With rumour rife of an extension to the PSTN switch-off scheduled for December 2025, Andrew Cooper, Head of Nimans Connect talks us through the state of the market.
In 2017 Openreach announced that it would be ‘Switching off’ the analogue telephone network, suggesting instead IP Telephony would be better.
Given the state of the broadband network at the time, some may have criticised the decision, for example, anyone who I was beating on FIFA just had to call my landline and my online world would come crashing down.
Since that time, connectivity throughout the country has gotten better. The change therefore does suit the UK as the vast majority of calls are made using a mobile but, as far away as 2020, three-quarters of the UK had a landline that they used to make and receive calls on.
But as we quickly approach the year anniversary of the sale stop, concerns about the elderly potentially being cut off without knowing it have given rise to rumours of potentially a two-year extension to the December 2025 deadline.
While nothing is confirmed, and the delay may only apply to those in vulnerable households, the topic of the PSTN Switch off has been a topic at the forefront of many minds, including that of Andrew Cooper, Head of Nimans Connect, who is expecting an uptick in the number of switches as we move closer to the deadline.
“We’ve produced some surveys which back up other surveys that you kind of read that say that about 50% of the market are aware of the PSTN Switch off,” said Cooper. “I think a lot of people are aware but it’s whether they’re active is the key thing.
“I think when you look at the numbers that carriers like Zen put through, you can see there’s been a shift but there’s still a long way to go. To effectively be on track to switch off in 2025, a circuit needs to be moved every four seconds, which is ridiculous.
“But you can imagine there’s a real hockey stick effect that we’re expecting. I think there are probably still some people out there who think it will get delayed again because it’s been delayed so many times before, and then there will also be partners who are organised and will have their customers make the transition as part of the natural resigning process.”
Opportunity
While interest in the Switch Off will change depending on who you speak to, the interest from businesses still leaves a lot to be desired. Just before the turn of the year, research from the Centre for Economics Business Research found only 54 per cent of businesses that will be impacted by the Switch-Off, are aware of discontinuation.
According to the research at the time, 74 per cent of businesses were yet to complete essential migration tasks. Around half of the businesses surveyed hadn’t researched alternatives or formed a migration plan to ensure a seamless transition.
However, the report also showed a significant disparity in awareness across different regions and industries. Businesses in Northern Ireland had the lowest rate of awareness, followed by businesses in Southeast England where the figure was less than 50 per cent of businesses.
Although these numbers may seem daunting a year away from a deadline, Cooper says the approach from Nimans is to focus on the opportunity for partners.
“The core message to partners is that we’ve lived through lots of change and any change brings opportunity,” said Cooper. “If you stay in an industry for a long time you live through lots of change in different forms, this is another one.
“Any change gives you an opportunity to go and talk to customers, and it may be that that conversation around upgrading their connectivity leads to a bigger conversation about upgrading some of their existing technology.
“From our point of view, we want our partners to use the Switch off as a positive and as an opportunity rather than seeing it as a negative.”
Connectivity
As Cooper points out, at the heart of the PSTN switch-off is an opportunity to upgrade connectivity, a point he emphasised with just how fundamental it is to the success of businesses.
“Some people view this as a one-way conversation that centres around the customer being on an old circuit and having to change. Whereas I think it’d be better to use it as an opportunity to talk about, not just the connectivity, but the overall products that the customer is using and any advantages that can be gained from a migration.
“Connectivity glues everything together, if we look at what we can do now in comparison to what we could do a couple of years ago, it’s phenomenal. With home working and hybrid working, reliable connectivity becomes ever more important.
“From a partner’s point of view, the switch off is an opportunity to get customers using the next generation of connectivity and the products and services like cloud computing, telephony, or AI typically follow on down the line.
“Connectivity is like a utility now. If your electricity goes off you’re kind of snookered because things won’t work. But you could probably survive in an office environment without water for longer than you could without connectivity because it has become so critical.”
Extension
The opportunity for partners may well be out there but while talks of a delay fill the airwaves and column inches, the motivation to get a move on is reduced.
Yet, Cooper said that sitting on their hands may not be an option for many businesses.
“There’s been talk of a delay for a while, mainly due to challenging migration scenarios such as vulnerable users and care lines,” said Cooper. “My guess would be any delay could be targeted towards the likes of the vulnerable, alarm systems, and careline type customers but ultimately as far as we’re aware no decision has yet been reached.
“We know that products and services like SOTAP (Single Order Temporary Access Product) are being developed to support the migration of those types of challenging services and scenarios.
“With regards to the pace of change, any postponement or delay would give partners and end customers additional time which I’m sure some would look to take advantage of. That said whilst there’s still a long way to go in terms of completing the 2025 rollout many partners are engaged in the journey so slowing the pace of change now may not be an option.”
But while some will take advantage of a delay, to use Cooper’s words, others will have already swapped customers over the modern technologies, and a lot of progress is being made today.
“Obviously the interest has been there from the point the switch-off was announced,” said Cooper. “That interest probably waned a little because the dates got put back and there was always a sort of question as to whether they really meant 2025 or not. But this hockey stick effect on adoption will likely come through the latter part of 2024 and early 2025 when that realisation sets in that things have got to change.
“We’re pushing connectivity across the whole of the Nimans Group now. When we got all the salespeople together, whether they were predominantly working outside of our connectivity business, and asked them to put their hands up if they have a phone line at home to put their hands up.
“I asked a similar question at the BT Tower during a partner event. I asked whether anyone in the audience, from a partner point of view, had anyone completed their base migration and there was one lady who put her hand up out of 50 partners in the room, which just goes to show you there’s still a lot of work to be done.”
