Can I keep a landline without having broadband?

This is one of the most common questions about the landline switch-off, and it is usually asked by someone who does not want the internet, has never wanted the internet, and resents being told they now need it in order to keep a telephone.

That is a reasonable position, and the answer has two halves that are easy to confuse.

The short answer

You can keep a landline. You will probably end up with a connection anyway. What you should not accept is being sold a broadband package you did not ask for.

Ofcom’s wording is worth reading closely, because it concedes the first point and protects you on the second. Customers who wish to continue having a landline phone, and do not already have broadband, “will generally need to have a suitable connection”. But: “customers should not be forced to take out a high-speed broadband package if they do not want to”, and Ofcom expects providers to “have a range of options for people in this situation”.

So the line and the box are largely unavoidable — a digital landline is a call carried over an internet connection, and something has to carry it. The monthly cost of a broadband service you will never use is a different matter, and that is the thing to push back on.

One more piece of Ofcom’s position, which saves arguments: “If you need any new equipment - for example, a new router – or if you need a new broadband service installed, your provider should arrange this.” Sorting out your own equipment is not your job.

What providers actually do

This is where honest reporting is more useful than a tidy table, because the market is patchier than the question implies.

BT publishes a specific route for landline-only customers, on a page called “Upgrading your landline if you don’t have broadband”. Its stated position is that your call package and line rental remain the same. BT also warns that the first bill after the switch looks different because of credits and charges that cancel each other out, and that on the upgrade day the phone may be unavailable for up to an hour within a six-hour window.

Most other providers sell their digital phone service as an add-on to a broadband package rather than as a standalone product. That is precisely the situation Ofcom’s “should not be forced” wording is aimed at, and it is why asking the question in the right words matters.

Plusnet does not sell a home phone at all — checked 3 August 2026. If you are with Plusnet and want to keep a phone line, you are looking at a move to a different provider, not an upgrade with your current one.

The names differ, which makes searching harder than it should be. BT calls it Digital Voice. EE calls it Digital Home Phone. Sky calls it Internet Calls. If you search for “Digital Voice” on your own provider’s site and find nothing, that may be a naming difference rather than an answer.

Provider offers in this area have moved repeatedly through the switch-off, so treat everything above as dated rather than permanent, and confirm with your own provider.

If the sticking point is cost rather than principle, two things are worth knowing before you accept whatever package you are offered. Several providers sell heavily discounted social tariffs to households on qualifying benefits, and they are usually not mentioned unless you ask — our social tariff checker will tell you whether you are eligible. And if you are simply out of contract and paying more than you need to, how to lower your broadband bill covers what actually works on the retentions call.

The power-cut question, which has a genuinely surprising answer

For most people moving to a digital landline, the phone stops working in a power cut, because it runs through a broadband router that needs mains power. That is the general case and it is covered in full on digital landline in a power cut.

BT’s landline-only page says something different, and it is worth quoting exactly rather than paraphrasing: “if your phone works today in a power cut it will continue to after your Digital Voice upgrade.”

Read that carefully, because it is narrower than a headline would make it. It is conditional — it applies if your phone works in a power cut today, which rules out most cordless phones. And it is BT describing its own landline-only arrangement, not a general rule that transfers to another provider or to a customer who also has broadband.

If power-cut access matters in your household — and it does if anyone there depends on the phone to call for help — ask the question explicitly about the exact arrangement you are being offered, and ask what powers what, for how long. Do not accept a general reassurance from either side of this.

How to ask

Work through these in order. The wording is deliberate: “landline-only” and “phone only” are the terms providers’ own systems use.

1. Decide what you are actually refusing. A box in the hall is one thing; paying monthly for fast broadband you will never use is another. The first is usually unavoidable, the second is usually negotiable. Saying which one you object to shortens the call enormously.
2. Ring and ask the specific question. What options do they have for a customer who wants to keep a phone line and does not want a broadband service?
3. Quote Ofcom if you are pushed towards a package. Providers are expected to have a range of options, and customers should not be forced to take a high-speed broadband package if they do not want one.
4. Ask what happens to the price. Does line rental change? Does the call package change? What does the bill look like afterwards? Get it in writing.
5. Ask who arranges the equipment. Ofcom says the provider should. If you are told to sort out your own router, challenge it.
6. Ask the power-cut question explicitly — see above — and ask whether you qualify for the free power-cut protection Ofcom expects providers to offer to customers who depend on their landline.
7. If you are refused, put it in writing and escalate. Formal complaint first, then their alternative dispute resolution scheme — Communications Ombudsman or CISAS — free to you once you have a deadlock letter, or six weeks after the date you first complained. Our complaint letter generator will draft it.

If you are doing this for someone else

Most of these calls are made by an adult child on behalf of a parent, and there are two things that make them go better.

Get authority on the account first. Providers will not discuss someone else’s account without it, and discovering that halfway through a forty-minute call is demoralising. Ask what they need — usually the account holder present to give verbal permission once.

Raise any alarm or pendant separately. Telecare equipment is handled by a different team and a different process from the phone line, and assuming the phone conversation covered it is a common and consequential mistake. See telecare alarms and the digital switchover.

And if a call arrives claiming to be from the provider about any of this, treat it as unverified until you have rung back on a number you looked up yourself — migration letters are exactly the cover impersonation scams use. See is this call really from BT?.

→ Use the landline switch-off guide