A Gogglebox star said her life went ‘downhill’ after BT cut off her telephone landline.
Mary Killen, who has appeared on the Channel 4 reality show for 11 years alongside her husband Giles Wood, said her life was made worse since BT Openreach upgraded her home phone system to digital.
She claimed the upgrade was completed ‘without instruction or consent’ and her landline service was removed completely.
This was followed by consistent issues with her new Wi-Fi reliant landline, which kept cutting out.
Despite numerous attempts by engineers, the problems have continued with her calls cutting out due to a bad connection.
Workers have blamed the issues on the thick walls of her old Wiltshire cottage, despite her having no issues in the decades before.
Writing in The Spectator, she said: ‘For decades I had spent many happy hours per day lying in bed (like Mrs Stitch, my role model) organising jobs and romantic partners for friends, jigsawing together the data – unearthed by longform chatting over the copper landline – to make the matches.’
She said without the ability to talk to friends over the phone, her ability to matchmake had suffered.
BT is rolling out ‘Digital Voice’, overhauling its network of copper cables and replacing them with a fully digital system reliant on broadband routers.
Mary Killen said her life was made worse since BT Openreach upgraded her home phone system to digital
Ms Killen has appeared on the Channel 4 reality show Gogglebox for 11 years, alongside her husband Giles Wood
The telecommunications giant had aimed to complete the transition by 2025, but pushed back the deadline due to safety concerns.
The rollout was brought to a halt in 2022 when customers were left unable to call 999 during Storm Eunice as power cuts caused households to lose their internet connections.
BT has offered customers battery back-up units and hybrid phones, but some remote communities remain concerned about becoming cut off.
Ms Killen also said the back up options were only available to those with ‘good mobile coverage’.
She said the old system ‘wasn’t broke’ so questioned why it needed fixing.
Ms Killen also raised concern about what could happen in the event of a ‘digital blackout’ similar to the one orchestrated by Donald Trump in Venezuela.
She added: ‘Why not retain even a skeleton service of this robust system of communications in anticipation of, for example, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping turning off our wifi in the same way Donald Trump turned off the electricity in Caracas when he went for Maduro?
‘In a digital blackout, where would we turn for info? Carrier pigeons? Only some of us have had the sense to retain our analogue radios.’
The reality star argued that the communications infrastructure should include both digital and analogue.
A BT spokesman told The Telegraph: ‘While we were sorry to read about Mary’s experience, we can’t comment on her case without her customer details.
‘We’ve attempted to get in touch with Mary but haven’t heard back. We’d encourage her to contact us so we can understand which provider she’s with and if BT can help.’