ALERT AT&T shutting down your rural line?

[KNERD]

My mother has lived in a slightly rural area for the past 20 years with telephone service provided by AT&T (formerly SBC, formerly Southwestern Bell, Corp). They do not provide internet due to it's ruralness. With the FCC's change in in rule about having to maintain the copper lines, her land line will be shut down come July 2026. In fact her phone line barely functions right now due to the in ground copper lines are under water due to flooding in the area.

My sister is switching her over to some Verizon wireless home service as that is the only cell service which can even reach that area.

Anyone else getting their copper lines shuttered?

 

[kenn10]

Its coming pretty much anywhere. I have Frontier (now owned by Verizon) and they have begun moving people with land lines onto the fiber service they have just deployed. If you have a landline and order fiber service, you are automatically moved onto the fiber. Their ONU has two ports for telephone lines. Someone said you could no longer order a copper line in our area but I haven't read that. Much of the area can't get Starlink (mountains) or cell service (mountains and lack of towers) so I don't know what the outcome will be for those with copper as the only option.

AT&T and Verizon paid many, many politicians in multiple states to eliminate the requirement to provide service as the carrier of last resort. Since they got it, they're dumping people onto the fiber or a crappy cellular landline (without a battery to keep it going in power outages.)

In my area, cell service is so bad it could not support the home line boxes so I suspect we'll still have a CO switch and copper lines until fiber is fully deployed everywhere in the county. The Frontier techs are always trying to find good cable pairs in the ancient copper cables but no new cables or cable maintenance are going to happen.

However, if AT&T is notifying someone that their service will be discontinued, they are supposed to be offering an alternative via VOIP whether on fiber or cellular. Your mother should have received notices up to six months ago that her copper landline was being discontinued and they would have offered her options to maintain her number and some form of service.

The era of reliable landlines is over.

 

[Samot]

With the FCC's change in in rule about having to maintain the copper lines

It's not only the FCC. The FCC requires that the carriers notify them of what they are doing and get it approved. Each state, however, also has a say in what can happen, when it can happen or if it can happen. This is why AT&T is still serving copper to like 250K customers in California. They won't let AT&T fully retire due to lack of alternatives.

AT&T has aggressively been turning down the Southwest area, seen numerous requests filed over the last couple years. On top of almost all of the states in that area have really loosened their COLR rules, the fact that Verizon can provide service there was enough for AT&T to be able to pull out.

 

[chris_c_]

https://www.fcc.gov/tech-transitions

A guide to upgrading or replacing your plain old telephone service line with wireless technology

www.verizon.com

 

[DoubleDriveLine]

It happened to my great aunt in SC a couple of years ago. I don't know if she ignored warning emails from them but they shut off her land line and had to get other service. I don't know what they did but probably also went the cellular path as well.

 

[KNERD]

Seems to be starting to make the news about this going on:

 

[kenn10]

These incumbent Bells are not doing a good job of helping the elderly. There are many people who have no idea what to do. They get a notice telling them to find some other form of phone service and the land line is all they've ever known. Before the baby Bells (now mega Bells) lay off all the technicians, they should use them to set up replacements for landlines in the homes of elderly.

Where I live, Frontier (now Verizon) is not allowing new land lines, T1's or ISDN services and they have notified people that their land line is going away. Some people are still in areas with no broadband or cell coverage and will be forced to pay a fortune for Starlink with its "limited availability" charges in our area. I've been helping elderly neighbors who have internet (cable or fiber) who have no concept of VOIP or cellular replacement. They do not like having to buy an ATA much less a battery backup to replace their phone. Frontier is not telling these people that they can move their land line to the fiber service or cable service they already have. Its all very confusing to them. The FCC allowed this without putting guard rails on the elimination of wired landlines. This is affecting people on very limited fixed incomes who will probably just have to do without a phone now or see the doctor less or eat less..

 

[Samot]

The FCC allowed this without putting guard rails on the elimination of wired landlines.

Up until March 26, 2026 the FCC required the incumbent to offer a viable replacement. As of March 26, 2026 the incumbent can now do retirement as long as another type of service in the area that supports 911 like cellular or other options, even if bundled. We're talking about less than 10% of phone service is fixed copper/tdm. It was 13% according to the FCC in 2022 and the decline has gotten sharper.

Unfortunately for those in that 10%, the FCC agreed with the incumbents. The existing network for such low density is not worth the cost of maintaining and keeping functioning. So they changed the retirement rules.

 

[kenn10]

What about all those Universal Services fees everyone has been paying on their phone bills for decades? That money was intended to insure that anyone could have a phone. I believe that now applies to cellular service as well. The incumbents have been spending the money is dense, profitable areas and now are leaving nothing for rural subscribers who have no option left at anywhere near the price they pay for a land line.

 

[geopeterwc]

It's not only the rural lines that AT&T is planning to shut down - they're also intending to shut off copper wire landlines throughout California by June 1, 2027. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) denied AT&T’s request to shed its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligation, which legally mandates basic, reliable phone service for anyone in its service area. AT&T has sued the CPUC and the California Attorney General in federal court to strike down the rule. Separately AT&T has announced a broader goal of fully winding down all legacy copper-based networks nationwide by 2029.

And, well, at more than $50 per landline in the metro San Francisco area, other options - VOIP services in particular - would also be easier on the wallet to port the landline number to another Internet provider, especially when it's common to have available high-speed broadband service (Sonic offers 10gb fiber; AT&T offers 5gb fiber; Comcast offers a hybrid service up to 10gb that may still asymetrical if the service is configured using coax + fiber!)

Pricing tells another story: Sonic 1Gb and 10Gb pricing is the same - $50/month; AT&T 1Gb is $80/month or 5Gb for up to $135/month; Comcast/Xfinity - $85/month, no 5Gb, 10Gb is $300/month + equipment rental.

Some interesting options! But of course, though high-bandwith options are easily procured in metro areas, those options aren't generally available in most rural areas, as have been described earlier in this thread.

 

[Samot]

What about all those Universal Services fees everyone has been paying

Well the USF is an opt in thing and yes the LECs opt in. However, the fee is to cover **Interstate** and **International** usage. The USF is a percentage of the usage for those types of calls. You do not pay USF on Local or Interstate.

That money was intended to insure that anyone could have a phone.

Nope it's not. It's there to cover four core programs E-Rate, Lifeline, Rural Telehealth and High Cost. The High Cost program is to subsidize (not fully pay for) network construction, maintenance and operations.

I believe that now applies to cellular service as well.

Of course it is and has been. It applies to all forms of communication, including Broadband. There's even the Safe Harbor option to pay a flat rate For cell service it assumes that 37.1% of the usage is Interstate/International. Both landlines (copper/POTS) and VoIP share the same rate, 64.9% of your traffic is Interstate/International.

So basically for that "unlimited" POTS line you're paying 24.99/month for, the assumption is that 64.9% of that 24.99 is applied for USF giving you almost $16 USF fee, perhaps less if they only apply to the usage part baked into the 24.99.

Just like BulkVS assumes that all the usage you use in a month falls in the Safe Harbor of 64.9% and is applied to the usage charges.