Alarm signalling after Redcare and the phone network switch-off

Two changes hit the same properties at once

BT closed Redcare, for decades the UK's default alarm signalling service, in 2025 — announced in 2023. Separately, the analogue telephone network is being retired in favour of digital voice delivered over broadband.

Both changes affect the same population: monitored alarms installed before roughly 2024, signalling over a traditional phone line. Many properties needed a signalling change and a connection change at the same time.

If you have a monitored alarm from that era and have not had a conversation with your provider about signalling, that is worth chasing this week rather than this year.

Why the failure is silent

This is the part that makes it worth acting on. An alarm whose signalling path has died still works locally. It still arms, still detects, still sounds its siren. Nothing in the house tells you that no signal has reached an Alarm Receiving Centre in months.

So a property can look protected, and feel protected, while the monitoring you are paying for is not happening. On a properly supervised path this cannot persist — the ARC is polling and notices silence — but that is precisely what older configurations may lack.

Digital voice makes it worse in a second way. It runs over your router, so it dies with your power and your broadband, where the old analogue line carried its own power. And some older communicators cannot signal over it at all, because they expect analogue tones.

What replaces it

Modern signalling uses broadband, a mobile network, or both. A landline is neither required nor preferred. The main UK signalling providers after Redcare are CSL, WebWayOne and Chiron.

The common configurations are broadband primary with mobile backup, or mobile-only where broadband is unreliable. Mobile paths use a SIM in the communicator, and better units use roaming SIMs that select whichever network has coverage rather than being tied to one.

For a rural property, ask specifically about coverage at the building rather than in the area, and whether the communicator supports multiple networks. That one question prevents most rural signalling problems.

What to do about it

If your system is affected, the fix is normally a new communicator rather than a new alarm — the panel is usually fine. That is a visit and a few hundred pounds, not a replacement system, and you should be sceptical of anyone who tells you otherwise without inspecting the panel.

Treat it as an opportunity to check the rest. While the engineer is there, confirm the supervision detection time, review your keyholder list, and ask whether the current configuration still meets any insurer requirement — insurers' signalling expectations have moved along with the technology.

If your provider is unresponsive about this, it is also a reasonable moment to get a takeover quote from someone else.