Email from BT: may stop my broadband within 5-7 days

My partner has had stage 4 cancer for some time together with hearing and walking problems.

BT KNOW this.

I have had to be supportive and much of my time is taken up.

I have been with BT for over 30 years.

BT are removing my broadband but leaving me with my landline and mobile for the time being and suggested EE for the broadband and phone

I Notice at the end of the booklet there are various things which won't work if there is a power cut.

What is my best option

I currently pay £73 for a medioccre broadband speed, landline & a mobile phone.


This was the email I got from them.

PLEASE CALL US.


Without action, you’ll lose your broadband services.


Hello Paul,

This is an urgent notice. We have tried to reach you several times through emails, letters and phone calls about updating your services for the digital switchover before January 2027 deadline. But we still need you to take action.

This means your broadband service will temporarily stop within the next 5 days for 7 days.


To keep your service running, contact us on


0800 011 3712


Our guides are here to help you and talk through your options. Call us now.


Don’t worry, your phone service will be unaffected.

Thanks,

The BT Team

PS: I've just checked the speed - I live in SW London

Download 34Mbs; Upload 6Mbs

Many thanks
Paul

The first thing I would do, is ring that number, and have the discussion about what your options are.

From the sounds of it, BT have been trying to get in touch with you about this for a while, so follow the advice from Zarjaz and give them a call to discuss options.

If your landline phone still comes from a BT socket on the wall, then that will have to change - hence the January deadline. Your landline phone will need to be plugged into an analogue phone port on the back of the router.

If you are concerned about power cuts and interruptions to service, then as you are speaking with BT make note to discuss what backup powering options they can supply. You should qualify for getting a backup power supply for the router etc included as part of your service.

Finally about the cost and performance of your broadband (and landline and mobile phone). You seem to be paying quite a lot. Again something to discuss with BT about whether there are better options and packages available - potentially if it is available to you via an FTTP connection rather than copper, for the broadband. This also opens up many further options to use other Openreach-based service providers, rather than just BT for your broadband and landline.

In terms of broad brush costs - a SIM-only mobile phone contract wth unlimited minutes, texts and a very large data allowance should not be setting you back more than £10 to £15 per month tops. A non-analogue (VoIP based) digital landline can cost from around £2 per month in rental from an independent voice service provider like A&A. Finally broadband should be costing you in the region of £20 to £30 per month tops for the sorts of speeds you're currently getting. In fact a lot more bandwidth / performance for that sort of money is available from other service providers over an FTTP connection.

Good luck.

Edited by Pheasant (Thu 17-Sep-26 08:03:35)

Phone to find out what BT/EE are offering. Their websites indicate that you can get fttp with digital voice and mobile sim at a lower cost than you are currently paying but they aren't the cheapest so you might want to shop around.
If you are registered as a priority customer you may be able to get a a "battery backup", designed to power your router and ONT for an hour (but those that have one are reporting considerably longer), at no extra cost. You may want to consider buying your own UPS with higher capacity if landline phone is important.

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

BT are removing my broadband

Not exactly. There is a background article here: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/09/bt-rev...

I'll try and summarise as follows.

The analogue phone service (the Public Switched Telephone Network or PSTN) is being decommissioned permanently in January 2027. All users of this service *must* move to digital voice by then. That is: if your landline phone plugs directly into the BT socket in the wall, it will instead plug into a socket on your router. Voice calls will then be carried digitally over the broadband, instead of being a separate signal alongside the broadband.

You can think of this as being a bit like the TV digital switchover: if you were receiving analogue broadcasts, and you didn't plug your TV into a digital set-top box, then your TV stopped working when the analogue transmitters were turned off.

95% of BT's customers with voice service have migrated to digital voice already. They're now trying to nudge the final 5% to make the move.

In order to make people sit up and notice, they will temporarily stop the broadband working. The voice service will remain active throughout, so you can always contact 999.

You really must phone them now and get this sorted. Basically what happens is they'll send you out a new router, you plug it in, and you move your landline phone into a socket in this router. That's it. No big deal. But if you do nothing, then (a) you'll lose your broadband intermittently for the next few months, and (b) you'll finally lose your entire service, both voice and broadband (because they are linked), in January.

Regarding power cuts: if you rely on your landline for emergency calling, *and* you live in an area which is prone to extended power cuts, *and* you're in a mobile phone not-spot, then you might want to get a battery backed power supply for the router (Uninterruptable Power Supply, or UPS). But for most people, having a charged mobile phone on hand is usually the best solution for emergency cover during power cuts.

The amount you pay for the service is a separate issue. Of course you can move to a different provider and pay less, but if you want a voice service you *will* have to take digital voice; it has been impossible to order or migrate an analogue voice service since September 2023 (the original PSTN switchoff date was Dec 2025, and it got one final push-back to Jan 2027).

Some broadband providers will provide digital voice as a bundled package with the broadband (e.g. BT/EE, Sky, Zen, Vodafone). Or you can take broadband from one supplier plus voice from a separate voice provider with VOIP; the latter gives you a wider choice of broadband suppliers and has some other advantages, but is a bit more work to set up.

But right now, your time and energy taken up with much more important things. Therefore, I would suggest that the quickest, lowest-hassle solution to this problem is to get BT to switch your existing service over to digital voice. Phone the number in the letter, and they will take care of it for you. You can deal with reducing your monthly bill some other time.

I'm sorry to hear of your sad circumstances, and I wish you well in what must be a very difficult time.

Some things i would do now.

Make a list of what emergency devices you have. If you wish if you list them here we can have a look to help.

As to the underlying reason for the booklet and email is this.

At the end of january 2027, Openreach will shut down their analog services in their exchanges. So existing phones that directly plugged into the master socket will no longer work.

What Openreach did was create a new service name without the phone line atteched - which has caused confusion. for a semi technical version :
WBC FTTC (will go in jan 27) and WBC SOGEA has replaced it .

Sogea has no phone line.

Your high price of your landline and internet is down to not taking any action and letting bt raise the price year upon year. You shouldn't be paying that much for internet and phone. a 40/10 service with phone should be in the 30plus region.

but the most important two things you need to do and do those today is make a list of emergency devices that use the phone or internet and phone that number.

do not delay

Just re reading the opening email , Tantalus says ‘BT are removing my broadband but leaving the phone line and mobile’

We are all presuming it is part of the PSTN switch off … but he says his FTTC is going.


Yes, ring them , is still the main advice .

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Just re reading the opening email , Tantalus says ‘BT are removing my broadband but leaving the phone line and mobile’

We are all presuming it is part of the PSTN switch off … but he says his FTTC is going.


Yes, ring them , is still the main advice .

yeah that confused me too. I'm accepting its not worded properly. I do think the bt broadband(inc pn and ee) unit have made a complete pigs ear of the handover from wbc fttc to sogea

I do think the bt broadband(inc pn and ee) unit have made a complete pigs ear of the handover from wbc fttc to sogea

I doubt any others could have faired much better*. Such a hugely complicated issue, as most who feel themselves disadvantaged are of the older generations.

In the last fifteen years or so, the majority who didn’t use their landline, as in had no handset connected had already dwindled enormously.

I think another large contributing factor was the companies operating the care line systems. They had a decades notice of what was to happen … and did nothing. And when the original date grew close, they just bleated and stamped their feet claiming it was unfair.


* look at my recent posts about my family members existing SOGEA service with TT. They wouldn’t transfer it to another flat. … but did not communicate why. (because they only provide over FTTP now)