The Great British Switch Off: Why the future of voice is digital

If you’ve recently moved - or are thinking of moving - to full fibre, you may have noticed that it isn’t delivered in quite the same way as traditional broadband.

Instead of using the old copper telephone cables, it uses a fibre optic connection all the way to your home.

For speed and reliability of broadband this is ideal. Without those copper cables to slow things down and create problems you can enjoy a rock-solid internet connection with all the bandwidth you need.

But that move away from copper could potentially cause one or two problems when it comes to your home phone.

Change is inevitable

As the Great British Switch Off approaches – that’s the term we’re using for the big copper switch off that will finish in 2025 – the clock is ticking on traditional line rental and telephony services.

From much sooner than that date, old-fashioned voice services will begin to be switched off, and that means – if you need a home phone – an alternative will be required.

Not just fibre

And this isn’t just for full fibre users (though they may notice the change sooner). In fact, even if your broadband is still delivered the ‘old-fashioned way’, you’ll still be unable to make and receive calls as you do today.

This really is a change that will affect all home phone users in the years ahead.

Going digital

And so, we turn to the alternative.

When the copper phone network ceases to exist, millions of home phone users up and down the country could be left disconnected.

Or that would be the case if not for the replacement for traditional telephony: Digital Voice.

Digital Voice is an all-new way of providing your home telephone service, using your broadband connection instead of copper lines.

Because Digital Voice uses a broadband connection that is separate from the copper telephone network, you don’t need to worry about line rental. That means a Digital Voice service will often cost much less. In fact, our Digital Voice service costs just £7 on top of the price of your full fibre bundle, with an included 1,000 minutes for UK mobile and landline calls.

Although much better value than a traditional landline bundle, Digital Voice comes with a host of features including voicemail, call waiting, call barring, call diversion (to another device, like your mobile) and more. And as an added bonus, call quality is likely to be much better too.

Time to make the change?

If you’re a Zen Full Fibre user, you can take advantage of Digital Voice right now. It will give you all the benefits of a home phone line at a much better value.

If you’re not currently using full fibre, you should be aware that over the next 2-3 years, Digital Voice will become the norm for all.

To find out more about Digital Voice from Zen, visit our dedicated page here.