Landline switchover could cut people off in emergency, minister warned

Plans to switch off the UK's traditional landline phone network could leave people in remote areas unable to contact help in an emergency, MPs have warned. Landline operators aim to complete the switch to an internet-based network instead of copper-wire cables . The government and operators say the move to digital landlines will offer a more reliable service. But MPs representing remote areas of the UK urged security minister Dan Jarvis to ensure that scrapping the copper-wire network did not make their communities more vulnerable in a storm or other emergency. Unlike digital services, the traditional landline network does not rely on mains electricity and continues to work in a power cut. Labour MP Torcuil Crichton, who represents the Western Isles constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, said: "Resilience is inbuilt in the islands but we have major problems with connectivity because of this move from analogue to digital phone lines." He said that "when the power goes out people don't have the phone, they don't have the internet and often they don't have a mobile signal either". Retail service providers have been giving back-up battery packs to vulnerable customers, which can keep landline phones operating for an hour or more. But Crichton said this was "simply not adequate" and that mobile phone providers "simply don't have the means to maintain or keep their signal going during storms". He urged the minister to get telecoms firms to "up their digital game" to protect places "on the edge where people are vulnerable, isolated from their neighbours, where the ambulance is an hour away and the storm is 70 miles an hour". He told Jarvis the copper-wire network "could have given us useful levels of resilience in an emergency". Jarvis, who is spearheading the government's Be Ready campaign, which is advising people to stock up on supplies to be prepared for emergencies, said he would "look very closely" at the Tory MP's point. He also assured West Country MPs that their concerns would be addressed at a government resilience summit, which was due to take place in Cornwall next month, and promised to raise concerns about telecoms firms with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. "Our telephone networks are a vital part of our critical national infrastructure and our emergency response in weather-related crisis supports the functioning of essential services and keeping people connected when they need it most," he told MPs. The government says the switch to digital phone services is needed because the traditional analogue network is becoming increasingly unreliable.