AT&T Eliminating Copper Landlines by 2029

https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...ndline-copper-phone-service-2029/76765766007/

AT&T plans to eliminate its traditional landline phone service across nearly all U.S. states in its service area by 2029, according to an official announcement.

The wireless carrier has said its copper wire infrastructure is antiquated, maintaining it is costly and better service is available through fiber and wireless broadband networks

Except in California

"Pa......get my rifle..."

Copper is probably too expensive so they better give users Fiber upgrades keeping their same phone number.

Comixbooks said:

Copper is probably too expensive so they better give users Fiber upgrades keeping their same phone number.

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Its the only truly reliable communications option in this country as near as I am aware, maybe Satellite trumps it now...but copper seems to always be up. Granted, I gave up copper years ago in favor of Cable......but I understand most people today are cellular only. What I do know is that the minute shit hits the fan, or even you get a bad snowstorm or heat wave depending where on Earth you reside, the *least* reliable form of communication....cellular towers.....will be down and if not down, overloaded and near useless which is what happened the last time we had a major weather event that impacted 'everyone'.

#Progre$$

If they're going to do this, they need to put backup power supplies in all the fiber nodes and allow communication over the fiber network without an internet connection.

Somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

I'm fine switching from copper to fiber ... as long as they offer fiber in the same locations they offer copper. Problem is, they don't and neither do most regional phone companies.

IYKYK the real reason "why".

Nobu said:

If they're going to do this, they need to put backup power supplies in all the fiber nodes and allow communication over the fiber network without an internet connection.

Somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

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Long overdue to upgrade lines in some places, but there's something to be said for the trusty old landline that worked even in a power outage. Safe to say that's no longer going to be a thing.

HeadRusch said:

Granted, I gave up copper years ago in favor of Cable.....

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Which ironically is another form of copper...

SamuelL421 said:

Long overdue to upgrade lines in some places, but there's something to be said for the trusty old landline that worked even in a power outage. Safe to say that's no longer going to be a thing.

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Only works in a power outage if you have a wired phone, if all you have is cordless phones, well you're still in the same boat

Yeah I still have my landline. I knew they were planning on getting rid of them soon, but at least I have a few more years left. I thought they were doing it sooner as every month for the last 6 months they have been sending me a flyer to upgrade to internet phone.

It's a damn shame, good old pots lines and copper function even during a power out event because they carry current even in the worst of times. It's hard to replace some of this old stuff that "just works". I remember when I used to bind two modems together for near ISDN speeds. That's the other thing, ISDN was supposed to have replaced copper/POTS lines and never did. It was too expensive to adopt, for one 64k channel, let alone 2 for 128k. Largely made obsolete by DSL, yet used extensively in office environments for digital phone and data networks even well after it's expiration date.

Landline connections are useful in the worst of times. I think we will eventually screw ourselves replacing everything that was simple with high speed internet connections. Someone detonates a nuke in low earth orbit and the entire geographical area will be reduced to the stone age in seconds... God forbid this or some other calamity happens.

I don't think rural areas and small podunk USA towns can afford to run fiber trunks down everyone's neighborhoods. You drive an hour or so south of NW Indiana and you're stuck with whatever shit is available and nothing is a really good option. Hell, my uncle lives in one of the more affluent towns and for 5+ years in NW Indiana he couldn't get above 384K (lucky to get that until cable came along).

It's a bad move to strip out all legacy communications. The shit is essentially free if you leave it alone. Always good to have a backup option, but no one ever thinks like that anymore.

sfsuphysics said:

Which ironically is another form of copper...

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At this point, cable is fiber-to-the-node, with coax for the last mile. With DOCSIS 4.0 you can get up to 10 Gbps downstream and 6 Gbps upstream, which is competitive with FttH service. You do still run into the issue of cable providers over-provisioning nodes so the bandwidth you pay for is a maximum and will often see reductions, especially during peak usage times.

The feds should compel them to replace it all with fiber.

SamuelL421 said:

Long overdue to upgrade lines in some places, but there's something to be said for the trusty old landline that worked even in a power outage. Safe to say that's no longer going to be a thing.

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Amateur radios are easier to power these days what with fuel injection gas generators and cleaner diesel generators, cheap gigantic batteries and things. A lawncare person cut the phone line to the house by accident years ago and we don't care because of fiber, cellular, dual band and hf mobile, dual band HT's, and base hf rigs and about 4 lifetimes of accumulated bits and bobs like the antenna trailer and other takedown ones that are somewhat easy to put up after your regular tower is destroyed by the weather and generator trailers.

