Lift emergency lines
A legal requirement in most buildings, and almost always on an analogue line nobody has looked at in years.
PSTN switch-off
Every analogue line in the country stops working. Not slows down, not degrades. Stops. Here is what it affects, what replaces it, and what to check before the deadline.
The basics
Openreach is retiring the Public Switched Telephone Network and ISDN: the copper-based analogue network that has carried UK phone calls for over a century.
It is not a gradual decline. On 31 January 2027 the network is withdrawn, and anything that depends on an analogue line stops working. Voice moves to IP, delivered over broadband, which is why the switch-off touches far more than your desk phones.
The date has already moved once. It was originally December 2025 and was extended by thirteen months to give providers time to migrate vulnerable and telecare users safely. Openreach has since said the technical barriers are resolved and no further extension is expected.
Who this affects
This is the part that catches businesses out. Everyone remembers the phones. Almost nobody remembers the rest.
A legal requirement in most buildings, and almost always on an analogue line nobody has looked at in years.
Monitored alarms that dial out to a receiving centre. If the line dies, so does the monitoring.
Especially in flats, care settings and shared buildings where entry panels dial a phone line.
Critical in care homes and supported housing. These need planned migration, not a last-minute swap.
Older terminals that dial for authorisation rather than using broadband or mobile.
Franking machines, fax lines and some CCTV backhaul still sit quietly on analogue lines.
Read next
Why act now
Common questions
31 January 2027. Openreach withdraws the PSTN and ISDN networks on that date and analogue lines stop working. The deadline was originally December 2025 and was extended by thirteen months to allow safe migration of vulnerable and telecare users. Openreach has since confirmed the technical barriers are resolved and no further extension is expected.
Your analogue lines stop working on the switch-off date, along with anything that depends on them. In practice most businesses hit a problem earlier than that, because stop-sell already prevents ordering or changing copper services in most exchanges, so a fault or a move can leave you stuck.
No. Numbers are ported to the new service, so you keep the number you have always used. The important thing is to port rather than cancel, because a disconnected number cannot be recovered.
Not necessarily. Voice moves to IP, which needs a broadband connection, but that can be full fibre, SOGEA or in some cases a mobile-based service. What is available depends on your address, which is the first thing to check.
Analogue lines were powered from the exchange, so they worked in a power cut. IP phones need mains power. That matters most for lift lines, alarms and any premises where a phone must work when the power is out, and battery backup or a mobile-based solution is the usual answer.
Almost certainly yes, and it is the single most commonly missed item. Lift emergency communication is a legal requirement and usually sits on an analogue line. It needs its own migration plan, often involving your lift maintenance company as well as your telecoms provider.
Send us a recent bill and we will tell you which of your lines are affected and what they need to become.
