Ask most people around here about their phone line and they'll tell you they barely use it. Fair enough. The mobile does the talking now. But the copper pair coming into the building is often doing more work than anyone remembers. It might be feeding the alarm, the card terminal in the shop, the lift phone, the gate intercom, or a monitoring box for an elderly relative. That copper network is being retired, and when it goes in your area, anything still leaning on it stops working.
Where the switch-off actually stands
The rules were settled in November 2023, when ComReg published its framework decision governing migration from legacy infrastructure to modern infrastructure. It sets out that copper switch-off runs on an exchange-area-by-exchange-area basis, and that the first step is eir submitting a switch-off proposal to ComReg for approval. That's a deliberately slow, regulated process rather than a flick of a switch.
Meanwhile the fibre build carries on. Open eir's fibre switch-over programme puts its ambition at 1.9 million homes and businesses, roughly 84% of the country, with over 1.5 million premises already completed across more than 70,000km of fibre routes. Copper only comes down where a modern replacement is already there.
Speaking to RTÉ, eir said customers will get at least 12 to 18 months' notice before any changes, with special consideration for people relying on essential services like health alarms and security systems, and that switch-off depends on fibre being fully available (rural areas included) and already taken up by most customers. The European Commission has marked 2030 as its preferred deadline for copper across the EU.
| Who sets the rules | ComReg |
| How it happens | Exchange area by exchange area |
| National switch-off date | None |
| Notice before changes | 12–18 months |
| EU preferred deadline | 2030 |
The list nobody thinks about
This is the part that catches businesses out. In the same RTÉ report, network operator SIRO set out its analysis of what could be affected, and it goes well beyond making calls.
- House and security alarms. Many still dial out over the phone line to report an activation
- Medical and security monitors. Pendant alarms and telecare units, often with no mobile fallback
- Landline and emergency phones, including lift phones, which are the last thing you want failing
- Retail point-of-sale terminals. Older card machines that dial for authorisation
- Car park barriers. Intercom and remote-release circuits running over the line
Britain learned this the hard way. The same RTÉ piece notes that BT's push to move customers off copper landlines was paused at the end of 2023 after a number of incidents where telecare devices used by older people stopped working. Ireland's slower, regulated approach exists partly because of that.
What to do now, in order
Walk the building and follow the cables
Find every socket with something plugged into it. Alarm panel, lift phone, card machine, intercom, fax, franking machine. Write down what you find.
Ask each supplier one question
"Does this unit work without a copper phone line?" Your alarm and lift companies deal with this daily and can usually fit a mobile or IP module.
Sort the power problem
A fibre voice service needs mains power at your end. ComReg's own guidance on upgrading broadband and home phone notes you can use a battery backup device to keep the modem running temporarily in an outage, provided the network itself still has power.
Keep your number in writing
Before agreeing any move, get confirmation you're keeping the existing number. For a business that has printed it on vans and invoices for years, that's not a detail.
Summary
None of this is a bad deal. Fibre is faster and far more reliable in bad weather than a copper pair in a Roscommon January. The switch-off is real but gradual: exchange by exchange, with 12 to 18 months' notice, and only where fibre is already in place. Your phone calls will be fine. What needs attention is everything else still using that line. Spend twenty minutes now walking the building and listing what's plugged in, and the eventual changeover is a non-event instead of a Saturday morning with a card machine that won't authorise.
