Digital Switchover

What’s happening?
As you may know, the technology that underpins the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) must change, which means the way we deliver our landline service must change too. 

The copper-based equipment used today is becoming outdated and is not fit for prolonged future use. Telecoms operators have to take action to upgrade the phone network in order to keep offering landline service. To this end, Virgin Media is changing the way the landline services work; instead of running over the copper technology, it will run over the broadband network. 

For the majority of customers, the migration over to “Digital Voice” (sometimes referred to as “IP Voice” or “Fibre Voice”) will have limited impact. However, we are aware some customers will need extra support, particularly those who use telecare devices. We also know that Local Authorities are often involved in the provision of telecare devices. 

Virgin Media’s Migration 
Virgin Media has programme in place to decommission the old Telephone Switches (sometimes referred to as Telephone Exchanges) in our network and migrate the customers whose landlines are connected to those switches. This work is happening now and will be ongoing until the end of 2025. We work on multiple Telephone Switches at once and we have dates by which they need to have all the customers migrated away from them. In order to meet those dates, we migrate customers in batches to gradually reduce the number of landlines connected to a switch. 

We have attached a list of switches and the target final migration date for residential customers for 2023 and 2024. It is important to note that migrations will be happening before the dates shown on the lists. Get in touch with us to receive a searchable spreadsheet where you can see the postcodes belonging to each switch. Please respond to this email and copy in [email protected]. 

These dates may change, and we will endeavour to give you information on this as soon as we are able to do so. 

Telecare 
The very last batch of customers migrated away from a switch is a dedicated telecare batch. This means at any point whilst we’re carrying out migrations on this switch, if we identify a telecare user, we can move them into a dedicated customer group and give them the last possible migration date for that switch.  

The advice we give to telecare users is:

• Connected devices and equipment operating over their landline – such as telehealth alarms – may not be compatible with the new telephone services. Customers are advised to contact their alarm provider to check that their equipment is compatible ‘Digital Voice’ products.
• As the telephone is being delivered over broadband technology instead of copper, it will no longer be independently powered. Therefore, in the event of a power cut or broadband network disruption the landline cannot be used to make or receive calls, and any device or equipment use the phone line to make calls or send signals will not work without its own back-up. Virgin Media providers customers with an Emergency Backup Line that ensure voice calls to emergency services can continue. However, this does not support third-party devices and customers are advised to speak to their device provider to about obtaining a device that a separate, dedicated back-up (such as its own battery and a SIM card). 

Our standard migration timeline for customers is three months, but we give customers we know to be telecare users up to six months. 

How we identify telecare users
Virgin Media O2 has been working with the telecare industry and Local Authorities to identify telecare users so that we can offer them extra support and longer migration journey. In order to do this, we use Alarm Receiving Centre telephone numbers to which telecare devices make outbound calls. We use this information to identify which customers may have devices in their homes that operate over the phone line. Organisations can share their ARC numbers with us by emailing by responding to [email protected] and copying in [email protected].  

We have also developed a data-sharing agreement that can be used between Virgin Media and Local Authority (or other telecare organisation). This will allow us to understand which of your clients are telecare device users, and for your organisation to understand which of your clients are Virgin Media customers and when they may be impacted by our migrations. If you would like a copy of the agreement, please respond to [email protected] and copy in [email protected]. 

More information
If you have any queries, we would be happy to discuss them with you. Please email [email protected].

You can also find more information here:
•    https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Virgin-Phone-Switchover/gh-p/Switchover