Preparing for the PSTN switch off: Challenges, solutions and next steps
Dan Wilesmith: Sales Manager
Darren Hogan: Director of Portfolio
Dan: Welcome to Nasstar's PSTN switch-off conversation. We're going to have a chat today about what PSTN is, what it does, and the services it supports. We're going to talk about the switch-off, what that means for you, and what you can do about it. I'm Dan Wilesmith. I'm part of the sales leadership team here at Nasstar, and I'm joined today by our subject matter expert, Darren Hogan. Morning, Darren.
Darren: Hey, Dan. How are you?
Dan: I'm good, thanks. Yourself?
Darren: Very good, thank you. Yes, so I look after the portfolio here at Nasstar. And all of these solutions and products and services fall under the portfolio for connectivity services for Nasstar.
Dan: So I've got a bit of a bone to pick with you before we get started. So for context, for those of you watching at home, Darren and I, we hosted this chat last year, about 12 months ago. At the time, the end date was December 2025. Now, one of the questions I posed to you, Darren, was...
Darren: Are they going to extend the deadline?
Dan: And you said...
Darren: Absolutely not. No, you need to act now. And yet here we are.
Dan: Yes, exactly. So we had this chat last year. Darren assured us they're not going to change the end date. And then literally two or three days after we went live, they moved the end date to January 2027. So thank you, Darren.
Darren: Well, it feels like you're blaming me for this, Dan.
Dan: Not at all. Not at all. But I think on a serious note, one thing we've learned over the last 12 months is that even though the date has actually changed, it doesn't really matter that much. But we'll come back to that later as to why that is.
Darren: Sure.
Dan: So… PSTN, Public Switch Telephone Network. What is it?
Darren: Yeah, so a bunch of letters is what it is.
Dan: Okay.
Darren: In our industry, we love an acronym, don't we?
Dan: Yeah.
Darren: Public Switch Telephone Network. So in very basic terms, it is the copper network of circuits that we use to transmit and receive telephone calls. So the phone that you have at home will be connected to a PSTN service. And that service, you pick up the phone, there's a dial tone. I can dial 01484 and I can dial somebody in Huddersfield. I can dial your prefix. And the internal routing and switching of the infrastructure is handled by the PSTN, the public switch telephone network.
Dan: So that leaves your house, that goes to the little green box at the end of your road. Then that goes on to the exchanges, these big, ugly buildings full of stuff.
Darren: Absolutely, yeah. So the PCP or the primary connection point is the green cabinet at the end of the road that we're all used to seeing. That aggregates all of the connections from the residences and the commercial properties in the local area. And then there is a connection from that particular green cabinet to the exchange. And that is replicated throughout the UK.
Dan: Okay fine. So it sounds like it's everywhere, it's physical stuff and I guess we'll come to this later, but it sounds like it's quite expensive to maintain
Darren: Absolutely yeah, so if you think about you know the physical switching infrastructure in some of these larger exchanges, you know sometimes half the size of a football field, you know the power that they use from the grid is significant.
Dan: Right, fine. Hold that thought. We'll explore that more in a bit. So what does it do? So I can pick up the phone, I can make a call. It used to be a dial-up internet, and I know it does some internet now. Precisely, what does it do?
Darren: Yeah, so we had dial-up modems in the past, and I was part of an organisation that rolled out FreeServe, if you remember FreeServe back in the day.
Dan: That was dial-up and...
Darren: That was dial-up, but it was a free service, so the user just paid for minutes. And I remember rolling out the modem so users could connect at V90 for 6K. So data services, predominantly, as well as voice services, are used across this PSTN infrastructure. And when we think about those data services, we think about accessing the internet and bringing that up to kind of today. We think about ADSL, so 24 megabits per second asynchronous digital subscriber line services that allow users to connect to the internet.
Dan: So ADSL runs over copper.
Darren: Correct.
Dan: Okay, right.
Darren: Yeah, exactly that.
Dan: And ISDN as well, I believe, for larger contact centre.
Darren: Exactly, yeah. So from a voice services perspective, ISDN 2 and ISDN 30. So ISDN 2, two concurrent calls, 30 concurrent calls. But all of those run over the traditional copper PSDN type services.
Dan: Okay, right, fine. So in terms of what services it supports, then we've got the obvious ones, I'm guessing contact centre. We didn't touch on faxes, but you can send faxes over PSTN, internet connectivity to your home and to computers. But from my research, I've gathered that this is everywhere. So what are some of the other use cases for PSTN that might not immediately be obvious?
