise. Here’s what it involves, what’s at risk and how to prepare before the deadline forces your hand.
What The PSTN Switch-Off Actually Involves
The PSTN switch-off in 2027 means the permanent retirement of the copper-based analogue network that has carried voice calls and legacy data connections for decades. Once it’s gone, anything still relying on a traditional analogue line will simply stop working. In January it will work, in February it won’t, and if you’re not prepared it could cause major upheaval in your business.
It’s not just the office phones it affects. Alarms, lifts and CCTV systems often depend on analogue lines to dial out in an emergency. Card payment terminals, nurse-call systems in care settings and older broadband connections such as ADSL all sit on the same ageing infrastructure. But like many businesses, you’ve probably never mapped which of your systems rely on it, largely because it’s easy to assume connectivity is more modern than it really is.
Adding to the pressure, Openreach has confirmed steep price hikes for anyone remaining on PSTN-dependent services as the deadline approaches, making early migration a financial decision as well as an operational one. For example, the prices increased by 20% in April, 40% in July and a further rise of 40% is planned for October.
Millions of lines across the UK still need to migrate, a significant proportion of them serving business premises, which means demand for engineers and equipment is only going to increase as the deadline gets closer.
Identifying What’s Still Reliant On Analogue Lines
If you run a single-site business, working out what needs to change is relatively straightforward. For multi-site organisations, it’s a different challenge entirely.
Connectivity is often assumed to be uniform across sites when it isn’t. A head office might already be running on modern, fibre-based systems while a satellite site, depot or older building still depends on analogue lines nobody has thought to check. Without a proper audit, those gaps will stay invisible until they stop working. It’s a particularly common issue if your business has grown through acquisition, where older sites often carry infrastructure decisions made by previous owners that were never fully reviewed.
A practical starting point is a full inventory – every site, every line and every piece of equipment that depends on it, from the phone system down to alarms and payment terminals. It’s worth involving facilities and operations teams in this process too, since they often know about analogue-dependent equipment that IT was never made aware of when it was originally installed.
The Risks Of Leaving It Too Late
With the deadline looming large, treating this as a future problem is where the real risk lies. Once the BT PSTN switch-off happens, anything still running on PSTN infrastructure stops functioning immediately, with no grace period to fall back on.
Service outages are the most obvious consequence, but not the only one. If you operate in regulated sectors, you may find you’re non-compliant if safety or monitoring systems that depend on analogue connectivity go dark without warning. A last-minute, reactive switchover also tends to cost significantly more and cause far more disruption than a planned migration, particularly when engineers and equipment are in high demand.
How To Prepare Ahead Of The Deadline
The businesses that come through this smoothly are the ones treating it as a planned project rather than waiting for Openreach to force the issue.
Start with the audit. Identify every site and system still dependent on analogue lines, not just the obvious ones. From there, prioritise migration based on risk, moving safety-critical systems like alarms and lifts to the front of the queue. Moving to modern alternatives such as VoIP, SIP trunking or a hosted phone platform also tends to bring benefits well beyond compliance, including better resilience and lower ongoing costs.
Giving yourself time matters more than almost anything else here. A phased, well-planned migration lets you test and fix issues before they affect the business, rather than discovering problems the day the lines go dead. It also spreads cost and disruption over a manageable timeframe, instead of forcing an expensive, all-at-once switchover against a fixed deadline.
Get Ahead Of The PSTN Switch-Off in 2027
The PSTN switch-off isn’t a distant deadline anymore, and if you plan early, you’ll avoid the disruption and expense faced by those who leave it too late. A clear audit of your sites and systems is the natural first step to ensure your PSTN switch-off preparation is up to the job.
Contact NAK to discuss your PSTN switch-off readiness and get a clear view of what needs to change across your sites.
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