London, May 2, 2026, 20:08 BST
BT Group plc’s digital landline switchover is entering a harder phase, with rural and vulnerable users raising fresh safety concerns as roughly 3.2 million UK homes remain on the old phone network and one campaigner called the timetable a “disaster waiting to happen.” The Guardian
The timing matters. BT on Thursday launched a new “Don’t Put Off the Switch” campaign fronted by broadcaster Clare Balding, saying customers still on analogue landlines should act when contacted before the nationwide switch-off in January 2027. Lucy Baker, BT’s Consumer Digital Voice Director, called the move a “once-in-a-generation upgrade,” and BT said its digital landline scam protection blocked more than 91 million scam and spam attempts in the past year. BT Group Newsroom
The change is not a small product swap. The public switched telephone network, or PSTN, is the decades-old copper-based system used for traditional landline calls. Ofcom says BT has chosen to retire its PSTN by January 2027, which means providers using BT’s network must follow that timetable; Virgin Media plans a similar schedule on its own network. Calls will move to Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, which routes voice calls over broadband.
That puts BT in a tight spot. For many households, the move means plugging a handset into a broadband router. For people with care alarms, weak mobile signal or no mobile phone, it can become an emergency-service question.
BT’s own help pages say a Digital Voice phone needs power to work, and that customers with no mobile reception or no mobile phone should contact the company. A battery backup gives at least one hour of service for essential calls in a power cut, BT says.
Ofcom has told telecoms providers to minimise disruption and identify, protect and support vulnerable customers. It says providers must offer at least one hour of power resilience during a power cut, free of charge, for customers who rely on their landline to contact emergency services.
The risk is execution. If too many hard-to-migrate households are left late, BT could face more engineer visits, more support costs and further pressure from Ofcom, just as the group is trying to show investors that network upgrades can translate into steadier cash flow.
There is already a separate regulatory overhang. Ofcom opened an investigation on April 29 into whether BT failed to comply with statutory information requests linked to data from EE and Plusnet on fixed voice and fixed broadband customer experiences. The regulator said some responses may not have been complete or accurate.
BT shares last traded at 216.75 pence on Friday, up 0.09% on the day, before the London market closed for the weekend. MarketScreener data showed the stock up 17.77% so far in 2026.
Investors will get the next full read on the company soon. BT lists its FY26 results date as May 21, making the landline migration, Ofcom scrutiny and broadband customer trends part of the backdrop for Chief Executive Allison Kirkby’s next update.
The broader turnaround still rests on fibre. In February, BT said it added 571,000 net fibre connections in its third quarter, while Openreach line losses fell to 210,000. Reuters reported that Openreach competes with Virgin Media and alternative networks such as CityFibre, while its network is also used by providers including Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone.
For BT, the near-term test is blunt: move the remaining analogue users without making the most vulnerable customers feel rushed or exposed. The company has a deadline. The harder question is whether the last customers to switch are also the ones most likely to need help.