Darren: Sure, yeah. So if we think about... Let's think of a use case that you might not readily associate with a PSTN service. So if we're in a lift, for example, there's a telephone in the lift in case somebody needs assistance. Typically, that service will use a PSTN telephony service.
Dan: Okay, right.
Darren: So if we need to change that service for a newer one, then we have to think about how we do that in a lift. Also, from a retail perspective, very common to see PSTN services for their data services be used for people paying with credit cards and debit cards at point of sale. So those kinds of use cases around data don't necessarily spring to mind when we think about PSTN services.
Dan: Okay.
Darren: So those are some things that we need to consider as this switch-off looms.
Dan: Sure. But there's hundreds, right? You've got signage, motorway boards, railway stations, parking permits.
Darren: Anything that consumes data, anything that has or needs a connection to the internet, will potentially be affected by this service.
Dan: Okay, fine. And I guess part of the challenge, we'll come to this later, is actually knowing what you've got. So I just want to touch on a little bit of the history because this network's everywhere. I don't believe it didn't exist one day, then it was just there the next. How did this whole PSTN network start?
Darren: Yeah, so I've been around for a couple of hundred years now, really. So BT and Openreach run the network today. But if you think back to before the automated switching, then we think about the whole, you know, the idea of people with switchboards and connecting cables together. That is the manual version of the digital switching that we know today in today's PSTN. So that is a precursor to what we see today in services.
Dan: Got you. And you mentioned Openreach. They own the PSTN network?
Darren: Own and operate the PSTN network in conjunction with BT. So, yeah, it's their infrastructure. And if you think about it, it's been around for 200 years. So the fact that we've managed to get as far as we have with that kind of level of services is pretty remarkable, really. But obviously things like, you know, we'll come on to talking about digital transformation. All of that is driving the need to move away from these legacy services and start to adopt more digital variants.
Dan: Fine. So how do I know if something's PSTN? I'm looking at a lift, for example, or I'm looking at a device. How do I know, is this PSTN, or is this something that's okay for the switch-off?
Darren: Yeah, well, in short terms, it's really difficult to tell by just looking at something. And the advice that we give customers is, the single source of truth is the invoice. So the thing that you're paying your provider for all of the services should be documented on that invoice. So whether it's a traditional telephony service with a phone number, or whether it's an ADSL service for data and internet, then all of that should be documented on the supplier invoice. And we talk to customers all the time and say, let's have a look at the invoice. What checks and balances do you do, Mr. Customer, or Mrs. Customer, around what assets you have? And they typically turn around and say, well, to be perfectly honest, all we do is we check the value today, check the value against last month, and as long as it's roughly the same, we sign it off. So there's no real inspection or integrity of what that service entails.
Dan: Fine. We'll explore that a bit more later. So, I was doing my research on this, and it was funny that you mentioned about the exchanges of people patching through calls, because I wanted to know at what point did we switch from physical patching to having an automated thing.
And during my research, I read, and I don't know how true this is, but there was a funeral director in a town in Kansas, and this was back in the days when calls were switched through, and he noted that at a point in time, he stopped having calls put through to his business. Eventually, he did a little bit of research to find out why this is, and he learned that the wife of his competition's funeral director was working in the local exchange. So every time a call was coming in to be patched through to a funeral director's, she was patching it through to her own husband's. So he obviously was quite frustrated by this, and that drove him to take action. And he actually invented the Strauger switch, which is an electromagnetic switch that removes the need for people to do the physical switching. That then sort of laid the foundation for what today is the PSTN network.
So I don't know how true that is, if people have got a conflicting view on that, because I really struggled to find something that said this is definitely true. But I did find various stories that reference that.
Darren: I think you need to sit here, Dan, because I've learned something today.
Dan: Good, good, good, good. But to summarise what I've just said, it's the PSTN network, it's a physical copper-based service that allows us to make calls, receive calls, and send and receive data.
Darren: Exactly.
Dan: Cool. Okay. So I guess the question for me is, I pick up the phone, I call my nan. Every time I've ever done that, it works. I go and buy a ticket for my car at the car park, I go to the train, everything works. So why are we switching it off?
