This guide is for residents of Forest Green, to help them navigate the upcoming changes to all of our phone lines and broadband services. If you have questions which aren’t answered here, please ask on the FG Whatsapp group and I’ll attempt to answer them!
Table of Contents
What’s happening to the broadband in Forest Green?
Currently, most people in FG get their internet connectivity via their phone line. This uses copper wire that runs from the cabinet full of equipment at the telephone exchange (located in the building between Old Post House West and the Church) to your house. The exchange itself is connected via fibre optic cable, but the ‘last’ leg from the exchange to your house is a copper wire. The wire provides your landline phone connection, and your broadband connection. This is known as “Fibre to the Cabinet” or ‘FTTC’.
This wire is being replaced with fibre optic cable running all the way to each house, which will provide much faster, more reliable internet connectivity. This is known as ‘full fibre’ or ‘fibre to the property’ (FTTP).
Why is the copper infrastructure being replaced?
Copper wire has been used for phone lines in the UK for over 100 years. Wire has limits on maximum internet connection speeds, and is also unreliable. It can be impacted by weather, poor connections, and even tree roots – which means your internet speeds can drop. It also loses power over long distances, which means that the further your house is from the exchange cabinet, the worse (slower) your internet connection is. Fibre optic cable doesn’t have this problem, meaning that everyone in the village can get much faster and more reliable internet connectivity. For example, most people in FG will currently (Aug 2026) have a max download speed of 50mbps. Once fibre is run to your house, speeds will increase by up to 20-30x (depending on the price you decide to pay).
Are all areas in Forest Green getting Full Fibre?
So far it seems like full fibre is going to be provided to all residents in Forest Green – including Cotton Row, and some of the houses down towards Bridgham Farm. If you have a telegraph pole providing your existing power + phone line to your house, the Fibre will be run along that with minimal disruption. Otherwise, the OpenReach fibre construction team will have contacted you to organise any permission-to-dig requirements to run fibre underground to your property.
Do I have to have fibre run all the way to my house?
You don’t have to have fibre run to your house. If you don’t use the internet much, or don’t mind about internet speeds, you can continue to use your internet-over-copper-wire connection as you do today. Speeds will remain the same, but it will continue to work.
However, after January 2027, the phone line service on the copper wire will be turned off, and so the old copper wires will only be able to be used for the legacy copper-based internet connection. This is known as ‘SOGEA’ (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access) and will give you internet connectivity without needing to have fibre installed to your house. However, SOGEA does not support phone connections – so the existing landline connection you use over the copper wire will stop functioning.
When will fibre become available?
The first part of the project by OpenReach is to run the fibre-optic infrastructure into the village and to get close to everyone’s houses. This means digging up roads, installing connection boxes, and running cables along existing telegraph poles. This should get the fibre connectivity to within a few meters of everyone’s houses. This work is scheduled to be finished towards the end of 2026.
Once the infrastructure is in place you should be notified by your broadband provider that Full Fibre is available to order. When you place the order, an installation date will be booked and the provider will arrange for OpenReach to install the last few meters of cable to go into your house. There may be a small installation fee.
How fast will Full Fibre be, and how much will it cost?
Once you have full fibre (FTTP) you can expect to get a minimum download speed of 100mbps, but if you want to pay a little more, you can order 300mbps, 500mbps, 900mbps, or even 1.6Gbps. The upload speeds will be lower, but still 10x what we currently get in Forest Green today.
As for costs, this will depend on a number of factors – your provider, the speed you want, whether you have a digital phone line, and whether you include any other bundled services (e.g., TV streaming services etc).
But as a guideline, you can typically expect to pay around £25-26 per month for 100mbps, going up to £45 per month for 1.6Gbps, plus some extras for a phone service.
As an example, you can see EE’s pricing here: https://ee.co.uk/broadband – but there are many, many broadband providers, and if you’re going to move away from your current provider, you should check out one of the comparison sites first, e.g.:
What other options do I have for fast broadband?
If you decide you don’t want to use Full Fibre for your internet service, there are other options you can consider:
- Starlink: this is a satellite-based internet system which works by installing a dish on your property. It can give similar speeds to Full Fibre, but can be less reliable (as it can be impacted by weather) and may be more expensive.
- Amazon is going to be launching its own satellite-based broadband service at some point soon, so this could be another alternative.
Unfortunately due to the poor mobile signal in Forest Green, 4G/5G mobile internet services aren’t really an option.
Phone Landline Questions
What will happen to my landline phone number?
In the next few weeks, residents of FG should receive a letter from their existing broadband/phone provider notifying them that the phone line service is going to be turned off next year. At that point, you have two options:
- Ditch your landline completely, and just use your mobile to make and receive calls.
- Switch to ‘Digital Voice’, which uses your internet connection to provide a phone line.
Not everyone wants to get rid of their landline, so the second option will be important for anyone who wants things to remain as they are.
How do I keep my existing landline number with Digital Voice?
