BT has announced plans to roll out its new home phone service, Digital Voice, across Greater London during November and December.
Having already started the regional rollout of Digital Voice in the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, Northern Ireland and the North West, BT will now focus efforts on engaging with communities across the nation’s capital.
An industry-wide shift from analogue to digital landlines will see BT and many other telecoms operators in the UK provide services over a broadband line, similar to work taking place in many other countries around the world.
This once-in-a-generation upgrade to future-proof the UK’s landlines is essential and will replace technology that is fast becoming obsolete. The landline is here to stay, and for the majority of customers, making the switch simply involves plugging your phone into a broadband router instead of into a wall-mounted phone socket, bringing new benefits such as advanced spam call blocking.
Customers in Greater London will be contacted at least four weeks in advance before making the switch, to ensure they are ready to move to Digital Voice. For almost all customers, Digital Voice will have no impact on how they use their home phone. They’ll still have the same service, and price plan and bills will stay the same. In addition, more than 99% of phone handsets work with Digital Voice and for those that won’t, BT has a range of handsets that customers can order.
BT won’t be proactively switching anyone who falls under the below criteria, where it has this information available:
Customers with a healthcare pendant
Customers who only use landlines
Customers with no mobile signal
Customers who have disclosed any additional needs.
Customers who fall into any of these categories should contact BT to ensure their data is up to date.
Customers over the age of 70 are not initially being proactively switched to Digital Voice. However, since July 2023, BT has been trialling switching customers between 70-74 who live in urban areas and are ready to make the switch, i.e. they have the latest broadband hub and are not frequent landline users. These trials have gone well to date, with 98% of customers choosing to make the switch.
Engaging with the Greater London community
BT’s regional approach will be supported by general awareness communications, and advertising campaigns, delivered across local, regional and national media to explain to customers the simple steps required to make the move to Digital Voice.
Vicky Hicks, Senior Engagement Manager at BT,
BT customers in Greater London will benefit from a tried and tested service, with around two million BT customers already having made the switch and benefitting from the many advantages of digital home phones from advanced scam call filtering capabilities to crystal-clear call audio.
