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We have FTTC. That's pretty widespread nowadays. But the last mile (as Stu says) for a large amount of the UK is copper. Most places don't have the option of FTTP yet.
BT to retire the old analogue phone network. (title edited)
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Yes. In times of old, the copper cables coming into the home only carried an analogue phone signal.
Then ADSL came along (1990s) and allowed both Internet (data) and the old analogue voice to be carried over the same cable. That's what all copper-based (from your house) internet connections use and what all non-fibre broadband uses.
The big switch-off mentioned in this thread is turning off the old analogue voice over these existing cables and making the copper cable to houses carry data only. The home broadband router will then do the voice<-->data conversion and you'll plug your phone into the router instead of the wall socket.
Edit to add -
I didn't see AG's post above this when I posted this -
I haven't had time to dig deeper but this is what BT are saying.
BT, who plan to retire their copper network as fibre is rolled out UK wide. In fact, they have already signalled that once an area is served by 75% fibre to the premises then no more copper-based services will be sold. Other providers are less reliant on copper twisted-pair cables in their networks and so for them, there is likely to be less disruptio
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It may be that "once an area is served by 75% fibre to the premises then no new copper-based services will be sold (but existing copper-based services will continue to work"? Or it may by that they are meaning "to the cabinet" rather than "to the home".
A huge amount of the UK has copper to the cabinet with no alternative. They're not about to turn it off and disconnect a huge amount of the population.
A huge amount of the UK has copper to the cabinet with no alternative. They're not about to turn it off and disconnect a huge amount of the population.
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You never know…I was in the same situation but a little company (we have 50 properties here) Brought FTTP into the village as we could claim a voucher off the previous government.
950Mbps up/down.
It's definitely worth switching if possible.
I've had full fibre for almost a month now and it's a massive improvement from the old FTTC that we toiled with previously.
We've gone from an average Internet speed of 65mps with FTTC (often grindingly slow considering the sheer amount of devices we have perpetually connected) to 900mps with full fibre and we're only paying an extra tenner or so per month.
We could have gone cheaper, in fact cheaper than we were paying before and still had around 500mps guaranteed, but as others here, I have kids who are big gamers so the higher speed works better for that.
No more land line but the only calls we ever got were from some fella trying to sell us driveways, so it's no great loss
I've had full fibre for almost a month now and it's a massive improvement from the old FTTC that we toiled with previously.
We've gone from an average Internet speed of 65mps with FTTC (often grindingly slow considering the sheer amount of devices we have perpetually connected) to 900mps with full fibre and we're only paying an extra tenner or so per month.
We could have gone cheaper, in fact cheaper than we were paying before and still had around 500mps guaranteed, but as others here, I have kids who are big gamers so the higher speed works better for that.
No more land line but the only calls we ever got were from some fella trying to sell us driveways, so it's no great loss
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We tried that as a village a few years ago. Couldn't get enough (a few hundred) to commit to it so it never went though
Same here on the calls we never used the landline.
We were offered a voice service as Talk Talk supply a free small box that plugs into one ethernet port on the router and allows you to plug a standard landline phone into it and you keep your number seems to work well but I am glad to see the back of the old phone.
This thread reminds me of a holliday in Scotland where the only internetconnection was at a local postoffice with a 28k modem. talk about shocking response times! 
This thread reminds me of a holliday in Scotland where the only internetconnection was at a local postoffice with a 28k modem. talk about shocking response times!
I remember back in the day when we all played FPS's on dial up with pings of 100ms plus it was sometimes like watching a flick book and at other playable one thing it definitely was was amazing those first few month of online gaming i will never forget.
From the horses mouth -
2018 – Plans to retire the old telephone network within seven years are announced. This will see everyone in the UK upgraded to a digital phone line, laying the foundations for the future
2019 – Salisbury becomes the first Openreach Full Fibre city in the UK. The Wiltshire city has the fastest citywide network in the UK
2020-2023 – Openreach stops selling PSTN based copper products initially at an exchange level and then nationally. Openreach will adopt a phased approach to stop selling copper broadband and telephony products. From September 5th 2023, this will apply across the UK
2027 – Retiring the old analogue phone network. By this time, everyone in the UK will be upgraded to a digital phone line – which will use the broadband network to make calls in a similar way to other Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technologies like Skype, Facetime, and Microsoft Teams; enabling HD calls, improved functionality and allowing the UK to keep pace with the rest of the world, all while continuing to provide the reliability and reassurance of the traditional landline
https://www.openreach.com/news-and-opinion/2023/openreach-change-telephone-network
