Re: Management Idiocy in full effect
> Once an area retires copper phone lines, you are correct you could (in theory) reduce these to almost nothing. A few key sites countrywide in the extreme.
The 2025 date is for the retirement of copper analogue voice lines, however copper will continue to be used for ADSL/VDSL/G.fast for some timeframe beyond then.
As ADSL lines go from buildings to the local telephone exchange then exchanges cannot be decommissioned until all ADSL services are ceased and I have seen no announcement of Openreach plans to cease ADSL.
Therefore it is unclear when any exchanges could be decommissioned (i.e. not until the *last* person using ADSL on an exchange switches to FTTC/FTTP or cancels their service). Indeed after 2025 it appears that Single Order Transition Access Product (SOTAP) will be the Openreach term for ordering new copper pairs for ADSL use so it is not even a case of Openreach waiting for existing ADSL lines to be ceased, they will "happily" access orders for new ADSL lines after 2025.
Some exchanges are likely to find other uses. In my city for example portions of two exchange buildings became BT Data Centres acting as hosting (primary & fallback site) for local government.