Hundreds of thousands of residents and businesses may soon be losing their main source of communication: a landline telephone.
Verizon filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Sept. 9 to phase out its copper-based landline phone services in New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and seven other states. If approved, Verizon will have the authority to discontinue its Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) copper-based phone services starting Nov. 30.
Verizon estimates about 2.7 percent of its customers will be affected by its phase-out plans — approximately 750,000 residents and businesses according to its FCC application. Diana Alvear, a spokesperson for Verizon, said that the company’s copper network is too old to respond to modern needs.
“[The network] is 100-year-old aging infrastructure. It is physically deteriorating and increasingly vulnerable to things like severe weather and theft, and maintaining these old lines is becoming harder and more complicated,” Alvear told The New York Public News Network. “We’re having issues finding the right parts. It’s labor-intensive to do.”
Verizon also said in its application that the transition will help move the FCC’s Build America Agenda to upgrade to new networks forward by freeing up billions of dollars it uses to maintain its legacy copper network.
Alvear urges “nobody is being disconnected as of November 30th” and that it’ll take time for Verizon customers to find viable alternatives.
In some rural communities, residents and local officials are increasingly concerned that there are few to no viable alternatives to their copper-based landline services.
The FCC is currently taking public comments on Verizon’s application. More than 50 comments have been filed as of Sept. 28 that outline how some rural areas lack reliable cell towers and regularly experience power outages.
Rural residents, officials worry there is no viable alternative for some
Carolyn Summers and David Brittenham live at their home in Neversink, New York surrounded by acres of forested land and meadows in Sullivan County.
They’ve relied on their Verizon landline service for more than two decades, a necessity in an area they describe as a “cellphone dead zone.”
“While we have mobile phones, they’re not usable in the house or anywhere nearby. We have relied since we built the house in the late ‘90s on having a copper-based landline,” said Brittenham. “That’s our 24/7 telephone connection to the outside world.”
Brittenham and Summers were alarmed by a letter they received from Verizon on Sept. 15 outlining its transition plans. They’ve since filed a comment on Verizon’s application on Sept. 21 saying there are “no effective and reliable alternative telephone service[s] available.”
“Large stretches of the Town of Neversink do not in fact have outdoor wireless coverage. The same is true of large portions of the Catskills region,” their public comment states.
Other filings come from residents from across the Northeast region, from Ithaca to the Catskills to further north in western Massachusetts.
Brittenham says he believes the number of customers without a reasonable alternative is much higher than Verizon estimates. “Verizon’s wireless coverage map is wildly inaccurate as we stated in our letter, and that is a basic problem with their application.”
New York Assemblymember Paula Kay, who represents the 100th Assembly District including Sullivan and Orange counties, said her office has received many calls from concerned residents and expects to get many more.
“So much of [Sullivan] County has poor, nonexistent, [or] unreliable cell service. Luckily, the county is in the middle of [an] upgrade for broadband, which may make a tremendous difference, but right now, if your option is a landline and a cellphone that doesn’t work at your home, you’re gonna want to have the ability to call out whenever you need to on a landline, especially for elderly folks and for people who live alone,” said Kay. “We need to have reliable communication.”
Sullivan County and Archtop Fiber have been working on a $30 million broadband expansion project to bring high-speed internet to more than 22,000 homes and businesses across the county.
But Archtop Fiber says the project will likely wrap up by December 2026 before the November 30 deadline Verizon shared. Sullivan County also received an extension to complete the project by June 2027.
Kay told The New York Public News Network she’s working with Verizon to hold a public forum with Verizon representatives to answer questions about the potential changes.
Verizon has also submitted a separate application to phase out copper landline services in New Jersey, Delaware, and seven other states. The FCC said on Friday it needed more time to review that application.