The trailer has a 48 volt motor instead of a pony motor powered by 4 8d LFP batteries 460ah apiece and a dc to dc charger to reduce that down to 13.8 volts for rigs for plenty of time. it's rigged to pintle together with one of the 300 gallon fuel tank trailer generators is the offgrid way to charge the battery bank plus whatever because it's very absurd to use for only this. You could team two eu7000is together for a lot cheaper for shorter operating times and stuff like field day.

EmerilLIVE said:

At this point, cable is fiber-to-the-node, with coax for the last mile. With DOCSIS 4.0

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Is DOCSIS 4 available now?

EmerilLIVE said:

you can get up to 10 Gbps downstream and 6 Gbps upstream, which is competitive with FttH service.

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Very impressive speeds.

EmerilLIVE said:

You do still run into the issue of cable providers over-provisioning nodes so the bandwidth you pay for is a maximum and will often see reductions, especially during peak usage times.

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Yeah, like COmcast, which has crappy reliability anyway

Thing is a lot of Alarm, Fire alarm and elevator emergency phones are required to have POTS lines. At one of my sites the fire alarm needs two POTS lines and it costs us about $800/month. The alternative is to have plans drafted and get a permit from the city to use LTE line, that process costs about $7k for the plans and permits, on top of equipment from the alarm company. We will do it eventually but a lot off legacy stuff still loves their POTS lines.

cjcox said:

IYKYK the real reason "why".

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Union contracts is a big part. But what people are willing to pay for a landline doesn't cover what it costs to maintain one anymore. Especially as more people drop their landlines, the maintenance costs stay about the same and need to be distributed over fewer customers.

All the telcos I'm aware of are moving towards the end of POTS as fast as they can (which isn't very fast). It's a real shame because circuit switched POTS has/had amazing latency and I don't think we'll ever get close to that again. PRI digital multiplexed POTS is pretty darn close to full end to end circuit switched POTS, but almost every VOIP call is 20 ms packetization to start with, and then you add complex codecs that add delays, and jitter buffers to conceal variable delays, and input and output buffers, etc.

toast0 said:

Union contracts is a big part. But what people are willing to pay for a landline doesn't cover what it costs to maintain one anymore. Especially as more people drop their landlines, the maintenance costs stay about the same and need to be distributed over fewer customers.

All the telcos I'm aware of are moving towards the end of POTS as fast as they can (which isn't very fast). It's a real shame because circuit switched POTS has/had amazing latency and I don't think we'll ever get close to that again. PRI digital multiplexed POTS is pretty darn close to full end to end circuit switched POTS, but almost every VOIP call is 20 ms packetization to start with, and then you add complex codecs that add delays, and jitter buffers to conceal variable delays, and input and output buffers, etc.

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Regulation is what I was getting at. Huge difference in the requirements of the past and the wild wild west of today. Is is up? Is it down? Who cares. Big walk backwards in some ways.

SamuelL421 said:

Long overdue to upgrade lines in some places, but there's something to be said for the trusty old landline that worked even in a power outage. Safe to say that's no longer going to be a thing.

Click to expand...

I mean, they were just powered by batteries and generators. Phone companies have big banks of 2v lead acid batteries chained together to make 48v to keep it operational.

Turns out, what with lithium batteries, the answer these days is just put batteries on the other end of the equipment. The data centers and cell towers and the like still have generators (and batteries) keeping them operational, now you just have one in your phone, or on your ONT, as well. While it does mean you have to have the batteries, that's not a big deal these days, particularly since the phone most people have is a cell now so batteries are part and parcel.

Not quite the same I'll agree, but I can see why it just isn't that big a deal. It's pretty easy and cheap to get power backup on your communications if you want it.

Does AT&T still charge you a separate fee for having a long distance carrier and also charge per minute calling of anything outside of your region? Man that was a big golden tree that withered and died with phone carriers as people jumped to cell only and the concept of charging more because a phone number was elsewhere just died.

cjcox said:

Regulation is what I was getting at. Huge difference in the requirements of the past and the wild wild west of today. Is is up? Is it down? Who cares. Big walk backwards in some ways.

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Oh well yeah. Regulators don't care about landlines anymore because nobody has them. WA, where I live has basically deregulated land lines. Centurylink bumped prices up $5/month, plus a recent fee for paper bills and I think for pay by credit card.

