Ofcom has just issued some advice to calm people like me who were worried that our plug-in telephones would cease to work once BT and Virgin turned their networks over from traditional transmission to digital - or from PSTN to VoIP in the jargon. (I see that the always-independent Kingston-Upon-Hull has already made the switch.)
Some excerpts:
BT has taken the decision to retire its [public switched telephone network (PSTN)] by December 2025 and this means other providers that use BT’s network must follow the same timescale. Other companies with their own networks such as Virgin Media plan to follow a similar timescale.
[...] in the future, landline calls will be delivered over digital technology, called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). You might also see this referred to as ‘digital phone’ or ‘digital voice’.
These changes have already started, but you don’t need to do anything until your provider contacts you to tell you your service is changing. Alternatively, if you want to move to a VoIP service now, you can do so by upgrading to a new phone and broadband package.
Once you have moved to a VoIP service, your landline phone will work in much the same way as it always has.
The full advice, including details of how other devices connected to the telephone network are affected, is here.
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