Landline switchover could cut people off in emergency, minister warned
Plans to switch to digital landlines by January could leave remote areas of the UK vulnerable, MPs say.
Plans to switch off the UK's traditional landline phone network could leave people in remote areas unable to contact help in an emergency, MPs have warned.
Landline operators aim to complete the switch to an internet-based network instead of copper-wire cables by the end of January next year.
But MPs representing remote areas of the UK urged security minister Dan Jarvis to ensure that scrapping the copper-wire network did not make their communities more vulnerable in a storm or other emergency.
Markus Campbell-Savours, Labour MP for Penrith and Solway, said: "I ask the minister to imagine an elderly constituent living alone in an isolated Lake District valley where copper phone lines have been replaced by fibre.