Darren: Yeah, so we touched earlier on the length of service, in effect, of this technology, 200 years plus. With the advent of things like cloud computing and all of those kinds of technologies, the infrastructure simply isn't up to the job anymore. Okay, it's too slow. And if we think about trying to maintain that infrastructure, again, we touched on earlier, all of those lines and lines of telecommunications and switching equipment need to be maintained. Parts fail. As they become more and more out of date, it's more and more difficult to replace those parts. It simply costs too much money to maintain. And the operators have no choice but to pass that through to consumers. And the market certainly won't bear that.
So from a maintenance and from a commercial perspective, then action has to be taken, which is why Openreach have taken the decision to enact the switch-off. But also, if you think about it from an environmental perspective, there are benefits there in terms of reducing carbon footprint, taking this switching equipment out of commission, and taking less out of the grid in terms of power consumption.
Dan: OK, so it sounds like it's mainly driven by cost efficiency, and it's just dated. It's dated. It can't keep up. I'm guessing that there must be thousands of these exchanges across the country and they're predominantly empty apart from some switching equipment. So that must be massively expensive in itself.
Darren: Exactly, yeah. And if we think about the ecology aspect of it for a second and the environmental aspect, BT actually announced 12 months ago that they were going to repurpose the PCPs, the green cabinets, in line with the switch-off as EV charging points. So they're going to use that street furniture, repurpose it to be able to allow people to electronically charge their cars. So reusing infrastructure, trying to move towards a more modern, a more sustainable future, I guess, is one of the benefits of actually having this PSTN switch-off programme.
Dan: Fine. So it is being switched off. The current end date is January 2027. So we're going to go to bed on January 30th, 2027, wake up in the morning, and a big switch has been shut off. Is that how this is happening?
Darren: No, not at all, right, so what is happening is there is a phased retirement of services, so the whole PSTN switch-off revolves predominantly around a suite of products in BT's portfolio called WLR3 Wholesale rental three. That's PSTN, telephony, ISDN services that will be retired from sale. So you won't be able to buy those services. And then ultimately the services will be end of life. So you won't be able to buy the services and they physically won't work after a certain date.
But there is a phased switch off across the UK, exchange by exchange. That program is already underway. So it's already happening now. So when we talk to customers about, you know, you must bear in mind this is happening, I think there's a phantom view that actually I've got until 2027 to sort this out. Well, actually, that's not the case at all for two reasons. Firstly, is that the exchange shut down and the retirement of the products is happening today and now. Secondly, if you are in contract for a service and it has gone end of sale, you will not be able to extend the contract of that service. You physically can't buy it, it's not on the shelf anymore. So it's not as simple as saying I've got until 2027 to have a plan in place. It's about looking at my contract end dates. It's about looking at my invoices, and it's about understanding what it means to me as a consumer and a customer, and then putting a plan in place.
Dan: So 2027 is basically when they think this will be finished by. It's already started. We've got exchanges closing down left, right and centre. We know that many of our customers have already been impacted by this, and we've had notifications. So they're going through the country, closing exchanges. That then obviously is leaving customers that are relying on that exchange being forced to make a decision and make a decision quickly.
Darren: Correct.
Dan: Which, I guess, brings me on to my next question. When they are closing down an exchange, what happens next? Is it just flick a switch and it's off, or do we get notification? What are the mechanics there?
Darren: Yeah, well, I think our advice is to work with the provider and work with the service provider who's providing that service. So it's really a mapping exercise between what BT and Openreach are publishing in terms of end of life, end of sale, but also mapping that service back onto a local exchange. So joining up the dots between what's on the invoice and what's on the exchange shutdown plan and the end of life and end of sale announcements is really critical.
And if customers have tens, hundreds, even thousands of services, if you think about retail and hospitality, the number of branches or services you know, establishments that might be out there that might have a large impact. It's a really large body of work with a trusted provider to be able to join the dots between that invoice and what BT Openreach is saying to understand the impact and then put a plan in place to try and resolve that.
Dan: Fine. So even if the date changed again, the reality is it doesn't really matter because in the best-case scenario, you might be one of the lucky ones whose exchange isn't closed before that end date. But the chances are you're going to get swept up with the currently in-flight rolling closures, and you're probably going to get caught out anyway.
Darren: Yeah, exactly. So it's about knowledge. It's about forewarning and having that idea of a strategy and a plan.
Dan: Fine. Okay. I was going to ask you if the date will be postponed again, but I don't think it matters, as we've just touched on.
