Thomas Collingwood-Smith, Digital Transformation Specialist at Gamma, explains why the ISDN Switch Off is nothing to fear, but can’t be ignored.
On April 27, consumers and businesses connected to telephone exchanges in Salisbury and Mildenhall were left in no doubt that the ISDN Switch-Off is real. The need to address this reality dawned when their exchanges became the first in the country to terminate their ISDN/PSTN services, as part of a process of moving everyone onto future- proof voice and broadband services delivered over fibre.
The two exchanges had stopped selling traditional phone line services and fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) broadband more than two years ago (known as stop-sell in industry jargon), but existing customers were unaffected and could carry on using their PSTN/ ISDN services with the same performance and service levels. That all changed on April 27, when Openreach started a process of service degradation to force people in those areas to switch to replacement IP solutions for voice and broadband.
“At 10am on the 27th of April, Openreach started cutting speeds for users of the Salisbury and Mildenhall exchanges and they’re going to cut speeds quite substantially,” explains Thomas Collingwood-Smith, Digital Transformation Specialist at technology-based communication services provider Gamma.
“Regardless of what speeds they’re currently getting, users are going to be restricted to 2 meg (megabits per second) of download speed and 0.8 meg of upload speeds, substantially curtailing and affecting services. If you’re a company or a user that relies on a high bandwidth that will obviously act as an incentive to move before June, when Openreach will initiate call barring on those lines.”
National stop-sell
Salisbury and Mildenhall are in the vanguard of the ISDN Switch Off, but Collingwood-Smith points out that time is running out for people in other parts of the country too.
“One of the main dates this year is going to be September 2023, when a national stop-sell will occur. What happened in December 2020 and May 2021 in Salisbury and Mildenhall respectively, is going to happen on a UK-wide level, so when a partner or customer comes to us for voice and broadband their only options will be all IP.”
The ISDN Switch Off is tightly linked to the simultaneous roll- out of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), which is providing the infrastructure for the all-IP voice and data communications of the future. Businesses and domestic users who currently have a PSTN/ ISDN landline service and ADSL or FTTC broadband must switch to an FTTP alternative or SOGEA.
Standing for Single Order Generic Ethernet Access, SOGEA is basically FTTC minus dial tone and a stop-gap for customers that don’t yet have FTTP. Because it will continue to make use of copper wiring between a customer’s premises and the cabinet on the street, there will be no noticeable change after moving to SOGEA for people who currently get their broadband via FTTC, although ADSL broadband users will see a speed boost.
Switching to FTTP has the potential to give users a massive performance upgrade, depending on the package selected. SOGEA and FTTP will also be used for voice traffic. If a business or consumer wants to replace their old PSTN/ISDN landline, they will need to subscribe to a Voice over IP (VoIP) service like those offered by Gamma and its partners.
Many businesses and some consumers will already have made the changes required by the ISDN Switch Off simply by keeping up to speed with developments in telephony and connectivity. Even so, there are thought to be as many as 12 million landlines that still need to be moved by 2025.
A complete solution
As a leading business communications provider, Gamma and its reseller partners are well placed to help businesses of all sizes, from micro-businesses to larger enterprises, to make this transition.
“The company started in 2001 with a fibre network and datacentres in London, Manchester and Glasgow and since then it’s grown its network in a sustainable and ethical fashion, becoming one of the first carbon neutral carriers in the UK and the number one SIP provider in the UK before extending operations to Europe in 2018,” explains Collingwood-Smith. “We have always specialised in voice products enabled by our connectivity network.
In 2011, we released what is our now flagship product, the Horizon hosted business phone system. We entered the Unified Communications space in 2019 and we have been enhancing our portfolio with a wide range of voice products ever since.
“Today, we have Horizon; we have SIP Trunking (an ISDN replacement); we’ve got PhoneLine+, which is essential to the PSTN Switch-Off, being a landline replacement service; we’ve got the Horizon Contact cloud contact centre; and we’ve got a number of Teams-enabled products, such as Microsoft Direct Routing and Operator Connect. These are all ways of enabling different businesses with different business needs to use our products and to use our networks.”
Seize the opportunity
Collingwood-Smith adds that Gamma has two big benefits for businesses facing the ISDN Switch Off: the strength of its connectivity and telephony offering, which gives new and existing customers an opportunity to modernise and future-proof their communications; and its 20+ years’ experience in addressing the needs of business customers.
“The ISDN Switch Off is a great opportunity to get rid of that legacy phone system. It’s a great opportunity to audit your lines, to make sure you understand exactly what you’re paying your carrier for and perhaps to save money on invoices. It is also a chance to make sure your staff have the best communication tools to help your company succeed.
For example, voice integration with Teams, if that’s something you need, or multiple phones ringing simultaneously in different locations to ensure no calls are missed when you are out on a job. For us, that’s what it’s all about – making sure we help people with their businesses.”
One example of how Gamma is helping to make this change as seamless as possible – ‘to turn this leap into a step’, as Collingwood- Smith puts it – is its Simple Swap process.
“This is something we’ve designed internally with smart bits of coding, an API if you will, that enables you to move your legacy service onto SOGEA and attach the voice service to that order
as well. It’s essentially one order that gives you three things: your SOGEA line; your PhoneLine+ line; and a port that allows you to keep your existing number, which is obviously incredibly important for businesses.
“In addition, many of the VoIP solutions that we use are plug and play. It’s all in the cloud, so you don’t need an engineer to plug things in and set things up, and they are designed to be as familiar as possible. PhoneLine+, for example, is designed to work with the household phone or the business phone you already have, so you don’t necessarily need new hardware. And there is an app that can be installed on your mobile, laptop or tablet that you can use to make and take calls.”
Act now
BT Openreach announced the PSTN/ISDN Switch Off in 2017 but many people still aren’t as aware of the imminent change as they should be. And, even if they are, many haven’t done anything about it.
Collingwood-Smith argues that businesses should start future- proofing their communications now, not least because there is no benefit in delaying the inevitable.
“Normally, when adopting new technologies there is the risk that something new and better will come along in six months’ time. In this case, the technology is being rolled out and put in the ground for the future; there is no other switch- off on the horizon, which should give people peace of mind.
“In addition, if you keep delaying because you think the time’s not right, you might be forced to rush to a product that’s not quite what you needed, so being on the front foot and making sure that your business can continue into the future makes absolute sense. The earlier people take this step, the smoother they will make their transition.”
Further information
To help businesses prepare for and respond to the ISDN Switch Off, Gamma has produced an interactive website with loads of information on the switch-off, the timeline and suitable replacement products, plus the ability to engage with and get advice from subject matter experts.
To find out more about why you should be acting now and how Gamma can help you make the switch, scan the QR code or visit: https://www.gamma.co.uk/ solutions/landline-replacement- pstn/.
