‘There is real danger’: landline phone users voice fears over digital switchover

“E very time there is a power failure I lose all means of communication with the outside world,” says Robert Dewar of life in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands since the landlines were transferred from the old copper cable network to broadband connections. Blackouts also knock out the village’s mobile phone signal. “Our most recent power cut lasted for 42 hours,” Dewar says. The interruption outlasted his five-hour emergency backup battery. “If I had had a heart attack there is damn all I could have done about it, except compose myself, say my prayers, and await the outcome.” Dewar was among the more than 100 readers who contacted us with their experiences as the old infrastructure – the public switched telephone network (PSTN) – used to make calls is replaced with digital lines. It is one of the biggest tech upgrades since the analogue television signal was switched off more than a decade ago, a change that forced Britons to convert their TVs or buy a new digital set. This time copper phone cables are being replaced with a “digital voice” service that uses your broadband connection. The overhaul of the phone network has been a huge undertaking but is now in its final year, with roughly 3.2m homes (about a fifth of the original number) still connected to the PSTN, which is scheduled to be switched off in January 2027. For many the switchover simply involves plugging the phone handset into the broadband router instead of the socket on the wall. …