Cheapest Telephone Landline Rental for Vulnerable Pensioner

F15fan

Hello, I wonder if someone can give me guidance please. My mother-in-law who is very elderly and has recently been widowed after 63 years has had her rolling landline telephone contract increased by Northern Telecom from £27.25 in February 2026 to £28.02 in March 2026 and now £44.84 in April 2026. We have contacted Northern Telecom to ask why such a sharp increase and they state it is because she has to upgrade to voice over net calls in our area and that BT have forced the price increase on customers. Is this true and can someone advise if she can get a better landline only deal as she doesn't want internet or a mobile phone at her age. Thank you for any help and guidance you can offer.

victor2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6665012/cheapest-telephone-landline-rental-for-vulnerable-pensioner

Have you looked at what BT offer? They can do digital voice for people who don't want broadband by just giving them an internet connection solely for the phone.

iniltous

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6665012/cheapest-telephone-landline-rental-for-vulnerable-pensioner

No it’s not really true , it has nothing to do with BT , but traditional telephone lines are being retired by January 2027 by Openreach , and Virgin , probably the provider your MIL uses actually uses Openreach infrastructure to deliver their service .

PSTN telephony’s replacement is IP telephony , BT call their version Digital Voice , it’s supplied from the BT broadband router for BT customers.

Openreach , to encourage providers that use Openreach copper pairs to move their remaining PSTN legacy telephony onto a modern IP network, are putting up the price they charge the providers still using PSTN , (it’s impossible for Openreach to charge consumers, they can only charge providers) presumably your provider are using that price increase to raise your MIL charges , hopefully they are probably are also going to move her to IP telephony which requires a broadband service to run the telephone service , perhaps that why the substantial price increase , if they are not moving to IP , then the price goes up again twice more this year, and then the PSTN gets turned off for good in January, so they need to do something pretty soon , otherwise your MIL will be cut off , did they say anything about sending out equipment to connect the phone to ?

Actually getting a standalone phone service these days from anyone may prove difficult as legacy phone services can’t be ordered anymore and as a poster indicates , broadband may be provided not to get on the customer internet access , it’s simply to provide a place the telephone can be connected , unfortunately with some they will charge full price for that broadband connection as well as telephony .

J_B

We pay BT about £26 for telephone only service which includes 700 minutes of calls to land and mobiles.

As for the Jan27 cut off, I'll believe it when I see it!

There are four houses in our postcode, but we're 3kn from the exchange - are they really going to lay fibre cable for us when we all have WISP or Starlink internet?

iniltous

The PSTN switch off has nothing to do with FTTP availability, DV runs on ADSL (SoTAP) , VDSL (SoGEA aka fibre to the cabinet) as well as full fibre FTTP,

Current BT landline only customers are currently being converted to PDPL (pre digital phone line ) which doesn’t need broadband, or power at the address , it appears at the customer the same as a traditional line (phone plugged into the copper pair wall socket ) but at the exchange it isn’t on the PSTN equipment (system x or system y ) , it’s a half way house , its not DV , or PSTN , it’s only a stop gap solution not intended for the long term , and its not available to new customers, only current telephone only customers .

J_B

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81971249#Comment_81971249

That's a fantastic resumé, many thanks - we were 'converted' about a month ago but wasn't really sure how/why but we can no longer dial just the local number to call out, we need to use the full STD (is that still a phrase?) code. Our neighbours who have ADSL 2Mbps internet with Plusnet haven't been converted

iniltous

PDPL and DV for that matter do need the full national number to be used , but as its always been required for mobiles it shouldn’t be too much of a hardship or take too long to get used to , and because there is no such thing as a local call anymore , from a billing point of view , it costs the same to call your next door neighbour as calling someone in the North of Scotland or the tip of Penzance it’s not affecting the price of the call .

TBH , using the full national number (or using the STD code as you say ) for every call has been needed in quite a few areas of the country for the last decade or so , all to do with running out of telephone numbers , Ofcom made it a requirement, its so any operator that wants a ‘number range’ of their own can have it.

STD code is still a used term but a bit archaic now , standing for subscriber trunk dialing , that goes back to the late 1950’s , before then you called the operator to put you through to ‘long distance’ .

FYI , your neighbour with Plusnet will need to decide if telephony is to be retained or not , Plusnet are not remaining in the telephone business , so to stay with PN effectively means being a broadband only customer, that will be why nothing has happened yet to them as far as moving off PSTN telephony, but by January 2027 unless they move from PN , their telephone service will just be switched off, they should get some communication from PN about this , Plusnet offer a free migration to EE for customers wanting to keep their phone number , the replacement EE phone service is ‘DV’

F15fan

Thank you everyone for your help. I am going to give credit to Northern Telecom because they have got back in touch to sort a deal out for my mother-in-law. They have asked for a payment up front which I presume is for the equipment and fitting but they have offered an unbeatable deal (which they don't make public) and it is even cheaper than her original deal. It really is a great deal and thanks to the company for eventually offering a good customer service, tailored to a very elderly lady.

I really appreciate everyone's help here too. As a newbie, I was a bit unsure about asking, but I will now be using this forum a lot more.