BT is to host more than 40 events across Scotland during July and August to raise awareness of a nationwide digital switchover for landline telephones.
The telecoms giant is seeking to inform the public of the decommissioning of legacy analogue systems, a process which will be completed by the end of January 2027.
An event will be held in every local authority area, including those in rural locations, to talk to customers about how landlines will be changing over the coming years.
From Eyemouth to Stornoway, the regional road show will inform people of the steps they will need to take and the support that will be available.
The change, which will see calls made over a broadband line for the vast majority of customers, is an upgrade to the increasingly fragile and 40-year-old analogue technology.
At these events, experts will show customers how BT’s new home phone service Digital Voice works and demonstrate other new products.
Vicky Hicks, senior engagement manager at BT, said: “We will be visiting Scotland throughout July and August to speak to our customers face-to-face and answer any questions they may have about the essential upgrade from analogue to digital landlines.
“The landline is here to stay, and for the majority of customers, making the switch simply means plugging your phone into a broadband router instead of into a wall-mounted phone socket. This will bring new benefits like advanced spam call blocking. So far, we’ve prevented over 1.2 million scam calls from reaching our customers and flagged more than 6.4 million potential nuisance calls.
“Thanks to upgrades to Scotland’s broadband infrastructure, led by BT Group and government partners in some locations, more than 96% of Scotland now has access to superfast broadband and around 42% of the country has access to BT’s full fibre broadband. This means the vast majority of our customers won’t experience much of a difference in their service when they make the switch.”
BT recently announced an update to its timetable for moving all customers off the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and onto digital landlines, outlining a series of improvements to better protect vulnerable customers and those with additional needs, including telecare users.
It also confirmed that customers who identify as vulnerable, have additional needs or who use a telecare alarm system will not be switched until Spring 2025 at the earliest. This allows time for data sharing agreements with Local Authorities or Telecare companies to be in place and in-home support for telecare users to become available.
BT will instead focus initially on switching customers who have not used their landline over the last 12 months, encouraging them to take a digital landline provided over full fibre broadband, where available.
The company also announced plans to offer a dedicated landline service for customers who don’t use broadband from the Autumn. Allowing customers to use their landline in the same way as they do today until a digital solution becomes available or 2030, if that comes sooner.
For information on the events, visit here.
