Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether he plans to limit phone line rental charges for analogue landlines; and what assessment he has made of the adequacy of phone-only line rental charges following the transition to Voice over Internet Protocol landlines.

The Department does not have plans to limit phone line rental charges for analogue landlines as this is a matter for industry. However, under Ofcom’s telephony universal service conditions, BT and KCOM (in Hull) are required to offer a voice service to everyone, on request, at an affordable price. The telephony universal service obligation (USO) does not specify the technology that providers should use to meet this obligation, therefore the migration to digital landlines does not change the telephony USO.

It is worth noting that many other telecoms providers offer fixed voice services, however unlike BT and KCOM (in Hull) they do not have an obligation to do so. Ofcom’s telephony universal service conditions can be found at this link:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/telecoms-infrastructure/universal-service-obligation