Landline switchover could leave remote communities cut off in emergencies, MPs warn

MPs have warned that plans to switch off the UK's traditional landline phone network could leave people in remote areas unable to contact help in an emergency. Landline operators intend to complete the move to an internet-based network in place of copper-wire cables by the end of January next year. The government and operators say the switch to digital landlines will offer a more reliable service. But MPs representing remote constituencies urged security minister Dan Jarvis to ensure that scrapping the copper-wire network does not make their communities more vulnerable in a storm or other emergency. Unlike digital services, the traditional landline network does not rely on mains electricity and continues to work in a power cut. Labour MP Torcuil Crichton, who represents the Western Isles constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, said resilience was "inbuilt in the islands" but that the move from analogue to digital phone lines was causing major connectivity problems. When the power goes out, he said, people do not have their phone, do not have the internet and often do not have a mobile signal either. Retail service providers have been giving back-up battery packs to vulnerable customers, which can keep landline phones operating for an hour or more. Crichton said this was "simply not adequate" and that mobile phone providers "simply don't have the means to maintain or keep their signal going during storms". He urged the minister to press telecoms firms to "up their digital game" to protect places "on the edge where people are vulnerable, isolated from their neighbours, where the ambulance is an hour away and the storm is 70 miles an hour". Similar concerns were raised by MPs from the West Country and the Lake District. Markus Campbell-Savours, Labour MP for Penrith and Solway, asked Jarvis to imagine an elderly constituent living alone in an isolated Lake District valley where copper phone lines had been replaced by fibre. If a storm knocked out power to the router overnight and the modest battery back-up had failed by morning, along with the mobile mast, the person would have no way to raise an alarm, he said, arguing that a new technological solution was needed to protect the elderly. Conservative MP Julian Lewis also raised concerns about the lack of a back-up system if digital phone services went down in a cyber attack or other emergency. He told Jarvis the copper-wire network "could have given us useful levels of resilience in an emergency". Jarvis, who is spearheading the government's Be Ready campaign, which advises people to stock up on supplies to prepare for emergencies, said he would "look very closely" at Lewis's point. He assured West Country MPs their concerns would be addressed at a government resilience summit due to take place in Cornwall next month, and promised to raise the issues with telecoms firms through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. "Our telephone networks are a vital part of our critical national infrastructure and our emergency response in weather-related crisis supports the functioning of essential services and keeping people connected when they need it most," Jarvis told MPs. The government says the switch to digital phone services is needed because the traditional analogue network is becoming increasingly unreliable. Digital signals will be sent over copper telephone wires where they have not yet been replaced by fibre connections. The Be Ready campaign advises people who have not yet migrated to a modern digital network to contact their landline provider, and says vulnerable customers such as telecare users must be given a free back-up battery unit by their communication provider.