BT customers who have been moved to the controversial Digital Voice system have described being left for weeks and even months without a working landline, and then been sent bills for fixing the problem.
Despite a growing opposition to the change, from December 2025 all the old but reliable analogue telephone lines that many of us have grown up with are to be switched off.
Instead, households and businesses will all be required to make calls digitally over the broadband network. The move is highly controversial because it will mean that when there is a power cut – a frequent occurrence in many rural areas – the landline phone will no longer work.
This is set be a huge problem for the still high number of people who live without a decent mobile signal, and for older people who rely on alarms that they can trigger if they have a fall.
Martin McShane, who lives with his wife in a village near Worksop in Nottinghamshire, says they were left without a functioning landline number after their house was switched over to the new digital system in October last year. As part of this they were sent two new digital phones, neither of which has worked. Prior to this they had a perfectly functioning broadband and home landline.
After the couple, who rely on their landline for the vital work they do in the NHS, contacted the BT chief executive to complain, an engineer visited their home, upgraded it to a faster fibre service, and checked the system. Still their landline number wouldn’t work.
“The final straw came when I looked at our most recent bill, only to see we were being charged an extra £188 – this was to remedy the problems that BT created,” McShane said. “BT has previously promised the move to digital will be free to customers, so why the bill?
“We have had to resort to diverting the ‘landline’ number to my wife’s mobile permanently, which means I can no longer use the home number at all. It also means my wife, who is regularly on call, gets every incoming call. We have found the service completely unreliable.”
Following Guardian Money’s intervention, BT sent a second engineer, who decided that the room they used the landline in was “too far from the router”. As a result, the couple have decided to give up on the landline altogether and to rely on their mobiles instead. BT says it will refund the £188.
Graham Panton, who works as a volunteer for a small museum, Little Hall in Lavenham, which is owned by a charitable trust, Historic Suffolk, says the site was left for five months without a working landline after it was switched over from Plusnet to BT’s digital service.
“The broadband was switched over without a problem but they couldn’t get the landline side working, for month after month,” he says. “In the end it turned out to be a back office rather than a technical issue but it shouldn’t have taken so long to get it resolved. When we were finally reconnected we then had a battle to get the bill reduced back to what we where paying. The whole thing has been chaotic.”
Other readers have described how family members were left without a working digital landline after they switched provider. They were similarly critical of the company’s back office systems.
A BT spokesperson says: “We are very sorry to hear about Dr McShane’s ongoing issues and that his experience has fallen below the high standard of service we aim to provide to our customers. Our complaints team have reached out to Dr McShane and have waived the charges for the additional equipment sent.”
“We’re working hard to ensure that everyone knows about the switch from analogue to digital landlines, how they will be impacted and what they need to do as a result. We encourage anyone who has any questions or concerns to contact us on 0330 1234150.”
The switchover to BT’s Digital Voice continues, and in spring it is likely to hit the West Midlands, the south-east, Wales and East Anglia. In the summer it will be the turn of the north-east, Scotland and the south-west.
BT says that it will not be proactively switching customers with a healthcare pendant, who only use landlines, customers with no mobile signal, and customers who have disclosed any additional needs. Customers who fall into any of these categories should contact the telephone operator to ensure their data is up to date, it says.