Darren: Agreed.
Dan: Fine. So that's what the switch-off is, why it's happening. So it's the wholesale withdrawal of all these PSTN services that we've just spoken about. So let's move to the impact, because this sounds huge. So I just want to sort of talk it through my head from a citizen of the town where I live, for example.
So I wake up in the morning on February 1st, 2027. And just tell me if I'm misunderstanding this, but I get up in the morning, and it could be that it's still dark because it's winter, and the streetlights aren't working because they're on PSTN, the timer's been switched off, so they're not working. I drive to the train station and I go to buy a ticket but the machine's not working because it's got no connection. The boards that time when the trains coming in. They're not working as well. It sounds like to me, you know, like a series of inconveniences.
Darren: Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. So I think, you know, some of the things that you described are probably accurate. Yeah. In terms of inconvenience. You know, I think if I think about my own situation, you know, when I book to go to the gym, I use an app. The app talks to the cloud, the cloud talks to the gym facility in terms of the door access. So if the cloud can't talk to the door access through a PSTN service, for example, the data won’t be able to get into the gym, and that's an inconvenience. So yeah, all of these little things, again, services that you might not associate with a PSTN service for voice and data could be impacted.
Dan: But there are more potentially serious consequences, right?
Darren: Exactly that. So if you think about a vulnerable person trying to get in touch with the local pharmacy for a prescription, if you think about fall alarms, panic alarms, red care services that are critical, all of those could be impacted by this switch-off. And we touched earlier about physical devices and needing to be considered. Remember that some of those devices need power, and the power is currently provided by the PSTN. So if there is no power, then the device can't work. So the lift alarm can't work, the floor alarm can't work.
So it's more than just, as we'll come on to, providing a replacement service. There is a hardware element that we need to take into effect. People can't phone into their local borough council. The call centre services potentially will be disrupted if there's just ISDN service provision. If you need to phone somebody or use a service from the internet, then the likelihood is that it will be affected in some way, shape or form by this switch off.
Dan: Fine. Okay. So the impact is potentially massive.
Darren: Correct.
Dan: So let's imagine then I'm the chief executive of a council. I come in on February 2027 in the morning. I've not done any preparation for this PSTN switch-off because I've buried my head in the sand. What does my day look like?
Darren: Yeah, well, imagine the situation where citizens can't call in to pay for services. You've got workers that can't access critical solutions. You've got call centre workers that are sitting there potentially doing nothing, twiddling their thumbs, wondering what's happened. You're not contactable. You can't engage with anybody. And you can't get critical services back up and working. So from a services perspective, the impact is catastrophic at that point because you can't talk to anybody, and you can't reach out for help to get services back online.
Dan: Fine, fine. But I'm the chief executive. Presumably, I can call some suppliers and say, come on, sort this out, get me some services. I want it live tomorrow. And, you know, a bit of disruption and we're back on.
Darren: Well, sadly, that is not the case. So if we think about what a recovery position there might look like, none of the services are working. They've all been withdrawn in their end of sale. So I can't extend my contract because I can't buy the service again. And I can't reenact the service because potentially the exchange has been shut down. So I'm in forced transformation at this point. I have to look for an alternative service that is a modern IP next-generation service.
So you are going to be in a holding pattern with everybody else, presumably, who has not taken steps to get hold of this earlier. So trying to get numbers ported from a service that is no longer available into a next-generation IP service, from a telephony perspective, could take three months. So all of those numbers that your citizens use every day to be able to get in touch with you no longer work, and you cannot get them back up and working for potentially 90 days, just due to the porting process between services. So it could be significant.
From a data perspective, there might be reasons to get an engineer onto site to install some equipment in order for you to be able to take advantage of an FTP service, for example. There are a limited number of engineers. There are a limited number of people that can go and install that equipment. So you're in a holding pattern. You're taking a ticket. You're in a queue and you're hoping for the best outcome. None of that is controlled.
Dan: So recovery isn't really an option.
Darren: Not at all. Don't get into that position in the first place.
Dan: Fine, okay. And it's not, obviously we've focused a bit on the public sector, but it's not just local and regional governments and councils that are affected. I guess it's having an impact on the NHS.
Darren: Exactly, yeah. So again, dispensing drugs from a dispensary. Any of the telemetry systems that a hospital uses that have to talk to a cloud service, electronic patient records being a good example of that, are going to be affected by this. And you have potentially patients waiting in the triage area. The triage person can't get access to the electronic patient records. They can't be logged in. They can't be seen. They can't be treated. So the impact is significant from that perspective.
