Which providers still provide copper phone connections?

andyhicks88

Hi. I'm helping my father switch providers to save money however he'd rather keep his standard phone line for calls rather than change to digital voice or similar, I know that he will soon have no choice but at the moment he would rather keep it, so which providers still provide this?

Neil_Jones

As a general rule if FTTP is available in your area then that's what should be being provided  The provider to a point is irrelevant in that situation.

However there may be option still provided for legacy FTTC installations/transfers (new installs will probably be FTTP) so your best bet would be to hop onto comparison websites such as http://broadbband.moneysavingexpert.com (other sites are available) and see what you can get.

andyhicks88

Neil_Jones said:

As a general rule if FTTP is available in your area then that's what should be being provided  The provider to a point is irrelevant in that situation.

However there may be option still provided for legacy FTTC installations/transfers (new installs will probably be FTTP) so your best bet would be to hop onto comparison websites such as http://broadbband.moneysavingexpert.com (other sites are available) and see what you can get.

Hi, we don't have the option of FTTP in our area yet, it's all standard FTTC however I've noticed most providers still seem to be only providing digital voice for phone calls, so that's why I'm asking.

I think that Plusnet still provide a standard phone service but didn't know if anyone else did?

iniltous

Assuming your father is a broadband customer, ( if they were a phone only customer then that’s the last group of customers to be migrated, but there are not many phone only providers) in general , the safest way to stay on a PSTN phone line ( so the phone still plugged into the master socket rather than a broadband router ) is to remain with your current provider , any move to a new provider could come with a change to an  IP phone service , you probably won’t be told what type of technology the phone service will be using when ordering.
Dec 2025 is the ultimate switch off , 2023 is when orders for PSTN products should no longer  be made , asking a provider ‘will I stay on PSTN’ will get an answer more designed to get you to sign up with them , and if after changing , it’s IP telephony you won’t be able to switch back using PSTN as the reason

matelodave

I agree with @initious, the only way to guarantee staying on a copper line at the moment is to stay with your existing provider. Many providers may not be able to specify how the phones gets delivered and there'll be no going back once you've been transferred.

I'm guessing that OpenReach are likely to take the opportunity to migrate customers over to Digital Voice when customers change providers as its the easiest and least disruptive way to do it.

this is from the OpenReach AllI P FAQ document - lot more info in the whole document but a change or service provider may well trigger a transition to a digital phone. (note Q.10 re working line takeover)

Q9 Will anything happen before the end of 2025?

 Yes your CP will need to contact you and arrange for you to migrate your services on to one of the ALL IP services (FTTP, SoGEA). To help make sure that the older analogue services don’t keep getting used and increasing the number of lines that will need migrating,
Openreach have set “stop sell” dates which are dates after which CPs will no longer be able to obtain new supply for their customers of these analogue services.
There is a national “stop sell” date of September 2023, but some exchanges will hit their “stop sell” dates earlier, as Openreach roll out FTTP into the area and the exchange coverage reaches 75% of premises. There is a list of these exchanges on the Openreach web site.

Q10. Does Stop Sell just mean that a CP won’t be able to order new connections of analogue services from openreach?

 Stop Sell refers not only to new provision of analogue services, but also any of the following scenarios: Working Line Take overs; Start of a stopped line; Addition of lines and channels to existing installations; Migrations; CP Transfers; Bandwidth Modify and Addition of Broadband to copper voice lines. Q11. What should I do now

JSmithy45AD

andyhicks88 said:

Hi. I'm helping my father switch providers to save money however he'd rather keep his standard phone line for calls rather than change to digital voice or similar, I know that he will soon have no choice but at the moment he would rather keep it, so which providers still provide this?

Out of interest, why does he want to keep it? What advantage is there for him to keep it?