What the PSTN switch off means for plumbers, electricians and builders

The short version

The old copper phone network is being retired. Analogue landlines are being moved onto services that run over broadband, and once your line is migrated the traditional service on it stops. If you have a landline number printed on signage, a van, a website or a Google Business Profile, that number is the thing you need to protect.

The good news: numbers are portable. You can move your existing landline number to a cloud service and keep answering it — on a mobile app rather than a handset on a desk nobody sits at. Nothing you have advertised needs to change.

What actually changes for a trade business

• Your landline no longer needs a physical line at a physical address — it becomes a number that rings wherever you tell it to
• Calls can ring your mobile and your mate's mobile at the same time, so a missed call becomes a lot less likely
• You can set different behaviour for evenings and weekends without unplugging anything
• Anything else plugged into the old line — alarms, gate intercoms, an old fax — needs checking separately

The last point is the one that catches people. The handset is easy; the kit quietly dialling out over the same line is not. We've written a separate checklist on alarms, card machines and fax lines if that applies to you.

The number on the van is the asset

For a trade business, the landline number is often ten years of local search history, signwriting, leaflets and word of mouth. Losing it is the expensive outcome, not the monthly line rental.

Two practical rules. First, never let the old line be ceased before the number has been ported — once a number is ceased it usually cannot be recovered. Second, check who the number is registered to. If it sits with a reseller or with a former partner's account, sort that out before you start.

The cutover window nobody mentions

Porting is not instant magic. There is a short window on cutover day where the number has left the old network and is being picked up by the new one. During that window some calls may not connect.

It's usually minutes rather than hours, and it can be planned around. Book the port for a quiet mid-week morning, put a mobile number on your voicemail greeting and on your website for the day, and tell anyone waiting on a quote to ring the mobile. That's the whole mitigation.

What it costs

A one-man band typically needs one user: a business number that rings the mobile, voicemail to email and a proper out-of-hours message. That's our entry plan at £19 per user per month with UK calls included.

A team of three to six — say two vans, an apprentice and someone doing the books — usually wants calls hunting between people and a shared voicemail. Number porting and setup are currently included in our offer rather than charged as an extra.

A sensible order to do this in

• List every line you pay for and what is plugged into each one
• Confirm who holds the account the number sits on
• Pick how you want calls to ring: one mobile, several at once, or in order
• Set the new service up and test it on a temporary number first
• Port the advertised number on a quiet morning, then cease the old line

Most trade businesses are through this in a couple of weeks with no van signage changes and no lost enquiries. See our page on phone systems for trades for what the finished setup looks like, or the switching from BT guide if that's where your line lives today.