Dan: Fine. And then just thinking outside the public sector a bit, this is going to affect the private sector as well.
Darren: Absolutely. Yeah. So if we think about manufacturing, for example.
Dan: Yeah.
Darren: We have lots of customers in the manufacturing industry who use distributed architectures, so their ERP system, their CRM system, potentially might not be on the same site as the manufacturing facility. The only way that orders come into the manufacturing facility to be fulfilled is through a connection. If that connection is a dated DSL or PSTN service and it gets switched off, the factory is effectively dead in the water, they can't take orders, they are not productive, and the lines might as well shut down to save power. So from that perspective, it's serious.
And then if we think about retail, we touched on earlier, the absolute lifeblood of a retailer these days is to be able to take card payments. If they cannot contact the payment provider, they cannot take money over the till, and again, they might as well close up shop.
Dan: Fine. Okay. So this is massively disruptive. I guess from the people having to deal with this perspective, it's forced. Are there any government grants or things that are going to help soften the blow with this that we know about?
Darren: Well, unfortunately, not. So because this is a forced transition, because this is an industry-led transformation, we're not aware of any government grants that might support a transformation.
Dan: Okay. That covers the impact. So it's anywhere from mild inconveniences to potentially catastrophic results, depending on where you sit on that scale.
Darren: Exactly.
Dan: But what we do know, if we do nothing about this, you are going to lose the ability to make and receive phone calls and send and receive data over, I guess, legacy broadband networks. Fine. Okay. So then we go to the obvious question. Where do we begin? How do we address this?
Darren: Absolutely, yeah. So if we think about the bare minimum that we do. So what we're looking to do is we're looking to replace our voice service and replace our data service. So from a voice service perspective, we need to think about voice over IP. So next-generation voice services that use an IP digital connection to make and receive phone calls. Again, as we touched on earlier, we need to think about how to put numbers across from a legacy solution to a new solution that can take time.
But also from a data network connectivity perspective, if we're using voice services across that new connection, it needs to be scaled. Okay, so we need to be able to understand how many connections we can we can use over that IP network, how many phone calls we can make and receive, so the speed and the bandwidth is critical. But in terms of technologies, SOGEA, FTTP are the natural replacement
Dan: So these are the modern replacements that replace ADSL, single order generic Ethernet access and fibre to the premise.
Darren: Correct, yeah.
Dan: And is that just available now everywhere?
Darren: Well, so FTTP rollout is evolving, but from an availability perspective, it's better to speak to a provider to understand exactly what is available at each local exchange, because that can vary wildly from one location to another. So it's important to get in touch with a provider who can help.
Dan: Fine. So as an absolute bare minimum, we need to upgrade the circuits to a modern technology that can support this form of connectivity, basically. What about, because you touched on hardware earlier, lifts as an example, and these signs at train stations and all of that, those sorts of things. There's going to need to be some consideration and thought around, it's all about having the circuit in place, but if the device can't talk to the circuit, you've got an issue.
Darren: Yeah, exactly. So in our analogy around the lift alarm or the lift phone, there will be a piece of hardware embedded into the lift that takes the voltage from the PSTN copper line and then uses that to power the service. So that's no longer available with an IP service. So an additional power supply or a reconfiguration of the equipment will have to go to the manufacturer or the vendor of that particular phone system to understand whether or not there is a next-generation alternative. So it's not just about providing the IP services in that instance. It's about the hardware as well that powers that telephony service. And there are countless other examples where that will be applicable as well.
Dan: I see. OK, that makes sense. So at the very minimum then, we need to swap out circuits to modern circuits that are compatible and ensure that all the hardware is compatible with the new circuits.
Darren: Exactly. And if we just take that one step further, if we think about it. We're looking at modern alternatives. We're looking at FTTP services. The bandwidth increases and the bandwidth available is obviously much faster. If we're just looking at a data connection, then better specced routers or CPEs, we call them, might be a consideration as well. So if you're taking a 200 megabits per second FTP service, we need a device that will be able to handle the throughput. So then we start to think about, well, we need to look at a device swap out as well as not just a service swap out.
Dan: Fine. But from what I'm understanding, even in the very best case scenarios where this is well planned, this transition is months. Doesn't matter what way you cut it.
