As first reported by The Sun, Plusnet will stop providing new landline services as part of the switch over to digital home phone connections. The firm will continue to sell ‘broadband only packages’, and current broadband customers should be unaffected.
All landline connections in the UK are set to be 100% digital by the end of 2025, but the thousands of Plusnet customers who currently have a landline service will need to either give up their home phone or move to a digital connection with another provider.
Plusnet is owned by BT Group, which also owns the EE mobile network. Unsurprisingly, Plusnet suggests its landline customers who want to keep their connection can move over to BT’s Digital Voice service, which is its branding for new digital BT landline services.
As Plusnet is also in the process of shuttering its mobile service, which piggybacked on the EE network, the firm is also pushing customers towards EE branded mobile services – but there’s currently no confirmed end date for Plusnet Mobile.
There is similar uncertainty around the timeline for the demise of the traditional copper-based landline. The government recently intervened to ensure vulnerable Brits were not left without a phone as the telecoms industry forges ahead with its plan to take landlines digital. This requires homes to have a broadband connection, but there are concerns some people, such as elderly citizens with telecare services that rely on landlines to operate, will be left without a phone line – or forced to incur costs to sign up to broadband services to keep one.
Digital landlines require an internet connection to work and therefore will not work in a power cut. Existing telecare alarms that rely on landlines to work would then not work in a power cut either.
“The safety of vulnerable customers comes before anything else and that’s why I called on the industry to listen to concerns and take action to make sure the right protections are in place,” technology secretary Michelle Donelan said in March.
BT has promised to send customers who rely on landlines and telecare services the appropriate devices to keep them operational in power cuts, including backup battery packs. Concerned customers should contact Plusnet directly.
