Joel Thayer and Ethan Tun: Stop Making Americans Pay for Yesterday’s Phone Network
Outdated rules tying carriers to copper phone lines are diverting billions from fiber and wireless buildout, and the FCC should finish modernizing them.
A bad connection used to mean yelling at a frozen YouTube video or becoming a blurry potato on FaceTime. But now Americans depend on high-speed Internet and wireless service for work, school, health care, business, and public safety. And so, a bad connection can mean a missed paycheck, a failed telehealth visit, a lost sale, or a delayed emergency call.
Internet service providers are investing in improving connectivity and bringing reliable high-speed Internet to the unconnected in rural America. The federal government is doing the same through BEAD, a bipartisan program investing over $20 billion to close the digital divide.
But there’s an obstacle to next-generation networks that too few realize: Legacy rules that bind carriers to the copper networks of yore. These rules require carriers to constantly reinvest in copper wires, dedicate largely empty buildings to 1980s technology, and prevent telephone traffic from being routed and exchange efficiently.
These rules are enormously expensive. AT&T alone spends more than $6 billion each year maintaining copper lines. And AT&T is only one example: 2,425 voice service providers incur unnecessary costs to interconnect with and support the legacy network.
Old copper networks are fragile. When old wires fail, consumers lose service. Repairs are slow, expensive, and disruptive. The Los Angeles Bureau of Street Lighting has explained that repairing copper lines can take “several days, and in some cases, weeks,” comparing the work to rewiring a house rather than replacing a light bulb.
And with copper prices at an all-time high, copper wires are a target for thieves and vandals. As FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty put the stakes plainly: “when a hospital can’t connect to its patient records, when 911 callers hear nothing but silence, when an entire small town loses connectivity because someone saw dollar signs in copper wire, that is not a prank. That is not mischief. That is a direct attack on the lifeblood of our economy and our daily life.”
Ultimately, the American public pays the price. Every dollar spent patching deteriorating copper is a dollar not spent expanding fiber, upgrading high-speed Internet, or improving reliability. That waste hits hardest in communities still waiting for better Internet, because these last-century networks keep draining private resources that could help get more Americans connected.
Unsurprisingly, the market has moved faster than regulation. American families are choosing VoIP over copper telephone service 3:1 for their home phones—and even more are opting out entirely. As of last year, there were 394 million mobile telephone lines in the United States, but only 25.8 million home phone lines. In other words, copper home phone service now comprises just 1.36% of the voice telephone market. Rules written when landlines dominated the market a generation ago no longer make sense, and clinging to their strictures only delays progress.
After years of delay, the Federal Communications Commission is now taking action. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has called for moving America “out of the copper era and into the modern broadband age.” Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez has also said that “the future is IP-based” and that FCC rules should “facilitate, not obstruct” that transition.
In March, the agency adopted rules to streamline copper retirement and the transition to next-generation technologies like fiber and wireless. They eliminated needless paperwork and roadblocks and made clear that when copper deteriorates (or vandals steal it), a carrier may replace it with next-generation technology without delay. The FCC also made clear that state rules cannot delay that progress.
But there is still much work to be done. Some is arcane and technical—how to ensure the efficient interconnection of IP networks—and some is common-sense but contentious.
For example, current rules allow some carriers to force others to pay them for the privilege of connecting to their copper networks, creating the bizarre incentive to maintain copper networks that would have long ago been retired. And some states continue to require reinvestment in copper even when better fiber or wireless solutions are available.
People will squawk at any change, but modernizing these rules is common sense. Consumers, technology, and markets have all changed drastically since these rules were written. Americans need downloads that finish in seconds, videos that do not buffer, telehealth visits that do not drop, and work meetings that do not freeze.
America cannot build the future while forcing companies to preserve the phone network of the past. The FCC has recognized that the copper era is ending. Now it should finish the job and let resources flow to the networks Americans actually use.
Joel Thayer is president of the Digital Progress Institute and an attorney based in Washington. Digital Progress Institute is a nonprofit seeking to bridge the policy divide between telecom and tech.
Ethan Tun is a law fellow at the Digital Progress Institute, where he works on telecommunications and broadband policy. He is an incoming second-year student at Georgetown University Law Center after finishing his first year at the University of Akron School of Law in the top 3 percent of his class. Before law school, he studied philosophy at Carleton College. This Expert Opinion is exclusive to Broadband Breakfast.
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