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)

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

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.

To be fair, i think any large company would have ended up on the "making a pigs ear of it" scale. And whilst on the surface it seems a simple thing it isn't.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

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.

for various reasons and also the landline industry not moving with the times.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

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.

If i could write "yes and its moraly wrong what they have done" in 50ft characters i would. How hard was it to move to a digital ip system and how hard was it to make an analog to digital ip adaptor. I mean its not been done before ever.

They chose to sell analog care systems well into the 2020s, they could have changed then, but chose to milk a very vunerable group of people - many of whom will not know what an ip system is. We saw an anlog system earlier this year on tbb, and the problem moving it to digital. That guy wasn't alone - that really angered me.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

* 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)

again the shear frustation of knowning it can be done and it was completely reasonable.

On an aside
I know we've had "why can't we use the spare cbt socket at the back of my house" type thing, whilst that sounds the same, it wasn't as the system was designed that way and it makes sense.

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 .

They are pausing the FTTC service as a way of getting someone's attention - if you had WLR with FTTC on top and never used your landline phone then you'd never notice if that started playing a message asking you to call your provider before every outbound call. The idea is that you react to your Internet not working by contacting a helpdesk and they can have the discussion about the January switch-off.

In reply to a post by jpm:

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 .

They are pausing the FTTC service as a way of getting someone's attention - if you had WLR with FTTC on top and never used your landline phone then you'd never notice if that started playing a message asking you to call your provider before every outbound call. The idea is that you react to your Internet not working by contacting a helpdesk and they can have the discussion about the January switch-off.

Oh, I’d not heard of that, thanks.

same, i do think a redirection notice for 80 and 8080 traffic so that they do take notice but not to cut it off, would have been better

Which website do people visit now that isn't TLS? Someone's homepage will be Google or Bing or whatever and they'd just get a connection error the first time they opened their browser for the day, and end up calling support.

In reply to a post by Taras:

same, i do think a redirection notice for 80 and 8080 traffic so that they do take notice but not to cut it off, would have been better

Better why though? What material difference is there if the service doesn’t work either way, whether you just cut it off or force a redirect…you (hopefully) call your ISP which is what they want all along.

Thank you for your ideas and support some of which I will take up once full fibre is installed particularly the cost issue.

I phoned complaints and was almost immediately put through to broadband fibre team

My broadband is now restored and the switch over date is now mid november.

I will be suppled with a backup battery.

There are many things I could write, but the way they BT treat their customers is appalling.

This shows that loyalty does not pay and how vulnerable we are to ISPs.

Glad to hear it’s being sorted. Good luck and 🤞 best wishes with your partner. 🙏

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

Thank you for your ideas and support some of which I will take up once full fibre is installed particularly the cost issue.

Take a breather for a week or so and then start to work out, what is connected and what need to be upgraded if anything. If you are waiting for fttp to be built in your area please do down the route of asking Openreach which quarter they intend to install the infrastructure.

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

There are many things I could write, but the way they BT treat their customers is appalling.

This shows that loyalty does not pay and how vulnerable we are to ISPs.

Yes it means nothing, and you will get put on "out of contract pricing" and that price may go up year upon year. Then you end up on 50 or 70 or even more

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

There are many things I could write, but the way they BT treat their customers is appalling.

I am truly sorry to hear about the health issues your partner is having and the difficulties on a daily basis that causes you. This may not be the best time for me to say this but I do think you are being a little harsh on BT but in light of everything else thats going on I won't go through the reasons why.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by Taras:

same, i do think a redirection notice for 80 and 8080 traffic so that they do take notice but not to cut it off, would have been better

Better why though? What material difference is there if the service doesn’t work either way, whether you just cut it off or force a redirect…you (hopefully) call your ISP which is what they want all along.

becasue you can allow a continue button. doing a forced 5 to 7 day cut off is a stupid idea

I think you would find people would just ignore it.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

I think you would find people would just ignore it.

a percentage would .. the point is mute to some extent as we are already into the end of service for pstn.

Precisely a ‘percentage’ (completely unknown could be 100%) would again ignore it - to their ultimate peril.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

** To be specifically clear this is not in any way aimed, directed or construed to the OP.

In reply to a post by Taras:

If you are waiting for fttp to be built in your area please do down the route of asking Openreach which quarter they intend to install the infrastructure.

I advise against that. The simple rule is: it's available to order when it's available to order: anything else is just a guess. Contacting Openreach directly to ask for predictions of availability will at best give you information that is subject to change, so you can't base any decisions on it.

