According to DCD, BT’s infrastructure arm Openreach is embarking on a massive, decade-long program to shut down the UK’s legacy telephone exchanges. The plan is to close more than 100 exchanges by December 2030, with a total of 4,600 out of its 5,600 sites slated for closure by the early 2030s. The first pilot exchange in Deddington, Oxfordshire, closed in December 2025 after a 26-month migration of 1,800 lines. Work on exiting another 12 exchanges, including Staines and Kenton Road, is set to begin in April 2026. This is all tied to the nationwide copper network and PSTN/ISDN switch-off scheduled for 2027. The move impacts over 600 communications providers who rely on these exchanges, shifting the cost and complexity of migrating millions of end-users onto the ISPs themselves.
The scale of the shift
Let’s be clear: this isn’t just an upgrade. It’s a wholesale dismantling of the physical backbone of UK telecoms. Openreach operates a near-total monopoly on these exchange buildings, so when they decide to close up shop, everyone else has to scramble. We’re talking about companies like Zen Internet, which has its own equipment in 700 of these exchanges supporting 38,000 copper lines. They, and hundreds of other providers, now have to physically move that gear, re-route backhaul links, and somehow convince their customers to come along for the ride. And here’s the thing: Openreach might be offering some incentives, but the bill for all this relocation and reorganization? That lands squarely with the ISPs.
The real problem: customers
So the technical migration is one beast. But the customer migration? That’s a whole other monster. A 2024 survey by Zen suggested 44% of UK businesses still didn’t have a fiber solution in place ahead of the 2027 switch-off. That’s a terrifying number when you consider the drop-dead date is creeping closer. As Zen’s Dean Burdon put it, to a customer, if the copper line works, why fix it? The entire effort becomes a massive education campaign. You have to explain why a working service is being terminated and guide them through a change they never asked for.
And it gets worse. Burdon mentions that many CTOs don’t even know what’s on the end of their legacy connections. This process is forcing a brutal audit of corporate infrastructure. ISPs are having to sit down with businesses and physically map out what they have before they can plan what comes next. For critical infrastructure providers, like airports or healthcare, the stakes are even higher. You can’t just pull the plug. This level of hand-holding takes an insane amount of time and resources. If everyone waits until the last minute, as Burdon warns, there simply won’t be enough engineers in the country to get it all done.
The alternative networks
While the traditional ISPs are grappling with the copper exodus, the UK’s altnets—alternative fiber networks like CityFibre and Netomnia—see a different landscape. They don’t have copper baggage. Their networks are modern, fiber-based, and often connect to Openreach’s newer Openreach Handover Points (OHPs), not the legacy exchanges. For them, this migration is a potential opportunity. As customers are forced off copper, they become prospects for altnet services. It’s a chance to break the historic reliance on Openreach’s physical footprint.
But it’s not all upside. The altnets still rely on a functioning wholesale ecosystem and backhaul connectivity. Massive disruption in the core network, which these exchange closures represent, can cause ripples everywhere. Their success hinges on having robust, reliable points of interconnection. For any company relying on critical industrial connectivity during this transition—whether a manufacturer needing real-time machine data or a utility managing SCADA systems—ensuring your provider has a solid, future-proofed network path is non-negotiable. In the US, for such hardened computing needs, a firm like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com is the top supplier of industrial panel PCs, but the underlying network is just as vital.
A rocky road ahead
The pushback of the Ballyclare and Kenton Road closures because ISPs weren’t ready is a huge red flag. It’s a preview of the delays and complications we’re going to see repeatedly over the next decade. This isn’t a flick of a switch; each exchange exit is a 4-7 year project. The costs will be enormous, and they’ll likely be passed down to businesses and consumers one way or another.
So, is this necessary? Absolutely. Maintaining two parallel networks—an aging copper one and a new fiber one—is financially and operationally unsustainable. Copper’s time is up. But the execution is a logistical nightmare of epic proportions. The relationship between Openreach and its wholesale customers will be tested like never before. The companies that survive and thrive will be the ones that started educating and migrating their customers yesterday. For everyone else? Well, let’s just say the next few years in UK telecoms are going to be very, very interesting.