If you want to keep your landline – and the phone number you may have had for decades – then you will need to convert to a new, digital phone service.
The most common way to do this is to get your existing internet provider to switch you over to ‘Digital Voice’, which is an internet-based phone service. To do this:
- The internet provider will send you a new router (i.e., the box that provides your WiFi/Internet) and this will have a phone socket in the back of it.
- Your internet provider will switch you over to the internet-only ‘SOGEA’ connection, which will cease your landline service
- You swap the routers over, and then take your existing home phone and plug it into the back of the new router
- Your router then provides the phone line, and you can continue to make and receive calls using your existing landline number.
Note that there may be a switchover period while your number is converted from an old-style copper landline to a digital landline that works through your internet connection via your router. So you might be without a working landline for a day or two. So you should make sure that you have a way to contact people in case of an emergency while you have no phone connectivity.
Do All Internet Providers Offer Digital Voice?
No. Depending on the provider you’re with, they may not be able to provide you a phone line.
For example, PlusNet do not provide a digital phone service – they only provide internet connections. So if you are with PlusNet and you want to keep your phone line via Digital Voice, then you may need to switch to another provider. PlusNet are moving landline customers to EE, who do provide Digital Voice, and they have a special agreement so you’ll get a good deal through EE.
Other broadband providers may be similar – in which case if you want to keep your landline, you may need to switch provider.
Can I use my existing phone(s) with the new Digital Voice System?
Yes. Once you get the new router from your broadband provider, you just plug the phone into the router instead of the wall socket, and you can continue to use your existing equipment. So, for example, if you have a DECT cordless phone system with a base unit and several handsets, you would just plug your base unit’s phone cable into the router, and it will work as before – and the wireless handsets will function as normal.
Will my Digital Voice phoneline work during a Power Cut?
Forest Green does get the odd power cut….
Old phone landline connections are run over a powered copper cable, which meant that if you had a simple phone plugged into the phone socket in your house, it would continue to work during a power cut. Digital Voice relies on your internet connection, which only works if your router has power, so during a power cut you could lose all connectivity, and be unable to contact anyone in an emergency.
To solve this, it’s possible to get a battery backup, also known as an Uninterrupted Power Supply or UPS. You plug your router into the UPS, and it provides power for an hour or two so the internet connectivity doesn’t drop during the power cut.
Ask your broadband supplier to provide a Battery Backup
If you are elderly, disabled, or in any way vulnerable, your broadband provider should provide you with some sort of battery backup solution to keep you safe during a power cut. For example, BT provide their own battery units that will power the router and a phone handset, to ensure you aren’t left isolated in an emergency. So please ensure you mention this to your broadband provider and ensure they help you.
Organise your own Battery Backup
If your broadband supplier won’t provider you with a free battery backup, there’s various options to buy one online.
- Here’s an example which one resident in Forest Green has installed and found to work well: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0FCV2Q8TB/
Of course, these days many people have cordless ‘DECT’ phones so they can walk around the house while talking on the phone – and these don’t typically work during a power cut because the base unit transmitter/receiver won’t work without power. So if you’ve not had a problem during power cuts with a cordless phone, you may not need a battery backup.
I have a ‘Red Button’ emergency call system – will that continue to work after I lose my landline?
If you have an emergency call system, it may not work properly once you switch to SOGEA and lose your landline. You should speak to your broadband provider as soon as possible about this – they have a legal and regulatory duty to ensure you are not put in danger, so will be able to provide equipment and help to ensure your system continues to work.
Are there other ways to keep my landline?
Yes. Digital Voice is just a consumer-friendly name for ‘Voice Over Internet Protocol’ (VOIP). This is where the phone uses the internet to connect, instead of the copper line to the phone cabinet in the exchange.
Any VOIP service runs over any internet connection, so it’s possible to separate your landline from your internet provider so they are independent from each other. This means you can shop around for your internet connectivity and phone line separately, and get better prices or features.
Because VOIP works over any internet connection, it means you can also run an app that will allow you to make and receive calls via your landline from any device or computer. So you could make and receive landline calls from your mobile phone (never miss a call when you’re out!) or your laptop. This could be particularly useful for anyone running a business, for example. VOIP can be much cheaper than a Digital Voice service that comes bundled with your internet connection too.
However, moving from a combined internet-with-digital-voice service, to a separate internet connection and VOIP service, is a bit of a faff. You will be required to have your phone line cut off, and then your number is ‘quarantined’ for 30 days (to stop somebody else getting it), during which you then start a contract with a VOIP company, who will port (i.e., move) your old landline number to your new service. This might mean being without your landline for a few days. Alternatively, if you’re not wedded to your old landline number, you can order a new VOIP service with a brand new number and it can be up and running within minutes. You can even pay £10-20 for a ‘Vanity Number’ to get a really nice, easy-to-remember number (and it doesn’t need to have the 01306 dial code).
If you’re interested in investigating VOIP providers, some that might be worth looking at are:
