Are You Ready for PSTN & ISDN To Switch Off?

All good things must come to an end, and after nearly a century, we are finally witnessing the expiration of the PSTN and ISDN networks.

Since Victorian times, the UK's telephone network has utilised copper cables to connect telephones back through telegraph poles to local telephone exchanges, linked together to create a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

Initially under the auspices of the General Post Office and later British Telecommunication, then Openreach, the copper line and telephone exchange network has connected homes and businesses across the UK for over 100 years, with the physical infrastructure behind it changing very little in that time.

The parallel development of ISDN, a multi-channel PSTN connection that allowed up to thirty calls to take place on the same line simultaneously, allowed businesses to buy telephone services in bulk, and many organisations still do.

The most significant change in recent years was the development of DSL technology, which allowed digital data to use the same line as telephone communication without interfering with the voice call. This technical trick eventually resulted in the broad adoption of DSL Broadband across the UK, breathing new life into the copper lines and local telephone exchanges.

For the last thirty years, the situation has been relatively settled. People have continued to buy copper lines under various nomenclatures for their homes and businesses, delivering the same user experience of dial tone and numbering, broadband and calls. But that's all about to change.

In 2025, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is being switched off, which means everyone, from households to businesses, currently using PSTN-based services will need to move to another service before.

Why are they being phased out?

PSTN has been the backbone of the UK's phone network for decades. Still, we have seen rapid technological advances over the past two decades, and PSTN and ISDN are rapidly becoming out-of-date technology and expensive to operate and maintain due to the sheer amount of demand. As an essentially 20th-century technology, the PSTN network is increasingly out of kilter with modern communications needs. As people increasingly switch to mobile and internet communications, everyone demands much more than the traditional technologies were designed to deliver.

The switch to digital is happening all around the world and fast. As technology and customer behaviour change, phone companies worldwide are moving from analogue to digital. Germany, Japan, and Sweden are ahead of us in making the shift. Estonia and The Netherlands were ahead of the curve and switched off their PSTN networks.

What will take the place of PSTN and ISDN?

VoIP is the primary technology that will eventually replace ISDN. VoIP, which stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, enables your phone service to be provided over the internet. You will no longer need expensive analogue phone lines in your workplace since it simply needs an internet connection to function. VoIP provides superior call quality, flexibility, and functionality than ISDN connections.

Along with VoIP, there is Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). By connecting your phone system to the public phone network through an Internet Protocol (IP) system, SIP trunks allow you to utilise VoIP. Because SIP can connect to most current systems, it is a popular alternative for people transitioning to internet-based phone service.

2025. That's a long way off. What's the point of discussing this now?

It would be best if you began preparing your move as soon as possible since it may involve a lot of work. Keep in mind that it's not simply phone calls that are important. Door entry systems and alarms should be reviewed before they're connected to your phone lines.

So, if you are a firm with a vision and want to keep expanding and interacting in more relevant ways, embrace the switch off. Move away from hardware-based technology and toward application-based technology.

Use the flexibility that this infrastructure provides to propel your company ahead.

Don't wait till 2025. You may either be at the forefront of that shift or be caught in the surge of enterprises that did not move quickly enough.

Our expertise in customer migration truly shines through here. Our team can reduce the effect of the disturbance on productivity and workflow. Contact us for a free 15 minutes consultancy!