PSTN switch-off in January 2027

What UK Businesses Need to Know Before the PSTN switch-off in January 2027

The UK’s analogue telephone network, the Public Switched Telephone Network, or PSTN, will be permanently switched off by January 2027. For UK businesses still using traditional landlines, ISDN connections, or ADSL broadband, this is not a distant technology update. It is a hard deadline, and the time to plan a PSTN switch-off in January 2027 migration is right now.

At Multidata, we have been managing business telephony and connectivity for over 35 years. Our phone line replacement service is designed to take the complexity out of the migration, auditing your existing infrastructure, recommending the right digital solutions, and managing the transition from start to finish with zero disruption to your operations.

What Is the PSTN Switch-Off and Why Does It Matter?

The Public Switched Telephone Network is the ageing copper wire infrastructure that has carried UK phone calls since the nineteenth century. BT Openreach has confirmed that this network will be decommissioned on 31 January 2027. From that date, any device or service still reliant on copper telephone lines, including traditional phone handsets, ISDN systems, ADSL broadband, fire alarm lines, lift emergency lines, and card payment terminals, will stop working.

The scale of impact is wider than most businesses realise. A VoIP phone line replacement addresses desk handsets, but your business may also be running analogue alarm systems, CCTV, door entry intercoms, fax lines, and PDQ machines over the same copper infrastructure. A complete audit is the only way to know exactly what needs to change.

What Replaces a PSTN Phone Line?

The primary replacement for PSTN-based telephony is VoIP, Voice over Internet Protocol. With a VoIP phone line replacement, calls are routed over your broadband connection rather than a copper line. This delivers meaningful advantages over the old analogue system: lower call costs, greater flexibility, mobile integration, and access to features like call recording, hunt groups, voicemail-to-email, and CRM integration that analogue lines simply cannot support.

At Multidata, our cloud VoIP platform is already trusted by over 200,000 UK users. It supports Yealink desk handsets, softphone applications for laptops and mobiles, and seamless integration with existing business systems. Your existing telephone numbers can be ported across, so your clients and contacts experience no change at all.

For businesses currently on ISDN, our ISDN replacement service provides a direct like-for-like migration to SIP trunking or hosted VoIP, depending on your call volumes and system requirements.

Why Act Now Rather Than Waiting?

The most important thing to understand about the PSTN switch-off 2027 is that Openreach’s “Stop Sell” restrictions are already in force. In most exchange areas, you can no longer order new copper-based PSTN or ISDN products or make significant changes to existing services. If you move offices, add a line, or experience a major fault on your current copper connection, you may already find that your existing service cannot be restored on the old infrastructure.

There is also a cost incentive to moving early. BT has already announced significant price increases for businesses remaining on PSTN-dependent services in 2026, with further increases scheduled in the months leading up to the switch-off date. A planned digital phone migration on your own timeline costs significantly less, in both money and disruption, than an emergency migration under pressure.

What Does a Multidata Phone Line Replacement Look Like?

Our digital phone migration process begins with a full telephony audit. We identify every service currently being delivered over your copper infrastructure, voice lines, broadband, alarm lines, and connected devices, and produce a clear migration plan with timescales and costs.

We then manage the migration itself: number porting, VoIP platform configuration, hardware installation, and user training. Throughout the process, your existing services remain live until the new digital infrastructure is fully tested and operational.

Post-migration, Multidata provides ongoing support through your dedicated account manager and direct access to UK engineers, the same human-to-human support model we have operated for over three decades.