BT has been accused of “bullying” customers by temporarily cutting off their broadband to pressure them to upgrade to a digital landline, as providers race to switch households over before the January deadline.
Telecoms companies have so far migrated 16-17m lines from the old copper network to digital voice over internet protocol (VoiP), which uses a broadband connection instead, in the biggest technological upgrade since the early 00s, when analogue TV was switched off.
However, as the date for the retirement of the old public switched telephone network (PSTN) approaches, Openreach, the BT subsidiary that maintains the vast majority of the UK broadband and telephony network, says there are still about 1.3m copper-based landlines yet to be migrated.
To hit the end-of-January deadline telecoms companies have started to ramp up pressure after years of direct customer communications and awareness campaigns – in BT’s case including using personalities including Moira Stuart and Clare Balding – have failed to prompt some to engage in the migration programme.
“I’m getting increasing evidence that there is some bullying behaviour going on in order to try to force people to switch over,” said Dennis Reed, the founder of the campaign group Silver Voices.
“I have heard of cases that some with a contract with BT for broadband, who have not been particularly proactive or cooperative over a date to switch their landline, have been threatened with their internet being cut off. I am also fearful that, because targets have to be met, a lot of people are going to fall through the cracks.”
It is understood that BT did recently “temporarily pause” broadband services for a small group of customers who had not responded to any communications about the copper landline switchover for two years.
They were given five days’ notice of the planned outage to encourage them to contact BT and take action to avoid the “pause” in broadband service. Landline connections and mobile services remained intact, meaning services such as telecare devices remained operational.
More than 80% of the previously unresponsive customers are understood to have subsequently taken the steps needed to switch over.
“Throughout this transformation BT has been raising awareness of the switchover, supported by local events, advertising campaigns and partners – as well as direct communications to our customers,” said a BT spokesperson.
“A small minority of customers are yet to move and haven’t responded to repeated communications about the change. The temporary broadband pause we have introduced for this small minority is intended to help prevent a complete loss of service when the old, analogue network is retired.
“In the final months of the programme, it’s critical that customers take action when contacted about the switchover – failing to do so could result in the loss of their services when the outdated network retires.”
Campaigners are concerned that the 1.3 million households still on copper lines include vulnerable individuals, such as elderly people with only a landline and no internet and those in rural areas with patchy, or no, broadband and variable mobile coverage who worry about being able to call emergency services if there is a power cut.
There are also around 2 million users of telecare services, most commonly personal pendant alarms or buttons that have traditionally relied on copper landlines, which are unaffected if the internet goes down.
In December, Virgin Media was fined £23.8m for leaving thousands of customers, typically older and disabled people, without access to their alarms as it was transitioning customers in 2023.
The issue of vulnerable customers resulted in a pause of non-voluntary migrations to digital landlines, and ultimately resulted in the industry moving the copper landline retirement date from December last year to the end of this coming January.
For most customers, the switch involved just plugging their existing home phone handset into the back of their broadband router rather than into the phone socket on the wall.
Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said: “As the January 2027 deadline gets closer the telecoms providers should commit to ensuring that no older person is cut off if they haven’t yet switched. It should not mark a hard-and-fast cliff edge. We know that older people are overrepresented among those who are yet to switch.”