HeadRusch said:

Its the only truly reliable communications option in this country as near as I am aware, maybe Satellite trumps it now...but copper seems to always be up. Granted, I gave up copper years ago in favor of Cable......but I understand most people today are cellular only. What I do know is that the minute shit hits the fan, or even you get a bad snowstorm or heat wave depending where on Earth you reside, the *least* reliable form of communication....cellular towers.....will be down and if not down, overloaded and near useless which is what happened the last time we had a major weather event that impacted 'everyone'.

#Progre$$

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Copper was the least reliable form of communication for me. Wax cups connected by dental floss would have been more reliable and convenient. Verizon did the utmost least work possible to maintain the copper lines and when you reported a problem, they would send a technician out days later who would endlessly switch your lines at the telephone pole switchbox or large main street switchbox until they found a matching pair that did not have tremendous line loss. I chatted with verizon techs many times. They told me they take hair dryers and dry the switch boxes on the poles when too much moisture builds up.

I do not regret moving to fiber.

AT&T is on my big shitlist, along with banks, airlines and the cable companies.

Hate to say this, but this move makes sense in all but rural areas without reliable cell service. Why not in 2025?

Legendary Gamer said:

I don't think rural areas and small podunk USA towns can afford to run fiber trunks down everyone's neighborhoods. You drive an hour or so south of NW Indiana and you're stuck with whatever shit is available and nothing is a really good option. Hell, my uncle lives in one of the more affluent towns and for 5+ years in NW Indiana he couldn't get above 384K (lucky to get that until cable came along).

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Those rural towns will be getting fiber most likely, that's the whole purpose of BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deploy is to get these high speed internet in to unserved and underserved communities. Probably 90+% of it will be Fiber (PON) , with some starlink/Fixed Wireless/Cable thrown in where it makes sense.

philb2 said:

Is DOCSIS 4 available now?

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Ish, the CMTS (in the form of vCMTS) side is ready, as are the Nodes/RPDs for them, and the amplifiers are ready now so they're being rolled out. The problem is there really aren't many DOCSIS 4.0 modems out there, and the deployments aren't really fully ready, probably besides Comcast. Low Latency DOCSIS (LLD) is on the way too. You'll probably see a lot of DOCSIS 3.1+ , DOCSIS 3.1 extended, or whatever the CMTS provider decides to call, where you'll use DOCSIS 4.0 modems in a DOCSIS 3.1 CMTS, but without FDD (Full Duplex DOCSIS) or ESD really fully in effect, but being able to use 4 OFDM/2OFDMA channels for things like 5-6 Gbps down and 2 Gbps up.

As for the ATT side, it's long overdue, and they've been trying to get rid of it for a while. A lot of regions that have telephone service probably won't be affected by this, this still tons of small/regional telcos that have their lines they operate.

Sycraft said:

I mean, they were just powered by batteries and generators. Phone companies have big banks of 2v lead acid batteries chained together to make 48v to keep it operational.

Turns out, what with lithium batteries, the answer these days is just put batteries on the other end of the equipment. The data centers and cell towers and the like still have generators (and batteries) keeping them operational, now you just have one in your phone, or on your ONT, as well. While it does mean you have to have the batteries, that's not a big deal these days, particularly since the phone most people have is a cell now so batteries are part and parcel.

Not quite the same I'll agree, but I can see why it just isn't that big a deal. It's pretty easy and cheap to get power backup on your communications if you want it.

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Lithium batteries have only recently been approved and really made available for telecom, and honestly its cheaper to run and maintain a generator than it is the lithium, so lead acid for the bumps and short outages with the generators for anything lasting longer than 15-20 minutes.

Nobu said:

If they're going to do this, they need to put backup power supplies in all the fiber nodes and allow communication over the fiber network without an internet connection.

Somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

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They will sell you a cell plan long before that happens.

Balkroth said:

Those rural towns will be getting fiber most likely, that's the whole purpose of BEAD (Broadband Equity, Access, and Deploy is to get these high speed internet in to unserved and underserved communities. Probably 90+% of it will be Fiber (PON) , with some starlink/Fixed Wireless/Cable thrown in where it makes sense.

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I'm fairly certain that the BILLIONS spent on BEAD accomplished absolutely nothing.
https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pu...-internet-program-that-has-connected-0-people

That money lined the pockets of someone... Three years after allocation it has connected no one.

If you're going to cite government programs to try to close out commentary other's make, you should probably know whether or not those programs actually did anything or not.

Rural America is in the dark ages. They are still at the mercy of whatever legacy twisted pair POTS copper that's there, the local telco / internet providers (if they even exist) and many are still using dial up... Those that can afford it are on some limited wifi (companies like surf net and air baud providing wireless DSL, many of which have long since gone out of business) or satellite coverage.

