The PSTN countdown has begun: Are you ready to pay 2x for legacy lines?
The deadline is set. The price hikes have started.
And there are 2.3 million lines and 475k business lines remaining to migrate from legacy copper lines across the UK.
With only a few months remaining until the January 2027 PSTN cut-off, plus factoring in bank holidays, porting freezes over the festive period, and engineering bottlenecks, the window to act without disruption is closing fast.
The cost of doing nothing is already rising
Openreach has announced quarterly price increases throughout 2026. The price is going to go up by 20% in April, a further 40% in July and another 40% in October.
That’s a 100% price increase on legacy lines by the end of the year. Add to that the 45% rise in security incidents already being seen on the ageing PSTN infrastructure and parts that are getting difficult to source to keep it alive, and it becomes clear that staying on legacy isn’t a neutral choice. It’s an actively expensive one.
It’s not just your phone line
This is where many businesses get caught out. The PSTN switch-off doesn’t just affect your desk phones – it affects anything that relies on a traditional phone line. That includes:
- Legacy lines still supporting alarms, lifts and safety systems
- Backup/failover lines that were never decommissioned
- Payment terminals and older systems still rely on analogue
Each of these has a migration path but not a one-size-fits-all solution. Some will need site surveys. Some need new hardware. Some may require a GSM/IoT mobile approach. The point is: you need to identify them now, before the deadline.
What to do next
If you’re not entirely sure how to approach this migration, there are two simple next steps:
Watch the PSTN switch-off breakdown video above.
We sat down with Giacom to walk through exactly what’s happening, when, and what businesses need to do. We cover:
- What the price increases mean in real terms
- Your upgrade options when PSTN disappears
- The hidden dependencies beyond phone lines
- A practical six-step migration framework, including a checklist you can use to identify what needs to be prioritised.
Get a quick exposure check
Book a free discovery call with the CloudClevr team. We’ll audit your current setup, identify everything that’s at risk, and map out your route to a fully future-proofed, all-IP solution, before the price increases and engineering queues make this harder than it needs to be.
