On Tue, 13 Oct 2020 00:49:00 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Going forward, the plan it to replace/retire the copper for the local
loop anyway, and the phone provision be provided by a VoIP adaptor on
the end of the fibre network.

End of the digtal network would be more accurate. The PSTN is being
phased out and shutdown by the end of 2025 but the digtal replacement
will still be using a lot of copper for SOTAP (ADSL), SOGEA (VDSL) or
G,Fast (SOGFast) from the exchange or cabinet. That's assuming the
copper is short enough, which for the vast majority of lines it will
be.

(consumers ordering phone only systems would get a FTTP connection
running a 0.5 Mbps service feeding a VoIP terminator)

Upgrade to FTTP is more of an exchange/local area infrastruture
change. They ain't going to put fibre in for a single "phone" line.
They'll use the existing copper for one of the above SO...'s and in
the fullness of time that may get the infrastructure upgrade to FTTP.

--
Cheers
Dave.