Source: Department for Science Innovation and Technology published on this website Tuesday 19 November 2024 by Jill Powell
The country’s most vulnerable, including elderly people relying on personal alarms to call for help, will be better protected during the switch from analogue to digital landlines, thanks to a new government agreement reached with the telecoms industry on Monday 18 November.
This will include a new requirement for companies to offer an engineer visit to vulnerable customers, who will personally test the vital alarm and ensure it continues to work once a household has moved on the digital network.
Personal alarms are lifesaving buttons connected to phone networks and are known as ‘telecare devices. They offer remote support to elderly, disabled, and vulnerable people, sometimes living in remote and isolated locations. Nearly two million people use these vital alarms in the UK.
Following some incidents happening last year, Telecoms Minister Chris Bryant called on telecoms companies to complete a strict checklist of safeguards before transferring customers from old analogue phone lines onto a digital network, reducing the risk of them being disconnected during the migration.
In a round table at techUK’s London HQ attended by representatives from the sector including BT, Virgin Media, Vodafone and Sky, the minister also urged companies to extend the power of battery back-up solutions beyond the existing one-hour minimum, maximising their resilience as far as possible and access to emergency services in the event of a power outage.
During the roundtable, telecoms providers agreed that non-voluntary upgrades would start on a smaller scale before rolling out more widely, reducing accidental loss of phone services for those most likely to come to harm if their telephone line is discontinued.
Telecoms Minister Chris Bryant laid out the actions other stakeholders, such as telecare companies, need to take to safeguard telecare users through the digital phone switchover. This includes ensuring that no telecare user will be migrated to digital landline services without the communication provider, the customer, or the telecare service provider confirming that the user has a compatible and functioning telecare solution in place. These actions will be outlined in the first Telecare National Action Plan, which government will publish before the end of the year.
In addition to measures laid out with phone network providers, Telecoms Minister Bryant also agreed the first charter with telecoms companies providing services to of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), such as the water and energy industries, whose services may also be affected by the switchover. This includes an escalation mechanism to allow concerns relating to the switchover to be raised with central government, ensuring continued safe provision of these services.
The digital telephone switchover is necessary as the old copper analogue landline network, which telecare devices have historically relied on for connectivity, is increasingly unreliable with higher incidences of customer-impacting faults. The decision to upgrade the analogue landline network (PSTN) is necessary because its aging parts, many of which are no longer being produced, make it increasingly unreliable.
