2023 has brought us ever closer to the shutdown of the UK’s PSTN network. Already, many exchanges no longer accept new orders for PSTN services and many providers are serving notice to customers that their telephone lines and broadband services will be withdrawn. There are a number of services that could be impacted so you need to think about:
🚨 Alarm monitoring 💳 Payment terminals 🗝️ Door entry systems 📠 Faxes 📹 CCTV
As this legacy copper network is gradually shut down, many businesses may already have made the move to VOIP services for making and receiving calls, however they may be running these services over an internet connection which is provided on a PSTN service that will ultimately be withdrawn.
The ultimate goal is to digitise all communications in the UK – a noble quest, but one that is not without its challenges as network operators groan under the strain of accelerating fibre rollouts.
The long-term ambition is to have a fibre connection available to the vast majority of homes and businesses in the UK but this involves huge investment and time-consuming build programmes.
It will be several years before many can access the Fibre To The Premise (or Full Fibre broadband) service which can deliver download speeds of up to 1Gbps (although the upload speed will be much less as it’s not a synchronous product) and technologies such as 5G are yet to mature to a point where they are a reliable and capable primary connection for businesses.
Digital Communication Strategy
The reality is that for many businesses, now is very much the time to be reviewing their digital communications strategy and assessing how dependent their business operations are on high-speed, high-availability internet. Some simple questions that may need answering
- What is the impact on our business when the internet fails at one of our office locations?
- Do we need to build resilience into our communications plan?
- Are there other projects (such as migrating certain technologies to the cloud) that are going to place a higher demand on our internet connection?
- Is now the right time to review our voice services – is our telephone system fit for purpose once the PSTN switch off is complete?
- What business processes is my backup internet actually capable of running?
Fibre Ethernet
In short, many areas still have few options in terms of broadband replacement – we recently dealt with a customer who had been informed that their line and broadband service was being withdrawn in the near future, but for whom FTTP was not yet available. So where does this leave them?
Well for many, the increasing affordability of Fibre Ethernet (or Dedicated Leased Line) is the natural transition, providing dedicated connections with business-grade service levels for repair and speeds of up to 1Gbps in both directions.