However, since the OP does say "once full fibre is installed" it could be that FTTP is already available and BT is offering a full fibre install combined with the digital voice switchover. If so this is good: it means that they'll have an engineer on site to check everything is working, and of course they'll get the fibre installation out of the way and not have any further infrastructure changes to do in future.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Precisely a ‘percentage’ (completely unknown could be 100%) would again ignore it - to their ultimate peril.

Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

** To be specifically clear this is not in any way aimed, directed or construed to the OP.

Oh there are some who will want to stay on the old system. and some will ignore any warning. And of course i completely agree with your last sentence.

In reply to a post by Tantalus:

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 ...

I have been thinking on this for several days. While I understand the urgency on the part of BT and to some extent the use of the tactic of temporarily cutting service, I have not felt at all comfortable with it.

BT have a contract with a customer. And while that contract lasts, they should be providing service, not playing games with that service to get attention, no matter how justified that need for attention might be. I don't think that the 'cruel to be kind' argument is a valid justification for deliberately withholding a contracted service.

Ultimately, when the PSTN switch off happens, there will be no network to fulfil that contract, although there is an alternative. I think that what BT should be doing is providing a letter or series of letters to terminate the contract on switch off date and offering to continue service if the customer makes contact and agrees to new arrangements and hardware.

In reply to a post by DFScale:

I have been thinking on this for several days. While I understand the urgency on the part of BT and to some extent the use of the tactic of temporarily cutting service, I have not felt at all comfortable with it.

BT have a contract with a customer. And while that contract lasts, they should be providing service, not playing games with that service to get attention, no matter how justified that need for attention might be. I don't think that the 'cruel to be kind' argument is a valid justification for deliberately withholding a contracted service.

Ultimately, when the PSTN switch off happens, there will be no network to fulfil that contract, although there is an alternative. I think that what BT should be doing is providing a letter or series of letters to terminate the contract on switch off date and offering to continue service if the customer makes contact and agrees to new arrangements and hardware.

This only takes place after multiple contact attempts. The alternative is for the service to go dead one day, the PSTN number enters the 30-day period where it can be recycled, and then for BT to ask for their router back under threat of being charged for it.

One part of the company I work for has a couple of thousand PSTN lines left to get people away from, and it is very easy to criticise BTs approach until you see first hand how good people are at ignoring all attempts to contact them where action is required.

Yep. If you've ignored repeated post, email and phone phone calls what alternative do these providers have?

In the absence of being able to reach them - surely it is better to warn of the complete, imminent, and irreversible shutdown which is what will happen to un-migrated FTTC folks - by temporarily stalling just their broadband, than letting them carry on and metaphorically drive over the precipice.

Indeed. Come 31st January the service will cease, and it won't be possible to reinstate it without placing a completely new service order, resulting in days or weeks of outage - and you can't have hundreds of thousands of people trying to do that all at the same time.

I think BT is doing a good job here. I shudder to think what's going on (or rather, not going on) at other service providers.

TalkTalk Wholesale have used the fact they run MPF with their own MSANs as a selling point - "we're going to do PSTN still!", which is great but it's delaying the inevitable because that equipment will not be maintainable forever, and Openreach will want to pull the copper out their ducts at some point.

In reply to a post by jpm:

TalkTalk Wholesale have used the fact they run MPF with their own MSANs as a selling point - "we're going to do PSTN still!", which is great but it's delaying the inevitable because that equipment will not be maintainable forever, and Openreach will want to pull the copper out their ducts at some point.

Ahh TalkTalk are all but bankrupt these days in any case...😂

In reply to a post by jpm:

TalkTalk Wholesale have used the fact they run MPF with their own MSANs as a selling point - "we're going to do PSTN still!", which is great but it's delaying the inevitable because that equipment will not be maintainable forever, and Openreach will want to pull the copper out their ducts at some point.

And yet wouldn’t do a shift of existing service for my step son. FTTP or nothing (no FTTP to flats)

In reply to a post by jpm:

TalkTalk Wholesale have used the fact they run MPF with their own MSANs as a selling point - "we're going to do PSTN still!", which is great but it's delaying the inevitable because that equipment will not be maintainable forever, and Openreach will want to pull the copper out their ducts at some point.

The copper might live in the ducts forever, because pulling it out risks damaging fibre, but they *will* want to close most of the local exchanges.