ISPs Want to Continue to Discontinue Copper Service
The FCC approved Verizon’s request to discontinue legacy service later this year across eight states. AT&T and Fidium are also asking.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 21, 2026 – Copper retirement efforts from major ISPs are continuing apace.
In recent weeks AT&T, Fidium, and Verizon have each been asking the Federal Communications Commission to discontinue legacy services in areas across the U.S.
Verizon recently requested permission to discontinue copper service at millions of passings in 17 states, while Fidium sought approval to discontinue service at hundreds of thousands of locations in eight states. Both companies’ networks counted only small fractions of those as subscribers, 4 percent at most.
AT&T is also looking not to restore service in hundreds of areas after network damage and vandalism.
Incumbent ISPs are eager to turn down their old copper networks, which are expensive to maintain and no longer provide competitive broadband speeds. The FCC and some state authorities regulate the retirement process, an effort to ensure rural areas aren’t left without access to essential services.
Under FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, the agency has been trying to facilitate that retirement process and make it smoother for providers. The agency has waived filing requirements and made it easier to show that mobile coverage is an adequate replacement service.
Consumer advocates have opposed the FCC’s efforts, fearing rural areas could be left with less reliable or nonexistent service.
AT&T
AT&T is asking the FCC for permission not to restore service in more than 600 areas in 16 states after they were damaged by copper thieves or equipment failure. Many of the areas only served one or two customer circuits, according to maps the company submitted on Aug. 14 and July 28.
“It does not make economic sense or serve the public interest for AT&T to spend its time and money to restore a portion of its legacy network serving relatively few customers in these areas, particularly when AT&T plans to retire the vast majority of its legacy copper network, including the facilities in these areas, within the next few years,” wrote AT&T attorney Brett Farley.
The company said affected customers would have alternatives like mobile service and its own landline replacement, which can run on wireless or fiber networks. The company reached out to customers to tell them the service would be retired.
On Aug. 9, the company said it officially stopped service in another batch of areas that the agency had let it discontinue after network damage. It also asked to discontinue service in areas that would be affected by construction in the near future.
AT&T has been particularly public with its copper retirement plans, and is trying to move quickly. On the wireless carrier’s earnings call last month, AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company had FCC approval to discontinue legacy services at more than 30 percent of its roughly 4,600 copper wire centers, which would become effective in late 2026.
The company has approval to stop selling legacy services to new customers, known as grandfathering, at more than 85 percent of its wire centers.
AT&T is asking the FCC to preempt California’s carrier of last resort rules, which have more stringent requirements for replacement services. The state and consumer advocates have opposed that effort, fearing wireless alternatives could be less reliable in an emergency.
Verizon
On Aug. 10, Verizon asked the FCC for permission to discontinue copper service in October for a swathe of its network across nine states. The network at issue could serve 12 million locations, Verizon said, but only 277,000 use the service.
The carrier said voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service on its fiber network, mobile service, or its own landline replacement similar to AT&T’s would be an adequate substitute.
That’s in addition to a July application to shut down service at 4.5 million locations in eight other states in September. Just 140,000 of those homes and businesses subscribed to copper service, the company said.
That application has received some pushback from Nebraska and Minnesota’s telecom regulators. They wanted more data verifying where Verizon had built fiber and where solid wireless service was available in the affected areas, fearing that coverage was overstated in the FCC’s broadband coverage map.
Verizon attorney Randy Clarke insisted in an Aug. 17 letter that the company wasn’t seeking approval to turn down every copper location in the eight states, only ones where an adequate replacement service was available. He wrote that the FCC’s map was accurate and had been relied on to grant other retirement requests in the past.
The FCC was apparently not swayed by the states. The application was automatically approved Friday, since the agency did not request more information within 30 days after first taking comment on it.
Fidium
This month Fidium, formerly Consolidated Communications, submitted applications to discontinue legacy service in parts of eight states. The company is looking to turn down more than 790,000 passings that only serve 500 customers.
Most of the passings, more than 500,000, are in Maine and New Hampshire. The discontinuances would happen this fall from September through November.
The company has been making similar requests over the course of the year.
Fidium has been overbuilding its legacy copper footprint with fiber, and told the FCC that it would offer VoIP on that fiber network in the areas it’s looking to decommission. Customers could also switch to wireless mobile service, the company said.
Fidium was taken private by Searchlight Capital in late 2024. In a September 2025 interview, CEO Guarnav Juneja said the company had about 1.56 million fiber passings — about 60 percent of its copper footprint — and was planing to hit 2 million by the end of 2027.
