Openreach delay PSTN Switch Off until January 2027

On 16th May 2024, BT and Openreach announced that they were delaying the PSTN Switch Off and WLR Withdrawal until 31st January 2027, giving Communication Providers (CP) an additional 13 months to migrate customers to future-proof All-IP solutions.

In conversation with Giacom, Openreach’s Juliette Scott, Senior Manager for All-IP Migrations & Exchange Exits, shared the reasoning behind this date change, citing CPs’ need for more time to assess their base and take care to migrate vulnerable users.

“Last year, we were seeing over 80,000 migrations per week, and we felt really comfortable that we would meet the deadline of December 2025,” said Scott. “Then unfortunately, on another provider’s network, there were a couple of fatalities and some serious incidents. That made CPs begin to act with more caution and migrations slowed down to allow more care to be taken with customer migrations.

“We took stock of what happened and decided a 13-month reset was the right decision, to allow industry more time.”

The 13-month extension, termed a “reset” by Openreach, is intended to allow the industry to adapt more carefully. This aims to provide a balanced approach, ensuring safety and reducing pressure on all parties involved.

At Giacom, we see this delay as an opportunity for partners to identify their vulnerable customers as soon as they can, so that we can work together to build a suitable migration plan. We want partners to remember that this extension isn’t long so it’s still critical that you act now and migrate your base to All-IP sooner rather than later.

If you’d like to hear more about the delay and what Openreach had to say about this change, please click here to watch our webinar and download our FAQ sheet.

For more information about how Giacom can assist you in migrating your legacy broadband and voice services to All-IP, please complete this form and one of our team will be in touch shortly.