The October price increase: why now is the time to review your legacy estate.
If your business delays Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) migration, you'll likely face three challenges: rising costs, reduced visibility of what's connected to your legacy estate, and growing operational risk as the January 2027 switch-off approaches.
That's why the October 2026 price increase matters. It's not just another industry milestone. It's an opportunity to understand what remains in your estate before costs increase further and time becomes more limited.
AT-A-GLANCE
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PSTN, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) services will be withdrawn by 31 January 2027.
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Legacy copper-based services have already seen price increases, with another increase arriving on 1 October 2026.
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By October, the cost of many legacy services will effectively have doubled compared to 2025.
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The biggest risk is often not the phone line itself, but what is still connected to it.
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Businesses that delay reviewing their estate increase the chance of discovering critical dependencies later in the process.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU WAIT?
Some organisations ask a simple question:
Can we just leave our services in place until the deadline?
Technically, services may continue operating until withdrawal.
But doing nothing is still a decision, and it carries consequences.
In the short term
- Costs continue to increase
- Budget pressure grows
- Visibility of the estate remains limited
As the deadline approaches
- Less time is available to identify hidden dependencies
- Replacement projects become more compressed
- Complex migrations become harder to plan
Most importantly, a service can only be migrated if you know it exists.
Many organisations assume they have already addressed PSTN because they have moved telephony to the cloud or adopted modern collaboration tools. Then a review discovers legacy systems still relying on analogue connectivity.
These can include:
- Fire alarms
- Security alarms
- CCTV systems
- Lift emergency phones
- Door entry systems
- Fax machines
- Payment terminals
- EPOS systems
- Building management systems
- Remote monitoring equipment
DON'T GET CAUGHT OUT
If a critical service remains connected to a withdrawn service, organisations could face:
- Service outages
- Operational disruption
- Emergency communication failures
- Security system issues
- Unexpected remediation costs
The important point is that this is not a temporary outage. The withdrawal of PSTN services is permanent.
Before disconnecting any legacy line, organisations need certainty about what that line supports.
NEXT STEPS
The organisations best prepared for January 2027 are not necessarily those that have completed migration already.
They're the ones that understand their estate.
The October price increase creates another reason to act, but cost is only part of the story. Reviewing your legacy estate can help you:
- Understand what services are still in use
- Identify hidden dependencies
- Remove unnecessary costs
- Build a realistic migration plan
- Reduce operational risk ahead of withdrawal
If you're unsure what remains connected to PSTN, ISDN or ADSL services, speak to one of our experts. An estate review can help you understand the impact of the upcoming price increases, identify hidden dependencies and build a practical migration plan with confidence.
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