Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether her department has an estimation of the number of houses in Farnham and Bordon with poor broadband that will be left without a telephone connection following the landline to digital switchover.

Landlines are not being removed. The technology underpinning the analogue landline network, the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), is being upgraded to digital Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

In order to function correctly, VoIP requires a minimum connection speed of just 0.5 megabytes per second. It is possible to order a VoIP landline without purchasing a broadband connection.

In November 2024, the Government secured additional safeguards from the telecoms industry. These include the provision of free battery back-ups for vulnerable and landline dependent customers to ensure access to emergency services go beyond the Ofcom’s minimum requirement of one hour in a power outage. Many communication providers have gone further, providing battery back-ups of 4-7 hours, with back-up time for VoIP-only connections likely to be at the higher end of this range as the battery run-time is primarily driven by power consumption.

In March 2026, the Government and industry agreed a new Fixed Telecoms Charter to extend these safeguards to all future fixed telecoms modernisation programmes.