BT has said that the UK’s ageing copper landline network is increasingly prone to faults and has urged the UK’s Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) providers to move to new technology.
The copper network has been active since 1876 and has been predominantly used for telephone communications and, more recently, providing internet services to people across the nation.
But new data showed that 60% of CNI customers in the UK currently have no plan to migrate away from the legacy analogue network despite the fact it is becoming increasingly unstable with age.
CNI designations are applied to assets considered vital to the functioning of the nation, such as energy grids, water systems, transportation networks and, most recently, data centres. This status affords them extra protections to make them more resilient to energy outages, cyber attacks and adverse weather events.
BT has called on all CNI operators to move their assets off the old copper network by the end of 2025 at the latest.
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