Darren: Absolutely. And it's only multiplied by the number of sites and the number of different services that the customer has. So, you know, migrating from a traditional on-site service to potentially a cloud service, you know, we'll come across opportunities in a second. That all needs rigorous planning.
Dan: Okay, fine. So bare minimum, then, swapping things out with a like-for-like service that's broadly going to be the same, just faster, a bit more bang for your buck.
Darren: Correct, yeah.
Dan: So what are the opportunities here?
Darren: Well, so we try and encourage customers to look at the PSTN switch off as an opportunity for taking a step back and thinking about a digital transformation initiative.
Dan: Okay.
Darren: So we're getting better speeds. We're getting, you know, more capable networks. But we might be migrating services from a traditional PSTN service from a voice perspective onto that network. Okay. So we think about using Teams and putting dial tone into Teams and using Teams direct routing if we're looking to take a collaboration strategy into the cloud. So there's an opportunity to start to look at that.
Looking at cloud-based telephony solutions like contact centres which can scale exponentially with the power of the cloud and add new features like sentiment analysis, AI-driven sentiment analysis, all start to become realistic in terms of opportunities. So looking at that digital transformation opportunity with PSTN switch-off, I think is really, really important.
If you think about how customers are consuming cloud applications, there is more that we're asking the network to do in terms of a utility. So your ERP, your CRM, your SAP services, they all sit on the cloud. The network is going to have to give a great user experience consistently for those branch users. So it's important that cloud transformation, digital transformation work in lockstep with something like a connectivity transformation driven by the PSTN switch off.
Dan: Fine. So the modern services, they're faster. And if I'm understanding this correctly, more services are generally moving into the cloud. That's putting more strain and stress on the network. So what we're saying with the modern connectivity services, the users are going to have a better experience. They're going to be more productive and have a better experience. And I think we've all been on a Teams call where you've probably got a bit of a slow internet and people are chopping out and you have to turn off the camera or you redial into the call just to see if that fixes anything. And I guess these are all symptoms of putting too much stress on the underlying infrastructure.
Darren: Exactly.
Dan: So a lot of these user experience problems should dissipate and go away.
Darren: Absolutely.
Dan: Okay, fine. And then we were chatting about this earlier. You mentioned something around resilience within the network. Just expand on that.
Darren: Yeah, exactly. So if we're taking advantage of things like faster speeds, putting more services on the IP network, then that's great to your point around user experience. What that doesn't do, however, is cater for the fact that what happens if the network goes down? So let's take our digger analogy for a second. So, praise for thought, digger comes along and digs through one of the connections from a software-defined networking perspective. We can still maintain services because that primary connection is still working. And then when the circuit is repaired, then software-defined networking again will recognise that and almost auto-heal the service. So we start to build in an element of resiliency from that perspective, software-defined networking being the intelligent overlay, as we call it, across the data network.
Dan: Fine. So we're saying we can give users a better user experience, make them more productive but we can also make the networks more resilient, which is really important because we're putting so much more strain and expecting so much more from the network.
Darren: Correct. So what we're saying is, people should embrace the change, weave it into your data transformation strategy, and use this as an opportunity to get those improvements that we've just discussed.
Dan: Absolutely, yeah. This all sounds great, and you've made it sound quite simple so far, but what would you compel people to do today to start this journey?
Darren: Well, I think the first thing to do is to get in touch with Nasstar. So we can help in terms of the auditing of the inventory, understanding what the customer has in the ground, how that maps onto the exchange rollout program or decommission program, and really putting a transformation plan in place that takes the customer from where they are now, embracing things like cloud adoption, starting to look at some of those next-generation services. We've done this for countless other customers, well-versed in it, and have the tooling and expertise to be able to help.
Dan: Fine, sounds easy, so get in touch with Nasstar we'll help you to understand what you've got and draw out a plan that mitigates against this PSTN switch-off effectively. We've done this many times, we've just made it sound really simple, but let's be honest, we do run into challenges along the way, don't we?
Darren: Exactly, yeah, so you and I were speaking 12 months ago pretty much to the day around some of these corner cases. And one of the things that we didn't really anticipate being a thing were traffic lights. If we remember, we talked about this, didn't we?
