Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government, in the light of BT’s Digital Voice rollout, what assessment they have made of residences lacking sufficient mains electricity supply to consistently run a router and a modern telephone.

The Government is determined to ensure any risks arising from the industry-led migration of the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as Digital Voice, are mitigated for all customers across the UK.

In November 2024, providers, including BT, agreed to safeguards in the Non-Voluntary Migrations Checklist including requirements to provide resilience solutions, such as battery back-up units, for vulnerable customers, including the landline-dependent, to enable access to emergency organisations for at least one hour in a power outage. A number of communication providers have gone beyond this minimum, providing solutions that provide 4 to 7 hours that customers can use to power their router during a power cut.