HeadRusch said:

Its the only truly reliable communications option in this country as near as I am aware, maybe Satellite trumps it now...but copper seems to always be up. Granted, I gave up copper years ago in favor of Cable......but I understand most people today are cellular only. What I do know is that the minute shit hits the fan, or even you get a bad snowstorm or heat wave depending where on Earth you reside, the *least* reliable form of communication....cellular towers.....will be down and if not down, overloaded and near useless which is what happened the last time we had a major weather event that impacted 'everyone'.

#Progre$$

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I went through Katrina in Florida when it cross over Florida as a CAT3 before it hit the Gulf. I worked for BellSouth at the time which co-owned Cingular with SBC. You cannot try to use your cellular phone during an outage. Not saying this to you, but to everyone in general. Not all towers are power backed up. Second when everyone loses power for their home internet all their phones revert to the towers. Like you said, towers get overloaded with traffic. Traffic tagged as "first responder" will always get priority, then post paid customers, then pre-paid customers. Text ONLY during outages. It's the most data efficient. Even with modern codecs like 5G being packet switched, voice takes vastly more data on the tower versus text.

Nobu said:

If they're going to do this, they need to put backup power supplies in all the fiber nodes and allow communication over the fiber network without an internet connection.

Somehow I don't think that's going to happen.

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A lot of fiber nodes are passive, back to the CO which will have generators, not all. I've had Fronter/Verizon FIOS since moving to Texas in 2007. As long as you keep your ONT powered during outages I've always had service.

sfsuphysics said:

Does AT&T still charge you a separate fee for having a long distance carrier and also charge per minute calling of anything outside of your region? Man that was a big golden tree that withered and died with phone carriers as people jumped to cell only and the concept of charging more because a phone number was elsewhere just died.

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Most carriers have moved away from this. Since the 96' Telecom act from having seperate Long Distance that is. It's nearly ubiquitous now to include Long Distance even on copper.

philb2 said:

AT&T is on my big shitlist, along with banks, airlines and the cable companies.

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I worked for ATT, under BellSouth. ATT is a vile company. Treats their customers, business or consumer, like cattle. You're just a number. I'm lucky to have had Verizon/Fronter FIOS for internet and have been in Mint/Tmobile for years now. Very happy to stay away from companies like ATT, Bank of America, etc as a consumer.

Legendary Gamer said:

I'm fairly certain that the BILLIONS spent on BEAD accomplished absolutely nothing.
https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pu...-internet-program-that-has-connected-0-people

That money lined the pockets of someone... Three years after allocation it has connected no one.

If you're going to cite government programs to try to close out commentary other's make, you should probably know whether or not those programs actually did anything or not.

Rural America is in the dark ages. They are still at the mercy of whatever legacy twisted pair POTS copper that's there, the local telco / internet providers (if they even exist) and many are still using dial up... Those that can afford it are on some limited wifi (companies like surf net and air baud providing wireless DSL, many of which have long since gone out of business) or satellite coverage.

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The money has Just started rolling out recently, most states hadn't really gotten their funding by the time that article has written. Just because the Money was allocated, doesn't mean it was actually sent out, each state had to get their submissions in on how they are going to divy it up and how they are going to check on things. Heck, the last states just put in their final funding requests and got approvals recently, where they won't even get the applications in for sub-contractors until next year. Some states were even waiting to finish up their RDOF funding stuff since all that money had to be used by the end of this year.

Legendary Gamer said:

I'm fairly certain that the BILLIONS spent on BEAD accomplished absolutely nothing.
https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pu...-internet-program-that-has-connected-0-people

That money lined the pockets of someone... Three years after allocation it has connected no one.

If you're going to cite government programs to try to close out commentary other's make, you should probably know whether or not those programs actually did anything or not.

Rural America is in the dark ages. They are still at the mercy of whatever legacy twisted pair POTS copper that's there, the local telco / internet providers (if they even exist) and many are still using dial up... Those that can afford it are on some limited wifi (companies like surf net and air baud providing wireless DSL, many of which have long since gone out of business) or satellite coverage.

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It pays for fiber in the middle of nowhere bits of Arkansas at the very least. Small to medium businesses like some of the WISP companies and local power and water companies in the small towns received money and are rolling it out all over the place. When I'm not busy sometimes I like to bring the workers water and dogs to pet for morale in their battle to bring the lands that time forgot forwards. It's also a setting where younger dogs can dig to their heart's content and not get in trouble for it.

