AT&T announced at the end of 2024 that it plans to retire all copper networks by the end of 2029. The FCC noted in a recent filing that the use of traditional telephone service has decreased rapidly over time. At the peak in 2003, incumbent telcos had 181 landline telephone customers. By the middle of 2024 that had reduced to 18 million traditional landlines along with 64 million voice-over-IP voice customers.
The transition away from copper is going largely unnoticed in urban areas since customers typically have good alternatives to a landline. Surveys have shown that practically everybody has a cellphone, and in cities, except for dead zones in cellular coverage, the cellular network provides a good alternative to landlines.
However, there are still a lot of rural customers for whom a landline is the only reliable communications path to the world. AT&T was catching a lot of public grief when it started to tear down rural copper networks in areas where customers were told the only alternative was cellular service. Because of spotty or nonexistent rural cellular coverage, many rural residents never purchased an expensive cellphone. While a cellphone can be used to make voice calls, a cellphone is not an alternative for connecting medical devices, analog burglar alarms, and other technologies that had relied on the landline connection.
In 2024, AT&T conducted a test of a new technology it labeled as AT&T Phone – Advanced (AP-A). The service relies on an in-home cellular receiver that provides VoIP that can be plugged into existing telephone wiring to provide connections to existing telephone sets and devices connected to the customer’s copper.
The technology worked as planned, and the FCC approved the new technology as a landline replacement. The FCC’s initial approval only concerned a small test conducted of the device in Oklahoma. It’s not clear how widely AT&T is marketing this product, but the company touted the trial to the FCC as being a robust replacement product for rural landlines.
You might wonder about how the product replaces DSL, and it doesn’t. This product is for the rural home that wants to maintain only a landline. It’s worth noting that now that the FCC has labeled broadband as a service, not regulated under Title II, the FCC has no rules that require telcos to offer an alternative to eliminating DSL broadband. This was made explicitly clear in July when the FCC created a 2-year moratorium on having to notify the public about copper replacements.
Rural DSL has rarely been an adequate product due to the fact that customers are typically too far from the DSL hub to get any appreciable speed. But AT&T does have a rural DSL replacement in places where the company has enabled rural cell sites to provide FWA cellular home broadband. As of the second quarter of this year, AT&T has installed over 1 million customers on the FWA product. The FWA product is only effective within a few miles of cell sites that have been FWA-enabled.
It looks like AT&T will be able to expand its FWA footprint after the announcement that the company purchased a pile of spectrum from Echostar. Analysts are already speculating that the primary benefit of the new spectrum is to greatly expand the FWA broadband product.
“The FWA product is only effective within a few miles of cell sites that have been FWA-enabled.” Wouldn’t this new product have the same limitation?
this is just their FWA but with an ATA built in to backfeed the existing wires. There’s nothing even remotely novel about this.
AT&T just doesn’t want to maintain the copper OTP and this makes for a ‘POTS’ replacement
Something of interest, we are getting on average a call or two a month from existing AT&T FWA customers who have had service for years in a remote area we now cover with our Wisp. AT&T is cold calling them and cancelling their FWA service. I haven’t managed to get an explanation from anybody yet as to why. But it’s been going on for around a year now.
A few thoughts on AT&T Advanced:
a) It requires a separate internet connection if AT&T cellular service is not available. This is a significant issue in many rural areas.
b) It may be discontinued at any time according to the flyer.
c) COLR responsibility is not clear.
d) What happens if a resident trades in their land line for this new service and AT&T discontinues the service?
e) Who/How does the resident contact if they use this service over an ISP and there is no service?
f) What happens if a resident uses this service over an ISP and that ISP stops providing service?
IMHO, “AT&T Phone – Advanced” is not a reliable COLR alternative service.
What am I missing?
as always, nice job — trying to compare notes on the number of ATT copper access lines — you wrote: –“By the middle of 2024 that had reduced to 18 million traditional landlines along with 64 million voice-over-IP voice customers.’ Is this your analysis or something published by ATT?
FCC Chairman Carr claimed only 5% were copper legacy lines, and that ATT was spending $6 billion. As we pointed out — that would mean a total of 66 million lines (Based on ATT claiming 3.3 million legacy lines at the end of 2024.)
Doing the math, ATT claimed 9.3 million fiber — so we show 50+ million lines missing from Carr’s announce. — And Chairman Ajit Pai is on record that it only cost $45-$50 annually per line — that would be about $150 million, not $6.
The VOIP -voice lines are not listed by the FCC-and regardless of hiding a copper line via a voip classification. Carr makes no claim, nor does ATT that the voip lines might be shut off; your stats indicate that 64+18 gives 82 million total lines.
Carr nor Att mention that all of these 82 million lines are in the cross-hairs to be shut off Worse, Carr’s deregulatory policies are based on the 5% number and $6 billion spent, which is another made up fiction.
And our take is ATT will never start a new campaign to do fiber to the home unless it is funded.
We are refuting these new deregulations for multiple reasons, — if the voip copper wires are in the cross-hairs, then Carr’s statements are leaving out basic material facts, and granting deregulation with this much discrepancy makes our current application for full review more compelling.
… Anymore details would be great.
Came from FCC:
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-411462A1.pdf