DataRemote Research
A quarterly record of the U.S. copper telephone network's retirement: line counts, regulatory actions, carrier notice trends, and impacted states. Every figure links to its source.
Q3 2026 edition Published Data as of
The U.S. copper network is being retired faster than at any point since the transition began. About 15 million lines remain, and the count is falling roughly 18% a year. A copper retirement can now take effect on as little as 90 days of public notice. AT&T is approved to discontinue more than 30% of its copper footprint this year, and intends to exit most copper operations by the end of 2029. If fire alarm panels, elevator emergency phones, fax, or point-of-sale still run on copper, the planning window is set by the carrier, not you.
Up 51× since 2019 · 3.4× since 2024
AT&T publishes its Section 251 network-change notices, including copper retirements, on its CLEC Online Network Disclosures site; annual copper-retirement counts shown here are as tallied by MetTel (Copper Retirement Bulletin, July 2026), whose 2026 figure includes 330 notices issued since January 1, 2026. DataRemote’s own check of AT&T’s disclosure listings on August 17, 2026 found more than 580 network-change disclosures listed for 2025 alone, consistent with the acceleration shown. Full DataRemote-derived tracking by notice type is planned for a future edition.
Key figures
Each figure carries its full context and the source it came from. Every card has its own anchor, so a specific number can be linked directly.
15M
The FCC counted 15.0 million end-user switched-access lines as of June 30, 2025, down from 27.2 million in mid-2022. That is a compound annual decline of 17.9%: the subscriber base roughly halves every four years while the network behind it still has to be maintained.
Source: FCC, Voice Telephone Services Report (data as of June 30, 2025)
90 days
Under the FCC’s streamlined network-change rules, a carrier’s copper retirement can take effect in as little as 90 days after public notice. The FCC’s March 2026 order (FCC 26-19) went further for service discontinuance, creating a uniform 31-day automatic-approval window for discontinuance applications and asserting preemption of state rules that would delay a federally authorized retirement.
Source: FCC, Section 251 wireline network changes; FCC 26-19 news release (March 26, 2026)
30%+
In January 2026, reporting on FCC approvals showed AT&T authorized to discontinue service across more than 30% of its copper footprint within the year, the largest single-year expansion of its retirement program to date.
$3,300+
With legacy price regulation wound down, carriers are repricing the copper lines that remain. MetTel’s Copper Retirement Bulletin documents rates climbing to more than $3,300 per line per month across 10 states, with increases expected to continue until the lines are retired.
Where it's happening
AT&T grandfathered legacy copper voice and specialty-line services across its wire centers: no orders for new copper lines are accepted, while existing lines continue on rising rates until each wire center is retired. The underlying notices are published on AT&T’s CLEC Online Network Disclosures site.
Lumen closed new copper POTS orders across its legacy CenturyLink territory in 2025 and publishes rolling Rule 51.333 public notices of copper retirement covering wire centers in multiple states on its network-disclosures site.
Source: CenturyLink (Lumen), Public Notice of Copper Retirement under Rule 51.333
AT&T’s own Discontinued Service Areas file, checked by DataRemote on August 17, 2026, lists more than 100,000 location entries across wire centers and distribution areas in 21 states, including three (CA, KS, NV) added since mid-2025:
Red outline marks states added since mid-2025. Wire-center-level timing varies; confirm locations against your carrier's current notices.
Source: AT&T, Prime Access Discontinued Service Areas (workbook, retrieved August 17, 2026)
What happened
FCC data vintage: 15.0 million end-user switched-access lines remain in service nationwide, down 17.9% per year since mid-2022.
AT&T grandfathering takes effect across its copper wire centers: no new copper voice or specialty line orders are accepted.
Reporting on FCC approvals shows AT&T authorized to discontinue service across more than 30% of its copper footprint during 2026.
Source: Broadband Breakfast
The FCC adopts Report and Order FCC 26-19, streamlining copper retirement and legacy service discontinuance: a uniform 31-day automatic-approval window, grandfathering of legacy voice and low-speed data through customer notice, and asserted preemption of state or local rules that would delay a federally authorized retirement.
Source: FCC 26-19 news release
AT&T petitions the FCC to declare that California rules cannot impede full POTS discontinuance in the affected areas; the FCC opens the petition for public comment (WC Docket No. 26-125).
Source: FCC Public Notice DA 26-520
Why it matters
Support for copper central offices diminishes as retirement approaches. Repairs get slower and harder to schedule. That raises the odds of extended outages on the lines that remain.
Rates on remaining copper lines have risen steadily for a decade, and are expected to keep rising until the lines are retired. Documented cases now exceed $3,300 per line per month.
The timeline is compressed at both ends. Full retirement notices have historically given customers 180 days to move, per MetTel’s tracking. Under the FCC’s streamlined rules, a retirement can take effect on as little as 90 days of public notice.
Carriers discontinuing voice service are no longer required to offer a stand-alone voice replacement. A bundled alternative can satisfy the requirement.
Copper retirement reaches beyond phones. Fire alarm panels, elevator emergency phones, security systems, fax, and point-of-sale lines are all affected. A disconnected life-safety line is also a code problem: it can block inspections and occupancy sign-off, or force paid fire-watch coverage until communication is restored.
