An internet phone is a home phone that makes and receives calls over a broadband connection rather than a copper telephone line. Anyone still using a traditional landline will be moving to one soon. The copper network that carries landline calls is being switched off on 31 January 2027, and providers across Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset and Hampshire are already moving customers across.
That sounds like a big change. From the kitchen table, it is smaller than most people expect. This guide, put together with Dorset-based full fibre provider Wessex Internet, covers what stays the same, what is different, and the handful of things worth checking before switching to a digital landline.
The phone stays the same
There is no need for a new handset. Most cordless phones plug straight into the back of a broadband router, or into a small adapter box beside it, and then carry on exactly as before. Same handset, same ring, same buttons, same address book.
Older corded phones usually work too. The only difference is where the cable goes: into the router, not the socket on the wall. Providers typically publish a set-up guide showing where everything plugs in, and Wessex Internet’s version also lists the call features available on its service.
The phone number moves across
An existing number transfers with the customer. Before anything is switched over, the provider moves the number to the new service, and that part is handled for them. Friends, family, the surgery and the vet carry on ringing the same number they always have.
The one job for the customer
Keep the current phone line live until the move has completed. Cancel it too early and the number can be lost. The new provider will confirm when it is safe to close the old account.
The socket in the hall stops mattering
A traditional landline works through the master socket, which in most older houses sits in the hall or by the front door. An internet phone works through the router, and that might be somewhere else entirely. In a lot of rural properties, this is the one practical change to plan for.
Where to put the base station
A cordless phone with its base at the router and handsets in the rooms people actually use is the simplest answer, and most families already own one. Where a property is spread across a farmhouse, a barn and an office, it is worth raising at the survey stage so the router goes where it suits the household. Thick stone walls and long corridors that stop the signal reaching the far end of the house are a common problem in older rural homes, and most fibre providers offer a mesh or whole-home WiFi add-on to fill the gaps.
Calls sound clearer
Copper lines pick up crackle and hum, and the longer the line, the worse it gets. Plenty of houses at the far end of a long run from the exchange have put up with quiet, scratchy calls for years and assumed that was normal.
An internet phone carries the voice as data over a fibre connection, so distance from the exchange no longer matters. Calls are as clear two miles up a track on Cranborne Chase as they are in the middle of a village.
The bill gets simpler
Line rental on a traditional landline is a fixed monthly charge paid before making a single call. With an internet phone, that charge disappears, because the phone rides on the broadband the household already pays for.
Pricing varies by provider. As a guide, Wessex Telephone packages start at £7.95 a month including unlimited UK landline calls, with options that add free calls to UK mobiles or to 25 countries for those with family abroad.
Power cuts: the one thing to plan for
This is the honest difference. A traditional landline draws its power from the exchange, so it keeps working when the lights go out. An internet phone needs the router to be switched on. No power, no phone.
Power cuts happen more often in the countryside than in town, so this deserves a proper answer rather than a footnote. For most households, the answer is a charged mobile kept somewhere sensible.
For those who cannot rely on a mobile
Some people cannot fall back on a mobile, whether because of signal, health or circumstance. Providers are expected to offer a back-up option that keeps the phone running during an outage. Wessex Internet, for example, offers a Wessex Telephone back-up service free of charge to customers registered as At Risk. Anyone who is older, lives alone or has a health condition should say so when they order so they can be registered.
Calling 999 works exactly as it does today while the service is running.
Alarms, pendants and anything else on the line
It is worth checking what else in the house uses the phone line. Some of it was designed for copper and will not know what to do with an internet connection. The usual suspects are telecare pendants and personal alarms, monitored burglar alarms, lift phones in converted buildings, and older card machines or fax lines in a farm office or shop.
Check with the supplier first
Internet phone services are generally not suitable for monitored medical systems, and many monitored alarm systems will not work with them either. Each device should be checked with the company that supplies it before switching. Most have a digital or SIM-based version available, and the switch-off has been on their radar for a long time. Card machines are usually the easy one; plenty of village pubs and farm shops have already moved payments onto broadband and found them quicker for it. If a pendant or alarm is something a household relies on, that check comes first, not last. A provider can say what usually works, but the supplier has the final word.
Why now: the copper switch-off
The copper network that carries traditional landlines is being retired on 31 January 2027. A stop-sell is already in place at many exchanges, which means plenty of people are being moved to an internet phone by their current provider whether they asked for it or not. Often that arrives as a letter, a box in the post and a helpline a long way from the South West.
Switching on your own timetable means choosing who does it, asking the questions above, and having someone local on site until the phone rings. Wessex Internet has published a fuller guide to the copper switch-off for anyone who wants the background.
Before switching: a short checklist
- Where is the router now, and which rooms need a phone?
- Does anything else plug into the phone line: a pendant, an alarm, a lift phone, a card machine?
- Does anyone in the household need a back-up service for power cuts?
- Is there a mobile that gets signal at home, and is it usually charged?
- Is the current phone line still live, so the number can be moved across?
Talk it through with someone local
Wessex Telephone runs on Wessex Internet’s own full fibre network, which now covers a growing spread of villages, hamlets and outlying farms across Dorset and South Somerset, North Dorset, South Wiltshire and the New Forest in Hampshire. Households in those areas can check availability at their address on the Wessex Internet website or by calling its Dorset-based team on 0333 240 7997.
