SoGEA vs FTTP vs Digital Voice explained for small businesses

The jargon, untangled

Three terms get thrown around together and constantly confused. They're not competing options — they're different layers of the same setup:

• FTTP (Fibre to the Premises) — a broadband connection. Full fibre, all the way to your building.
• SoGEA (Single Order Generic Ethernet Access) — also a broadband connection. Broadband over your existing line, with no analogue phone line attached.
• Digital Voice — the phone service that runs on top of either of those. Sometimes just called VoIP.

The simplest way to hold it in your head: FTTP and SoGEA are the road; Digital Voice is the car driving on it. You need a road, then you decide whether you want the phone service on top.

SoGEA vs FTTP, side by side

	SoGEA	FTTP (full fibre)
What it is	Broadband over the existing line, no landline	Full fibre to your building
Built on	Same network as today's FTTC	New fibre network
Typical speed	Up to ~80Mbps download	Up to 900Mbps (and rising)
Carries Digital Voice?	Yes	Yes
Available everywhere?	Yes, broadly	No — about 30% of the UK can't get it yet

The headline difference is speed, and that only matters for your internet use — streaming, cloud software, video calls. For the phone it makes no difference at all: Digital Voice needs barely any bandwidth, so it runs happily on SoGEA.

Why this matters before 2027

Openreach is retiring the old analogue network — the PSTN — by 31 January 2027, and it stopped selling analogue phone lines to new customers back in September 2023. The old "FTTC broadband plus a separate analogue landline" combination is going away.

After the switch-off, there are really only two connections left: FTTP if you can get it, SoGEA if you can't. Either one can carry a Digital Voice phone line, so you're covered whichever you land on.

The myth worth busting

A lot of small businesses think they need full fibre before they can have a digital phone. They don't. Digital Voice works just as well over SoGEA, which sits on the same infrastructure as the FTTC broadband most of the UK already uses. If full fibre hasn't reached your street yet, that's no barrier to moving your phone to digital — you can do it now, on the broadband you've got.

What to actually do

1. Check what's available at your address — your provider, or Openreach's fibre checker, will tell you whether full fibre has reached you.
2. Don't wait for full fibre to sort your phone. If you're on FTTC or SoGEA, you can add a Digital Voice line today.
3. Confirm your number ports across when you move — it should, but ask.
4. Check everything else on the old line — alarms, card machines, lift phones and telecare don't always survive the move, so test them before the switch, not after.

If you want the bigger picture on what changes and when, start with what happens to your business landline in January 2027.