How BT is set to pocket £1bn from the copper wire in landlines when they switch us to digital phones

BT is expected to pocket more than £1 billion by selling copper from its Digital Voice program as the country switches to digital phone lines, Money Mail can reveal.

Angry customers are now demanding the money be used to reduce their bills.

Money Mail received a bumper mailbag following our visit to a BT Digital Voice roadshow event last week.

BT is touring the country with a roadshow offering personal guidance on the digital switch with more than 200 events.

And last week we attended BT events in Manchester and Macclesfield in Cheshire to learn first-hand how to prepare for the change – including how to connect old phones to digital adapters, connect our lines to internet hubs and free equipment can order.

In the coming years, the telecom giant will switch from old analog signals via copper telephone lines to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system, in which telephone calls are made via the Internet via fiber optic cables.

The rollout – known as Digital Voice – is targeting 10 million households, with a total of 29 million households affected by this new landline revolution.

When the copper pipes are no longer needed, BT will rip out much of it to extract 200,000 tonnes of copper worth £1 billion in scrap.

Many readers say that profits from the sale of copper telephone lines should be used to reduce costs for customers, rather than lining the pockets of shareholders.

BT made pre-tax profits of £1.7 billion in the year to March. Yet it hit customers with inflation-busting bill increases of 14.4 percent in the same month.

Carole Homan, 79, from Newport on the Isle of Wight, said: ‘It infuriates me to hear that BT will make a profit from the sale of the old copper. It should be used to reduce the bills of people who have been forced to switch to Digital Voice against their will. The new technology requires electricity to work, and we pay for it. It’s time for this greedy company to give back.”

Paul Hubbard of Coldwaltham in West Sussex said: ‘If BT is making a financial killing by switching from copper to fiber – and then selling it off – it should be reflected in lower bills, not lining its pockets with more profits. ‘

Reader Alan Macey agrees: ‘The change to a digital system will certainly be a financial success for BT, with metal recovery sales and lower maintenance costs. There is no excuse to increase rates. They should go down rather than up.”

But retired BT engineer Duncan Keeler, 75, from Cockermouth in Cumbria, said: ‘BT is a business so it needs to make a profit, but the cost of replacing copper with fiber optic cables is enormous. The money from the sale of copper must be reinvested in a top quality service that we can afford.”

BT says installing full fiber broadband will cost £15 billion and any proceeds from copper sales will be reinvested into the business.

In the summer its website stated: ‘This year alone the program will win more than 200 tons of copper cable.’

While last year’s annual report stated: ‘If we replace old copper networks with fibre, we will be able to recover and sell up to 200,000 tonnes of copper by 2030, in line with customer migration.’

The telecom giant is using buzz terms such as ‘sustainability drive’ and ‘exchange clearing operations’ (eco) program to explain how old copper lines are being sold for scrap when the old analogue telephone network is ‘retired’ at the end of the month. 2025.

Matthew Howett, founder of telecoms analyst Assembly Research, said: ‘BT has already put the copper recovery program in place, but with the price of copper fluctuating so much it may still need to figure out what makes sense before deciding how to recover the valuable metal.

‘Only once the full fiber optic switchover has been completed will much of the work be done. BT will probably get an idea of ​​how to get the old copper wires out if the fiber is laid in the same ducts that are already being used, rather than taking it all out at the same time. Engineers will return later to remove the old copper.’

He added: ‘While the sale of copper should make BT money, the savings that can be made by not having to send engineers to repair old copper lines could be an even greater motivation to continue the rollout of Digital Voice. complete.

Fiberglass has no recyclable value, but it also does not entail such high maintenance costs.’

It is estimated that there are approximately 40 million kilometers of copper cables running through the country. The copper cables are usually covered with PVC plastic and have a diameter between 0.3 mm and 0.9 mm.

‘Twisted pair lines’ often connect one house from an outside telegraph pole – and these will be replaced ‘on a case-by-case basis’ as fiber is laid to the house.

But more than 200 telephone cables are typically bundled together in 20cm diameter pipes in trenches along roads and pavements to serve communities – dug about a meter underground – and this is what BT is expected to pull out along roads and under pavements.

These bundles feed telephone junction boxes – green boxes on the side of the road – of telephone exchanges located miles away.

The copper wires can be sent to a scrap dealer, who puts them through a ‘granulator’ machine that grinds the material into small particles. Then an ‘electrostatic separator’ removes the copper from the plastic.

One of the scrap dealers where BT is known to have used ‘recycling of outdated copper cables’ is European Metal Recycling (EMR), based in Warrington, Cheshire.

Another favorite recycling company used by BT to extract copper is N2S, based in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.

Paolo Pescatore, telecoms analyst at PP Foresight, said: ‘With an ambitious target for digital voice, we should expect engineers to recover copper relatively quickly, but usually once the program is completed in a few years.

‘But it will be a slow process as BT needs to ensure everything is fully working before removing the old copper pipes. Some of the money can be used to connect people who do not yet have fiber optic in their home, but as a company adding value for its shareholders is also a consideration.’

Karen Egan, senior telecoms analyst at research firm Enders Analysis, says copper may also be mined from telegraph poles that extend more than 30 feet above our heads without us noticing.

She says, “Removing copper pipes from poles is a simple process. The skyline is unlikely to look any different as these are replaced by fiber optic cables.”

BT says its subsidiary Openreach’s extraction of copper from so-called ‘legacy cables’ will be a gradual process, with many rural locations remaining connected to copper for many years to come.

However, around 10 million homes have already been fitted with fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP), eliminating the need for copper – and the target is 25 million by the end of 2026.

There is a government target to have all homes fully fiber optic by 2033. When houses are FTTP, BT can extract the copper.

One scrap dealer, who asked not to be named, said: ‘The price of copper has exploded, partly thanks to a push to get us all driving electric cars, which can use five times as much of this metal as traditional vehicles.’

He added: ‘BT knows full well it is in a copper mine, where scrap dealers pay as much as £6,000 a tonne for top quality telephone lines. Of course there are costs associated with tearing down the old lines. But scrap dealers already have the equipment to extract the copper.”

Other scrap dealers, such as Reclamet in Birchington, Kent, said they might pay £5,200 per tonne for BT copper from its phone lines – meaning 200,000 tonnes could earn the telecoms giant £1.04 billion.

The price of copper has more than tripled in the past decade – from $0.84 (about 70p) per pound in 2000 to $3.65 (£3) today.

A BT spokesperson said: ‘Openreach (a subsidiary of BT) is investing £15 billion to deliver full fiber broadband to 25 million homes and businesses by the end of 2026, retiring the copper network.

The copper recovery operation will last at least ten years, with proceeds reinvested into the business to help support the future of the network.”

toby.walne@dailymail.co.uk