TL;DR: The UK’s analogue phone network shuts off on 31 January 2027 — around 7 months from today.
As of today, businesses across the UK have around 7 months left before the old analogue phone network is switched off for good. Openreach has confirmed that 31 January 2027 is the final date for the PSTN switch-off, and this time there will be no further delays. If your business still relies on traditional copper phone lines, the clock is now genuinely running out.
The Public Switched Telephone Network, or PSTN, is the analogue copper-wire system that has carried UK phone calls for well over a century. Openreach is retiring this network entirely as the country moves to all-IP, fibre-based connectivity — meaning every call will eventually travel over broadband rather than copper.
This isn’t just about desk phones. The PSTN also underpins fire and burglar alarms, lift emergency lines, card payment terminals, and telecare pendants — any equipment still wired through a traditional phone line.
The switch-off has already slipped once, from December 2025 to January 2027, to give providers more time to migrate vulnerable users safely. Openreach says that work is now complete and the network itself is becoming the bigger risk — ageing copper infrastructure is increasingly unreliable and expensive to maintain, and spare parts are harder to source. The message from Openreach is that the deadline is fixed.
If you take no action, your provider may default your line to Openreach’s basic fallback service, which supports emergency calls only and offers none of the features of a normal phone line. In practice, that means your business could lose the ability to make or receive ordinary calls altogether.
To push the final wave of migrations through, Openreach has confirmed a staged series of wholesale price increases on legacy line rental throughout 2026: a 20% rise on 1 April, a further 40% on 1 July, and a final 40% increase on 1 October — taking the cost of a legacy line to roughly double what it was in 2025. Businesses that delay aren’t just risking disruption; they’re paying an escalating premium for a service that’s already been withdrawn from sale.
With 7 months left on the clock, the priority is a proper review of your telecoms estate — not just desk phones, but anything else connected to a phone line, from alarms to payment terminals. From there, the move is to a cloud-based VoIP system that runs over your broadband connection instead of copper.
Migrating on your own terms, ahead of January 2027, means you avoid the steep 2026 price rises, get a proper planned rollout with number porting and staff training built in, and sidestep the risk of being rushed into a stopgap fix at the last minute. A managed VoIP migration also gives you the chance to pick up features — call routing, mobile and desktop integration, call recording — that legacy analogue lines never offered.
We’re an authorised partner for SWYX VoIP, an award-winning cloud-based business phone system that works across PC, mobile and tablet. We handle the full migration — from auditing your existing lines and dependent equipment through to number porting and staff onboarding — so nothing falls through the cracks before the switch-off.
Whether you’re still running desk phones on old copper lines or you’re not sure what’s connected to your PSTN service, it’s worth finding out now rather than in month six. Get in touch with our team to talk through your migration to SWYX VoIP before the January 2027 deadline arrives.
