What is BT 2025 and why is it happening?
BT is changing the way it provides telephone services to its UK customers, moving from analogue to digital technology. BT 2025 is preparing all customers to be using fully digital telephone services.
Today, telephone calls made over landlines are pretty much the only form of communication that travels over networks which has not been part of the digital revolution.
BT is upgrading it’s phone service in response to changing customer needs and demands and because the analogue equipment that powers telephone services today is aging and increasingly difficult to maintain.
To upgrade to digital voice means that BT can offer its customers exciting new benefits that take advantage of the efficiency and flexibility the latest technology brings whilst keeping the reliability, trust and familiarity of today’s existing telephone services.
BT is planning now and starting early. The process of upgrading customers to digital voice services will be gradual, with full engagement with customers and industry to make this a seamless transition.
How will this impact Redcare products and services?
We’ve already started work to identify how the upgrade to BT’s phone network will affect Redcare products and services. We have included some information below and BT is opening a dedicated test facility at its research and development site Adastral Park, near Ipswich, in spring 2018 to enable us and others in the industry to test all of our products and services in the new digital world. We’ll keep you updated as we do this.
When is this happening?
The move to digital phone services will be gradual. BT will start to launch its first new services towards the end of 2018 with the aim of having all of its customers upgraded by 2025. BT is putting steps in place that aim to ensure customers with special services, such as Redcare products, do not switch to digital telephone services until their special service has been tested in the new digital world.
What about Redcare’s competitors? Will their products still work?
Any company that provides a special service such as alarms that use the analogue phone network will need to ensure that their products and services will continue to work in the new digital world. BT’s test centre will be available to all suppliers to test their products to ensure service continuity in the fully digital world.
What about other communication providers?
Many communications providers are upgrading to digital phone services and they will all have their own transformation programs which may run over different timescales and using different technologies. We will test all Redcare equipment if we are made aware of any test facilities that other communications providers provide.