Forum Discussion

weematt's avatar
weematt
Dialled in
2 years ago

Telephone Switchover postponed INDEFINITELY.

I received an email from VM yesterday informing me that the telephone switchover from landline to fibre has been postponed indefinitely.

Can anyone here tell me why?

  • There is no reason given but the theory is that they will wait until your contract is up so they don't lose the £19.50 a month landline charge if like me you decide not to continue with a landline as we never use it

    • weematt's avatar
      weematt
      Dialled in

      Thanks. I was imagining a great 'landline replacement failure' scandal.

  • Hi weematt,

    Thank you for reaching out to us in our community and welcome, we don't have any further information other than it has been put on hold, once we have any further information, our customers will be advised.

    Regards

    Paul.

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person

    Government instruction, all PSTN providers have had to hold their updates. I believe it’s due to problems with elderly people and their alarms.

  • Thanks for the information. If it is a problem with safety critical alarms then it will apply to any such person with such an alarm, not just the elderly. This should have been addressed as a key issue before starting the disconnection programme.

    • Arissa_H's avatar
      Arissa_H
      Forum Team

      Hi Weematt 👋🏼.

      Thank you for coming back to us. 

      I understand your frustration and it does apply to people with critical alarms/elderly. However regarding your delayed telephone switchover, you shall get an email/text to confirm when it will be going ahead. 

      • weematt's avatar
        weematt
        Dialled in

        I am not frustrated by the delay. I am annoyed that such a rollout is commenced before resolution of a safety issue. It is not just a VM issue, it applies to all PSTN providers and they either incredibly did not consider this issue or decided to roll out the programme anyway.

  • jb66's avatar
    jb66
    Very Insightful Person

    I disagree, care alarm providers are just as much to blame as they were still installing systems that reply on copper telephone lines when they knew that the changeover was imminent and was made clear over the last decade.

    Virgin and openreach have a responsibility to give the care providers time to swap the equipment over to one that doesn't rely on a traditional telephone line which they have done