The recent £23.8 million fine issued to Virgin Media by Ofcom has drawn attention to a crisis that should never have been possible in a modern, technologically advanced country. During the nationwide switchover from analogue to digital landlines, thousands of elderly and disabled people were left with telecare alarms that no longer worked. These alarms, often worn around the neck or wrist, allow a person in crisis to connect immediately to carers or emergency services. They’re not convenience products; they’re lifelines.
For weeks, and in some cases months, these devices were silently disconnected.
When Ofcom announced the penalty, its enforcement director stated:
“It’s unacceptable that vulnerable customers were put at direct risk of harm and left without appropriate support by Virgin Media, during what should have been a safe and straightforward upgrade to their landline services.”
Most coverage of the incident has focused on procedural failures and communication breakdowns. But the deeper story is about the nature of Britain’s privatised telecom infrastructure, and what happens when life-or-death systems are entrusted to companies whose primary obligation is not public service, but profit.
The Digital Switchover Meets the Real World
The UK’s shift from analogue to digital landlines is, in theory, a necessary modernisation. Copper-based networks are aging, difficult to maintain, and increasingly unreliable. Digital connections should be clearer, more stable, and more resilient.
But the switchover has happened in a sector dominated by a handful of large private companies. These corporations were tasked with identifying which customers relied on telecare equipment, ensuring their alarms remained functional, and providing additional in-person support where required.
Ofcom found that Virgin Media failed in every part of that process.
The company did not adequately identify who relied on telecare devices. It migrated customers without ensuring their alarms were compatible with the new system. It left devices disconnected from monitoring centres. And it disconnected telecare users entirely if they did not respond to outreach attempts.
For many people, especially those living alone, these alarms are their only means of calling for help. Some users are hard to reach for reasons ranging from hearing impairments to hospital stays. Treating “non-engagement” as grounds for disconnection exposed the most vulnerable to the greatest danger.
The key question is: why did this happen?
When Infrastructure Becomes a Market
Britain’s telecoms industry is often described as competitive, innovative, and consumer-driven. But for essential services such as landlines, broadband, and emergency connectivity, the market operates less like a vibrant marketplace and more like a collection of private monopolies.
Virgin Media, Openreach, BT, and a handful of others oversee the networks on which almost everyone depends. These companies provide services traditionally carried out by public institutions, but are not structured like public institutions. Their goal is not to guarantee universal, equal, safe service. Their goal is to satisfy shareholders.
This doesn’t mean employees don’t work hard or that engineers don’t care about safety. It means the system they work within has an overriding logic: minimise costs, maximise returns.
Identifying vulnerable telecare users is expensive. Sending technicians to check alarm compatibility is expensive. Conducting in-home visits is expensive. Reaching out repeatedly to customers who are hard to contact is expensive.
In a profit-driven model, every expensive process is a point of friction.
So corners get cut. Processes get automated. Warnings get ignored until they become crises. And a system designed around profit ends up treating those who rely on it the most as burdens rather than responsibilities.
The Illusion of Market Efficiency
Privatisation has long been justified by the promise that private firms will deliver public services more efficiently than the state. But “efficiency” in a business context has a very different meaning from efficiency in a public-facing one.
When a company talks about efficiency, it means lowering operating costs. Cutting staff. Reducing time-consuming tasks. Streamlining processes. From the perspective of a balance sheet, these are positives.
But telecare systems require exactly the opposite: labour-intensive checks, slower procedures, and personalised support.
You cannot automate a home visit. You cannot mass-email a population that may include people with dementia, mobility impairments, or limited internet access. You cannot run a life-saving service like a subscription plan.
The telecare crisis is a case study in what happens when market-style efficiency meets human need. What is efficient for a corporation can be deeply unsafe for the people who depend on it.
Regulation After the Fact
Britain relies heavily on regulators to keep private infrastructure functioning safely. But regulation is, by design, reactive. Ofcom can issue fines. It can launch investigations. It can demand remedial plans.
What it cannot do is transform private corporations into bodies that operate primarily according to public need. It cannot change the underlying incentives.
This means regulators often intervene only after significant harm or risk has already taken place. That is exactly what happened here: serious incidents occurred, Virgin Media reported them, and only then did the regulator act.
The flaw is not in the regulator’s response. It’s in the model itself.
The Broader Pattern
If this were a one-off failure, it could be chalked up to organisational mismanagement. But it fits into a pattern that repeats across Britain’s privatised essential services:
- The Grenfell Tower fire exposed how cost-cutting in privatised housing systems can become lethal.
- The Post Office scandal revealed how a corporate structure can bury evidence and blame innocent workers rather than disrupt profits.
- Private rail operators collapse mid-contract, leaving the state to clean up the mess.
- Water companies pollute rivers and coasts at record levels while paying out billions in dividends.
- Energy firms fail, pushing costs onto households.
Each example is different in scale and cause. But all share the same underlying dynamic: essential services operated by institutions oriented around profit, not public welfare.
The telecare failure is one more reminder that the market model struggles — and often fails — when entrusted with the kinds of responsibilities that demand stability, universality, and care.
Who Bears the Risk?
In any system, someone carries the risk of failure. In Britain’s privatised model, that risk has shifted away from the corporations and onto the public.
If a private company cuts corners and something goes wrong, it faces a fine. But the vulnerable person whose telecare alarm failed is the one who faces the real danger.
Virgin Media has since apologised, saying:
“We recognise that we didn’t get everything right and have since addressed the migration issues identified by Ofcom.”
And no doubt, improvements are being made. More checks. More communication. More safeguards.
But even as individual companies respond, the underlying structure remains unchanged.
A system built on profit will always prioritise cost reduction, speed, and market logic — even when responsible for life-saving infrastructure.
What a Safer System Would Look Like
A socialist country can run telecom, emergency, and care-coordination services etc as public utilities: publicly owned, centrally managed, and designed to provide universal coverage rather than maximise revenue.
In such systems, a digital switchover would proceed very differently. Telecare users would be identified before any migration. Compatibility would be tested before rollout. Home visits would be guaranteed. No one would be disconnected for non-response. And the driving question would not be cost, but safety.
Even within the UK, the NHS is an example of what happens when an essential service is run on the principle of serving everyone. It has its problems — many caused by underfunding — but its core mission is not profit extraction.
Telecommunications could operate under a similar principle.
A Warning We Should Not Ignore
Virgin Media’s telecare failure is a warning about more than technical oversight. It highlights the fundamental mismatch between the needs of vulnerable populations and the logic of privatised, profit-driven infrastructure.
Privatisation promises innovation, efficiency, and consumer choice. But when the service involved is a lifeline, the priorities must shift. Safety must trump speed. Stability must trump shareholder value. People must trump profit.
This incident shows what happens when they do not.
The fine is substantial, but the lesson is larger: essential services cannot rely on systems that treat human needs as cost calculations. If the country wants to prevent future crises of this kind, the debate cannot stop at how to regulate these companies. It must confront whether the capitalist model itself is capable of protecting the people who depend on it most.
For many, that is no longer an abstract question. It is a matter of survival.
