Telkom's Copper Switch-Off: What South African Small Businesses Need to Do Now

Your Telkom landline may stop working sooner than you think. Across South Africa, Telkom has been progressively decommissioning its copper telephone network since 2022 — and the pace is accelerating. In Gauteng, the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and other provinces, businesses are waking up to silent phones and discovering that there is no repair coming. The copper is gone, and it is not coming back. If your business still relies on analogue lines, ISDN, or ADSL, this is not a distant problem. It is a present one. ## What is the copper switch-off and why is it happening? Telkom's copper network was built for a different era. The infrastructure is expensive to maintain, prone to theft — and South Africa's cable theft problem is well-documented — and cannot compete with the speed or reliability of fibre. As a regulated entity, Telkom is required to notify ICASA and give customers advance notice before disconnecting services in an area, but the decommissioning is moving steadily, area by area, across the country. For many small businesses, the first sign that copper is being switched off is a fault that never gets repaired. Technicians either cannot or will not replace stolen or degraded copper with new copper — they redirect customers to fibre alternatives instead. ### The risk of doing nothing If your phones go dark on a Monday morning, you lose every inbound call until a new service is provisioned — which can take days or even weeks depending on your address and provider. Research specific to South Africa suggests that a meaningful portion of incoming sales calls already go unanswered in normal operating conditions. During a full outage, every missed call is a potential customer contacting a competitor instead. ## What your business should do right now The alternatives to copper are better in almost every way. Here is the practical path forward. ### Step 1: Check whether copper is still active at your premises Contact your current provider or check the Telkom website to see whether your exchange has been flagged for decommissioning. If you have experienced unexplained faults or service degradation in the last 12 months, treat that as an early warning sign. ### Step 2: Secure a fibre or LTE connection A cloud-based phone system runs over the internet — so a reliable connection is the foundation. Fibre is the most resilient option for most business premises; LTE is an excellent backup for areas where fibre is not yet available, or as a load shedding failover. United Tech, the connectivity division behind NexysCloud, provides both options with business-grade service agreements. ### Step 3: Move to a hosted phone system A hosted phone system runs entirely over the internet. There is no physical exchange box on site, no copper pair required, and no expensive hardware to maintain. You pay per user per month, and standard features include auto-attendant, call routing, call recording, and voicemail-to-email. NexysPBX is designed specifically for South African small businesses — priced in rand, supported locally, and built to handle load shedding with automatic failover to mobile. ### Step 4: Port your existing numbers You do not have to change your phone number. Number portability is a regulated right in South Africa, governed by the Number Portability Company of South Africa (NPCO). Your existing landline or 010/011/021 number can be ported to your new service, typically within a few business days, with no disruption to inbound calls. ## What changes — and what stays the same Moving to a cloud-based phone system feels like a significant step. In practice, most businesses find the experience is nearly identical for callers and staff alike. **What stays the same:** - Your phone numbers - The ability to make and receive calls as usual - How customers reach your reception or team **What improves:** - Call costs — particularly for inter-branch and outbound calls - Features your old copper system never offered: mobile apps, call analytics, remote work capability - Resilience during load shedding, with automatic rerouting to staff mobile phones - No more waiting on a Telkom technician for basic maintenance ## Why missed calls cost more than you think When a phone system is down — even temporarily — the revenue impact adds up quickly. Research into the South African market shows that a significant share of inbound sales calls goes unanswered even under normal operating conditions. A migration, if not managed carefully, can compound that gap. NexysRecovery is built to close it. It detects missed calls in real time and automatically follows up with the caller by SMS or voice within seconds — giving businesses a safety net during any transition period and long after. ## Load shedding and your phone system South Africa's ongoing load shedding creates an additional complication for copper-dependent businesses. When the power goes out, analogue lines sometimes remain active thanks to exchange battery backup — but that backup has become increasingly unreliable as the infrastructure ages. Cloud phone systems paired with LTE backup offer a cleaner answer. The internet connection switches to LTE automatically, the phone system continues running in the cloud, and staff receive calls on their mobile devices. Callers never encounter a dead line. ## Frequently asked questions ### Will I lose my phone number when I switch away from Telkom copper? No. South African telecommunications law gives businesses the right to port their existing number to a new provider. The process is managed by the NPCO and typically takes a few business days. NexysPBX supports full number portability. ### How much does a cloud-based phone system cost? Pricing varies by the number of users and the features you need, but most small businesses find that a cloud-based system costs meaningfully less per month than an equivalent copper setup — once you account for call charges, line rental, and ongoing maintenance. NexysCloud publishes rand-based pricing with no hidden fees. ### What happens to my calls during the migration? A well-managed migration runs with zero downtime. Your existing lines remain active while the new system is configured and tested in parallel. Number porting is scheduled for a low-traffic window, typically over a weekend, to minimise any impact. ### Do I need to buy new hardware? Not necessarily. Many businesses continue using IP-compatible desk phones they already own, or switch to softphone apps on computers and mobile devices. NexysPBX supports both hardware endpoints and software-only setups. ### Act before the switch-off reaches your street The copper network is being decommissioned — the only question is how prepared your business will be when it arrives at your address. Moving on your own timeline means choosing the right provider, testing properly, and avoiding the scramble of an emergency migration. **[Book a free consultation](https://nexyscloud.com) or call [010 110 7100](tel:+27101107100).**