Balkroth said:

The money has Just started rolling out recently, most states hadn't really gotten their funding by the time that article has written. Just because the Money was allocated, doesn't mean it was actually sent out, each state had to get their submissions in on how they are going to divy it up and how they are going to check on things. Heck, the last states just put in their final funding requests and got approvals recently, where they won't even get the applications in for sub-contractors until next year. Some states were even waiting to finish up their RDOF funding stuff since all that money had to be used by the end of this year.

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Ok, so, your argument was there IS internet in rural areas and it's good, fiber based shit.

However, there is no internet as you stated in these areas and now you somehow have information about the rollout of funds from this program.

It's been 3 years, nothing is going to come of this.

Take your misinformation elsewhere. We don't need it here.

Legendary Gamer said:

Ok, so, your argument was there IS internet in rural areas and it's good, fiber based shit.

However, there is no internet as you stated in these areas and now you somehow have information about the rollout of funds from this program.

It's been 3 years, nothing is going to come of this.

Take your misinformation elsewhere. We don't need it here.

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My argument is there is going to be fiber in Rural areas as the States get their funding , then provide it to sub contractors , then the work begins.

Everyone has information on the rollout of the funds, if you're in the SP industry it's really all that's been talked about over the past year and half as we've waited for this process to go go through, including all the equipment waivers for BABA stuff, the different technologies allowed, etc. Louisiana was the first state to have their Phase 2 funding approved earlier this year, and are just now starting to roll out the funding https://www.telecompetitor.com/first-bead-funding-announced-here-are-the-louisiana-awardees/ .

BEAD is very much coming through, it's just slower than everyone had hoped.

Lakados said:

Lithium batteries have only recently been approved and really made available for telecom, and honestly its cheaper to run and maintain a generator than it is the lithium, so lead acid for the bumps and short outages with the generators for anything lasting longer than 15-20 minutes.

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I'm talking on the consumer side. The telecom's data centers and towers have backups, and have for a long time. So you need your gear to be able to operate. That's not hard these days. For your cellphone, it already has what it needs. For your ONT/router, a reasonable sized lithium battery can keep it operational for many hours of outage.

Sycraft said:

I'm talking on the consumer side. The telecom's data centers and towers have backups, and have for a long time. So you need your gear to be able to operate. That's not hard these days. For your cellphone, it already has what it needs. For your ONT/router, a reasonable sized lithium battery can keep it operational for many hours of outage.

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A $150 UPS can keep your network equipment online for a few hours. That's what I use. The power rarely goes out here but when it did my Internet kept going

Balkroth said:

My argument is there is going to be fiber in Rural areas as the States get their funding , then provide it to sub contractors , then the work begins.

Everyone has information on the rollout of the funds, if you're in the SP industry it's really all that's been talked about over the past year and half as we've waited for this process to go go through, including all the equipment waivers for BABA stuff, the different technologies allowed, etc. Louisiana was the first state to have their Phase 2 funding approved earlier this year, and are just now starting to roll out the funding https://www.telecompetitor.com/first-bead-funding-announced-here-are-the-louisiana-awardees/ .

BEAD is very much coming through, it's just slower than everyone had hoped.

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There's a really good chance that if any money is left in this initiative... (which I highly doubt) it get's cut by the incoming department of government efficiency for the absolute fraud it is.

It's laughable, the article is from November 18th. Nothing is going to happen this year. No one will be breaking ground before spring of next year. I will be amazed if any of this actually happens.

Aside from that, this one speaks to one state Louisiana. Took them 3+ years to spend 1.5 Billion of 42+ Billion. Wonder where the rest of that money went. lol

Sycraft said:

I'm talking on the consumer side. The telecom's data centers and towers have backups, and have for a long time. So you need your gear to be able to operate. That's not hard these days. For your cellphone, it already has what it needs. For your ONT/router, a reasonable sized lithium battery can keep it operational for many hours of outage.

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But lots of times the hardware isn't in a huge datacenter, it's in a busted down Atco just out of sight on a side road.

https://broadbandbreakfast.com/at-t...t-more-than-30-of-copper-footprint-this-year/

I guess customers may keep their landlines through Broadband or get a mobile number. We're ditching our ATT next month. TDS finally installed fiber last month in our area. I actually saw them hang up the fiber up top then placing these connectors by each resident house.

Finally be able to download games in minutes instead of days. So I'll have more time to game.

Fiber is so cheap that Hezbollah is using long lines to control drones. I like my copper but as long as fiber has taken it's place then I'm Ok with it.