Openreach has announced a further 46 new exchange locations across the UK, covering an additional 344,000 premises, where it is planning to stop selling legacy analogue services to encourage the adoption of new digital services over a full fibre connection.

The business is giving 12 months’ notification that it will no longer be selling copper-based products or services in these exchanges.

BT is switching off the existing analogue phoneline platform by the end of December 2025 and everyone in the UK will need to have a digital phone line before then.

To help prepare, Openreach is stopping the sale of copper-based analogue services in exchange areas where a majority of premises have access to its full fibre network.

When a majority of premises connected to a particular exchange can get ultrafast full fibre, customers will not be able to buy old copper products and will ideally get a new service delivered over Openreach’s new full fibre network, which is already available to more than 12.8 million homes and businesses nationwide.

Openreach said the shift from copper to fibre will be as significant as the move from analogue to digital and black and white TV to colour.

“By eventually retiring analogue phone lines, we will be creating a simplified network which allows us to meet the enhanced needs of an increasingly digital society,” said a spokesman.

“That’s why over the next few years, we’ll be upgrading just under nine million remaining analogue lines – including the now ageing traditional landline telephone service – to new digital ones.”