Campaigners accuse it of misleading the public over Digital Voice trials
When BT resumed its rollout of Digital Voice earlier this year, ahead of the copper network being switched off in 2025, it had the backing of Silver Voices (www.silvervoices.co. uk), a campaign group for the elderly. The group claimed BT assured it that nobody over 70 would be switched to digital unless they volunteered to do so.
Silver Voices has now withdrawn that support, and called previous BT guarantees “untrue”. The problem, it says, is that in a recent trial of Digital Voice in the East Midlands, BT moved customers without them having requested it.
BT said that the customers, aged between 70 and 74, were well placed to cope with the switch because they already had broadband and the latest router, and didn’t often use their landline for calls. In addition, they weren’t considered vulnerable and didn’t require special assistance.
It says the trial was vindicated because only two per cent of customers declined to switch. This “really positive” result has encouraged BT to push ahead with similar plans in Yorkshire and the Humber.
However, Silver Voices is also unhappy that BT didn’t offer a landline-only alternative to customers, leaving them little option but to sign up to a broadband package from the company.
It calls this move a “breach of faith”, adding that the reason BT suspended the Digital Voice rollout in May 2022 was to develop landline-only products designed for the over-70s and vulnerable customers. The group also accused BT of not telling customers that switching to digital is still voluntary.
Silver Voices says that because vulnerable customers are being neglected, the 2025 deadline is “untenable”. It called for the digital and copper networks to work “in parallel for at least five years, so that everyone continues to have access to a reliable landline, until proven new technology is in place”. It prefers this solution to the 2025 switch-off, which it describes as a “‘Big Bang’ approach”.
BT didn’t comment directly on Silver Voices’ accusations. Instead it acknowledged the group’s role in “helping inform” its regional trials, alongside other groups representing older people, including Age UK and Independent Age, as part of the Digital Voice Advisory Group.
It added that working with these campaigners has improved its customer communications during the trials.
Based on these statements from BT and Silver Voices – neither of which are especially detailed – it’s hard to k