Demand for replacement hardware and installation surges as each wave of notices lands. Organizations that wait for their notice compete for equipment and scheduling with everyone else who waited.
Get ahead of it
List every copper line and what runs on it, paying closest attention to safety-critical and business-critical specialty lines: fire panels, elevator phones, security systems, fax machines, and point-of-sale devices.
Most replacement products have compatibility limits with analog signaling. Life-safety endpoints need certified equipment and sign-off from your alarm company, elevator contractor, and the authority having jurisdiction.
Migrating on your own schedule is cheaper and calmer than migrating inside a notice window, and installation demand rises with every notice wave. Verify each line’s replacement before the copper is disconnected.
Step-by-step planning guidance lives in the complete guide to POTS line replacement and the cost and savings guide.
The replacement path
DataRemote's POTS line replacement keeps the analog interface and retires the copper underneath it. The differences that matter for the lines this bulletin tracks:
| Traditional copper POTS line | POTS IN A BOX® | |
|---|---|---|
| Technology | TDM over copper pairs with an analog POTS handoff | Managed cellular (5G/LTE) or wired IP with the same analog RJ-11/FXS handoff |
| Use cases | Voice, alarms, elevators, fire panels, fax, point-of-sale | The same endpoints, preserved without replacing the equipment |
| Availability | Grandfathered and being retired; AT&T targets nationwide copper retirement by 2029 | Available today over certified nationwide 5G/LTE networks |
| Monthly cost | Repricing upward as regulation winds down; documented rates above $3,300/month in some states | Predictable managed pricing, with savings up to 50% |
| Power outages | Central-office line power, degrading as copper plant ages | Integrated UPS battery backup of up to 48 hours, depending on model and load |
| Failover | Manual intervention and carrier tickets | Automatic cellular failover and dual-SIM carrier redundancy |
| Monitoring | None; faults surface when something fails | Real-time line status, alerts, and remote diagnostics via Ara |
| E-911 | Fixed street address on file | E911 with GNSS geo-location on supported models and configurations |
Proven at scale
The largest documented POTS transformations in the federal space run on POTS IN A BOX® hardware, deployed and managed by DataRemote's partner, MetTel.
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
MetTel secured a $54 million contract to modernize roughly 15,000 landlines across 1,875 VA facilities, using DataRemote’s POTS IN A BOX® to migrate lines while keeping existing analog equipment in service.
Read the record
United States Postal Service
MetTel earned a 2024 USPS Supplier Excellence Award for modernizing landlines at roughly 23,000 postal locations with DataRemote’s POTS IN A BOX® hardware, managed centrally through the Ara platform.
Read the recordThe layer underneath
Every number above is stated in someone else's units — a wire center, a notice period, a code edition. These pages define them.
Section 251 network-change disclosure and the notice periods that set the clock.
Service discontinuance under Section 214, including replacement-service obligations.
The fire alarm code governing how a panel may communicate once copper is gone.
Elevator emergency two-way communication requirements.
What a carrier is doing when it retires copper, and what it is not.
The unit retirement is scheduled in — why timing varies by address.
The analog line the counts on this page are counting.
Migrating the line while keeping the analog interface the equipment expects.
Who signs off on a life-safety line after it moves.
Location delivery on a replaced line.
Every dated DataRemote record on the copper transition.
Step-by-step planning, from inventory to cutover.
What the migration costs against what copper now costs.
How this bulletin is built
This edition compiles verified public data with primary sourcing wherever a primary record exists. Line counts and decline rates come from the FCC’s Voice Telephone Services Report; regulatory actions from FCC orders and public notices (FCC 26-19, DA 26-520, and the Section 251 network-change rules); footprint approvals from cited independent reporting; carrier retirement and grandfathering notices from the venues where carriers publish them (AT&T CLEC Online Network Disclosures; Lumen’s Rule 51.333 public notices); and the discontinued-service-area state list directly from AT&T’s own Discontinued Service Areas workbook, retrieved and reviewed by DataRemote on August 17, 2026. Annual notice tallies and copper rate observations are attributed to MetTel’s Copper Retirement Bulletin, the only published source for those series. No figure is estimated or modeled by DataRemote. Full DataRemote-derived notice tracking by type and wire center is planned for a future edition and will be published with its method.
Reference this research
This page is the canonical, stable URL for the bulletin. Link to it directly, or to a
specific figure using its card's anchor. A plain-markdown version
of this edition is published at the same address with a .md
suffix. Suggested citation:
DataRemote, "Copper Retirement Bulletin," Q3 2026 edition, published August 17, 2026. https://dataremote.com/resources/research/copper-retirement-bulletin
Past quarters
This is the first edition. New editions are published quarterly; prior editions are archived here unchanged.
This bulletin is provided for general information and is not legal, regulatory, or code-compliance advice. Figures reflect their cited sources as of the data date shown above; confirm current requirements and timelines with the FCC, your carrier, and the authorities having jurisdiction over your systems. Final acceptance of any life-safety installation depends on the product model, endpoint compatibility, installation, configuration, code edition, and the authority having jurisdiction.
Compiled by Joseph Hill , Lead of Business Systems, Data & Automation, DataRemote
Tell us what's running on them and we'll map each line to a managed replacement before the retirement notice arrives.