So, you know, traffic lights are really difficult. Consumer PSTN service for data connectivity, it's not particularly easy to get an engineer to go to a traffic light and fix something. They don't have a postcode, so how do you do that? And also if we're looking at next-generation services in the traffic light system, providing ruggedised. So from a weather perspective, understanding that they can be in harsh environments, hot temperature,s cold temperatures, subject to water potentially. So ruggedised equipment is really, really important. And we've talked to customers about this very thing and put solutions in place. So the thing that we talked about last year is potentially not being a thing, absolutely is a thing. And we've worked to put a solution together for that.
Dan: Yeah, I've definitely spent enough time talking to customers about traffic lights. But yeah, it's one of those things I never expected to be such a big issue, but it seems to be. And I think the other common theme we get is the unknown. How many customers say to us, look, we're on board. We don't know what we've got. Where do we start? And how do we address that unknown?
Darren: Yeah, and it comes back to that, you know, speak to us, we've done this before, understanding the invoice, understanding the assets, maybe there's a network inventory that we need to do, maybe we need to talk to the provider on the customer's behalf using language that the provider will understand. The more information that we can gather in this assessment stage, the better solution we can put together for customers, both a digital transformation perspective and also a commercial perspective, as well.
Dan: Get in touch with Nasstar, get in touch with myself, get in touch with Darren. We'll help you on that journey to removing the impact of the PSTN switch-off.
My in-laws are over at the moment. Yeah, so I was having a conversation last night with my father-in-law, and he said, "what are you doing today?" I said, "I'm going to London", and he said, "what for?" And I told him about the PSTN switch-off. Now, he's from Cyprus, so he doesn't really understand what PSTN is. So I gave him a 30-second overview. It's PSTN, it's this network, we're switching it off, and we're talking about it, and this is what we think the impact's going to be. And he sort of chuckled and said, it sounds like the Millennium Bug. And that stumped me. I was like, well, the Millennium Bug didn't really do anything.
We think this probably is going to have quite a massive impact. But that got me thinking, just for context, he was, until he recently retired. He was the Chief Operational Officer of one of the largest public sector organisations in Cyprus. He's probably the typical profile of a decision maker that would be thinking about this kind of thing. But his initial thought or reaction to the problem was, well, it might just be another bit of hype like the Millennium Bug. And I think maybe we're quite biased because we're only speaking to customers who are already dealing with this. We're obviously part of the solution.
It did make me wonder, are there pockets within organisations where the attitude is just, well, it's the Millennium Bug. Let's just wait, and nothing will happen. It will all blow over.
Darren: Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it? I mean, you know, sticking our head in the sand is a solution or it's an option, certainly. But this is happening already. So this wave of change has already started to happen. You know, exchanges up and down the UK are affected. Services are being made end-of-sale, end-of-life. So it is a creeping sort of target in terms of that rollout. So not like the Millennium Bug, will it, won't it? The answer is, will it? Yes. And is it happening? Yes. So we really encourage organisations to get on the front foot, come speak to us. We've done this before. Let's put a plan in place.
Dan: So we've covered most of the things we need to cover. I think the only thing that I'd like to discuss with you is; what are the frequently asked questions that come up along the way?
Darren: I think one of them is on the traffic light conversation, funnily enough, which is in terms of engineer installations. Will I need to book an engineer visit to give me a new service? And if it's an FCTP service, then potentially yes. So we need to factor that into the planning. So again, there are only a limited amount of engineers. So we need to make sure that we've got a plan in place.
Dan: And some of these places are roadsides, backs of cupboards, listed buildings.
Darren: Yeah, middle of the countryside. So it's something that we need to think about. I think another of the questions that typically we get asked is, what speed can I get? What services are available at the local exchange? Now, from Nasstar's perspective, we have APIs into all of the major carriers, and we can put together availability of services and commercial constructs readily and very, very quickly around what services are available and what the price might be. So we can do that very, very quickly. So we have APIs and tooling that do that on behalf of customers. So, yeah, we can help with that.
Dan: And we can do that at scale.
Darren: Absolutely, yeah. Perfect. I think we can wrap up there. This has been a fascinating session. So thank you very much. So, what I'm understanding, the PSTN switch off, it's coming thick and fast. It's already happening. We can't get away from it. But embrace the change. It's an opportunity to rethink your digital communication strategy, to deliver better services to your end users and to make them a little bit more resilient along the way.
So thanks a lot for tuning in and watching.
Please get in touch, and we'll happily discuss the PSTN switch-off with you in more depth.
