The copper switch-off is happening
Chorus — the company that owns and operates most of New Zealand's landline network — is progressively decommissioning copper infrastructure. This isn't a distant plan. Area by area, the copper that traditional landlines and ADSL run on is being turned off. When it goes, any phone service that depends on it stops working. This affects businesses that still have PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) landlines — the kind that plug into the wall socket — as well as those on older ISDN business phone systems.
The replacement is VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol. Your calls travel over your broadband connection instead of a copper pair. Done properly, this is better in every meaningful way. But "done properly" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
What VoIP actually costs
The cost comparison depends on how many lines and calls your business makes. As a rough guide: a traditional copper landline for a small business might cost $60–80/month per line including a small call bundle. A VoIP line from a NZ provider typically costs $20–40/month per line, with calls to NZ landlines and mobiles often included or very cheap. Hardware is the upfront cost — a business-grade VoIP handset costs $150–400. If you're replacing a multi-line ISDN setup, the savings are usually significant.
What people forget to factor in: the quality of your internet connection. If your VoIP calls are going to sound good, you need enough bandwidth and — more importantly — low latency and low packet loss. We always assess a client's internet connection before recommending a VoIP solution, because a VoIP system on a poor connection is worse than useless.
The call quality myth
The most common objection to VoIP is call quality. "I tried VoIP and it sounded terrible." This is a real experience — but it's almost always the result of a poorly configured system or an inadequate network, not VoIP as a technology. Modern VoIP using G.711 or G.722 codecs sounds noticeably better than a copper landline, because the codec quality exceeds what the copper network was ever capable of. HD voice is real and it works.
The things that cause bad VoIP audio: not enough upload bandwidth, network congestion (your file backup running during a call), no QoS (Quality of Service) configuration to prioritise voice packets, and cheap consumer-grade hardware. All of these are fixable. The businesses that say "VoIP doesn't work" generally had someone set it up without addressing these factors.
Number porting — keeping your existing number
Yes, you can keep your existing phone number when switching to VoIP. Number porting transfers your number from your current provider to your new VoIP provider. It takes time — typically 10–20 business days for a NZ landline number, depending on the current provider. During the porting process, calls continue to come through on your existing system. The cutover is coordinated so there's no gap in service.
The important thing is to not cancel your existing service before porting is complete. We manage this process for clients — there are enough ways it can go wrong that we prefer to handle the coordination ourselves.
What to look for in a VoIP provider
In NZ, you have a range of options: Callplus/2degrees Business, Spark, Voyager, and various specialist VoIP providers. Things to check: are they hosting the PBX (phone system) themselves or reselling a third-party platform? What's their SLA for outages? Do they offer number porting? What codecs do they support? Is there a local support team or is it an offshore call centre?
Our VoIP & Phones service covers end-to-end — from recommending the right provider for your situation, to supplying hardware, configuring the system, porting your numbers, and providing ongoing support.
Don't wait until you're forced
The businesses that transition smoothly are the ones that plan it. The businesses that get caught out are the ones who wait until Chorus sends a notice and then scramble to organise an alternative with two weeks' notice. If you're still on copper-based phone services, the right time to migrate is now — on your schedule, not Chorus's.