The PSTN ( publicly switched telephone network ) in effect the System X and System Y equipment in your local exchange that provides dialtone and connects the phone calls you make , it’s this equipment that is being retired and is being replaced with an all IP ( internet protocol ) phone service for those that require a ‘landline’ type phone service
The idea was never to stop ‘landline’ calls , although call volumes have been in decline for years and providing the means to make calls over the ‘internet’ isn’t a money maker , the objective is simply to move this telephone traffic away from the now rather elderly and increasingly unreliable PSTN equipment, and given that the IP network can deliver both IP telephony and broadband, it obviously makes sense to run one modern network and not one new and one old network.
For the vast majority, the only change will be instead of the ‘landline’ phone plugged into a master phone socket , it’s connected to the routers telephony port instead , what happens behind the scenes to connect calls is of no consequence to the end user
