Villagers fear being cut off when landlines are replaced
Villagers in rural Shropshire are worried they will be 'cut off' from mobile communication when copper wire is replaced fully by fibre in three years time.
Campaigners in Chirbury and Bishops Castle claim not enough has been done to educate people about what will happen when traditional landlines are switched off.
Liberal Democrat councillor Heather Kidd, who represents Chirbury and Worthen on Shropshire Council, is worried about the time it took BT Openreach to respond after a serious accident in the village in September last year when a motorist hit a telegraph pole.
She is also worried about elderly people being unable to use the NHS emergency button in their homes, a system which relies on the landline telephone system.
She said: "It took ten days before they even responded after the accident and people, some vulnerable and elderly, were left without vital communication during that time. "There is a huge equalities issue as well. Urban areas seem to have fared pretty well and it seems to have been more accepted there but in this community there are many people who can't, don't or won't use digital apparatus.
"Even if they are willing to, some of them aren't capable of understanding the issues behind the new technology or able to use it – they may need educating but again there doesn't seem to have a budget allocated for that."
Ruth Houghton,Shropshire Councillor for Bishop’s Castle, said: "Yet again rural areas will be losing out when the change comes. The long promised improvements to our mobile networks are still not available everywhere in our rural county and this change from copper to digital, when it happens, will mean more people, especially those that are vulnerable, at risk of isolation and unable to contact essential services in the event of an emergency."
North Shropshire MP Helen Morgan brought the issue up in parliament in March this year.
She told the Shropshire Star: "It’s really important that vulnerable people are taken care of during this switch to broadband-based phones.
“I welcome the fact that BT has paused the forced migration of customers after recognising there were flaws in the plans.
“BT now needs to make sure reliable provision is in place for people who rely on landline phones and telecare devices while continuing to upgrade our rural infrastructure.
“It’s particularly important that mobile phone signal is improved in the many areas in North Shropshire where it remains poor and that high-speed broadband is rolled out across the region."
A spokesman for BT Openreach said: "The decision to switch of the old analogue phone platform was more than just a commercial decision – the world is going digital with many countries much futher along in terms of migrating people over to digital lines and the government has a target to reach by 2025."
