Doncaster residents warned as city on list of 84 places where old landlines will be switched off

The next batch of UK locations that are being moved to the latest broadband technology has been confirmed.

Ageing copper wires that have kept homes connected for decades are slowly being made redundant with new fibre cables being switched on instead.

Along with improving broadband speeds, the move to Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology also means a change to the way we all make phone calls.

Instead of using old analogue wires to ring friends and family, homes will move over to something called VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). This service should improve call quality along with adding new features such as Multi Call and call diversion to any other phone number including mobile phones.

This move to new cables is slowly rolling out across the UK and we now know the next areas that will soon only offer FTTP technology to homes in the future.

BT's Openreach - which supplies broadband infrastructure across the UK - has confirmed that 84 new locations will be switched to FTTP in the next 12 months.

Once in place, Openreach will then halt the sale of legacy analogue products in more than 880,000 premises across the UK. This will affect suppliers including BT, Sky, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Plusnet who all use Openreach cables to supply homes with the web.

"Openreach has today announced a further 84 new exchange locations where the business plans to halt the sale of traditional copper based phone and broadband services to encourage people to upgrade to new digital services over an ultrafast Full Fibre connection," Openreach confirmed.

Speaking about the update, James Lilley, Openreach’s Managed Customer Migrations Manager, said: “We’re moving to a digital world and Openreach is helping with that transformation by rolling out ultrafast, ultra-reliable, and future-proofed digital Full Fibre across the UK. This game changing technology will become the backbone of our economy for decades to come, supporting every aspect of our public services, businesses, industries and daily lives."

Although the move will be positive for those wanting better downloads, it has left some worried about how they will keep in touch. Some homes remain unconnected to the internet whilst others have voiced worries about times when the internet goes offline.