Thousands of homes warned of old landline switch off happening in 84 locations

THOUSANDS of homes have been warned over an old landline switch off which will affect 84 locations across the UK.

Opeanreach has announced it will be ditching obsolete copper networks in favour of more advanced technology within the next year.

The update will see the halt of sale of legacy analogue products in more than 880,000 premises across the UK.

As the country enters a digital era, the outdated copper lines will be replaced by faster Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) connections instead.

The upgrade will also introduce new features unseen in old landlines with a technology called Voice over Internet (VOIP).

The digital communication, which connects calls via internet, will offer perks such as three-way calling and multi call.

Call quality is also said to be improved thanks to Digital Voice but you will need a compatible Digital Home phone for that.

Thousands of households will experience faster broadband speeds as Openreach cables are used by major service provides like Sky, Vodafone, Plusnet and TalkTalk.

These ISPs will have to connect new customers to substantially faster FTTP speeds once the “Stop Sell” is activated.

“Stop Sell” will be triggered once 75 per cent of premises gain access to ultrafast Full Fibre.

Customers will then have to sign up for a new digital service if they wish to switch, upgrade or downgrade their broadband or phone service.

Over 700 exchanges will have implemented “stop sell” policies by the summer, which means that about six million locations will stop selling new copper goods.

Customers in locations, where Ultrafast Full Fibre isn’t available, won’t have to worry about the change.

They can continue their current copper-based service until Full Fibre becomes available to majority of households.

Around 4millions premises have already made the switch to Full Fibre network, Openreach said in a statement.

The advanced broadband is also available to 14million homes and businesses across the UK.

James Lilley, Openreach’s Managed Customer Migrations Manager, said: “Taking advantage of the progress of our Full Fibre build and encouraging people to upgrade where a majority can access our new network is the right thing to do as it makes no sense, both operationally and commercially, to keep the old copper network and our new fibre network running side-by-side.

“As copper’s ability to support modern communications declines, the immediate focus is getting people onto newer, future proofed technologies.”