PSTN switch-off
Five months is enough time if you start now and do it in the right order. It is not enough time if you start with the phones and discover the lift line in December.
The order matters
Most businesses do this backwards: they sort the phone system first because it is the visible part, then discover the safety-critical lines with weeks to go. Do it the other way round.
Start with the bill, because every line appears on it whether anyone uses it or not. Then walk the building. You are looking for anything plugged into a phone socket, including in the plant room, the lift motor room and behind reception. Expect to find lines nobody remembers ordering.
These have the longest lead times because a second supplier is involved and the equipment may need replacing rather than reconnecting. They are also the ones where failure is a safety issue rather than an inconvenience. Contact your lift maintenance company and telecare provider now.
Ask your alarm company whether your panel supports IP, and your payment provider whether your terminals dial out. Most of these are quick to resolve once you know the answer, but you need the answer.
Full fibre, SOGEA or something else entirely depends on your address, and on more networks than one availability checker will show you. This determines everything downstream, so do it before choosing a phone system.
Hosted VoIP configured around how you actually work, not a copy of the old system. This is the step where you get something better rather than merely compliant, so it is worth thinking about rather than replicating.
Always in that order. Porting moves a live number between providers, so a number that has been disconnected cannot be recovered. Once the new service is confirmed working, the old lines can go.
Timing
With the deadline at the end of January 2027, this is the order to work in and roughly how long each stage takes. Start from wherever you are now.
A word of caution
Half a million business lines are still to migrate nationally. Engineer availability, install slots and survey queues all tighten as the deadline approaches, and stop-sell already limits what you can order on copper. Nothing about waiting makes this easier or cheaper.
Common questions
For a straightforward business with a handful of lines and available fibre, a few weeks. Where lifts, monitored alarms or telecare are involved, or where the connection needs construction work, allow months rather than weeks. The variable is almost never the phone system, it is everything around it.
Audit every line you pay for, then deal with lifts and telecare before anything else. They have the longest lead times because a second supplier is usually involved, and they are the ones where failure is a safety matter. The phone system, counterintuitively, should be near the end.
You can, but it gets harder and not cheaper. Stop-sell already restricts what can be ordered on copper in most exchanges, and with half a million business lines still to move, survey and engineer availability will be the constraint in the final months.
No. Numbers port across to the new service. The only way to lose a number is to cancel the old line before porting it, which is why the last step in any migration is to port first and cancel afterwards.
In practice both. The lift company owns the equipment and knows what it supports, and your telecoms provider provides the connection it will use. That split is exactly why it takes longer than people expect and why it should be started first.
Send us a recent bill and we will identify every line you have, what each one does, and what it needs to become.
