While Verizon has announced plans to terminate most copper landline telephone service across 18 states including New York, an association that represents the company’s retired staff and those from other legacy phone companies is urging the federal government to reject their proposal.
The Association of BellTel Retirees sent a formal comment to the Federal Communications Commission, a part of the utility regulator’s public comment process, urging the commission to reject Verizon’s bid to replace copper landline service across most of its coverage areas with fiber-optic or wireless replacement service.
Verizon announced the bid with a letter to customers earlier this month. They’re seeking FCC approval, which is expected to come by mid-November, to start a process that’s expected to take months to years to complete.
The company has pledged to replace all possible landline customers equipment with modern replacements that are largely compatible with home phones and existing telephone-connected equipment like security systems. Customers will be given either a fiber-optic modem or a cellular-connected base station, with built-in batteries to stay on in power outages.
For customers who can’t be served with a wireless or fiber-optic connection, the existing copper lines will remain in place. All customers will be allowed to keep their numbers, or port out to another provider of their choice.
It’s a part of a broader shift away from the 150-year-old technology that’s been the base standard for communications since the birth of the telephone system. Verizon and AT&T, the largest legacy phone companies that operate the national network left from the Bell monopoly of the 20th century, have both phased out copper landline services to the best of their abilities. Neither company has taken new connection orders for copper landline service in years, and they’ve actively switched their core and high-traffic networks to fiber-optics.
Most customers in cities and towns with home phone service have transitioned to a fiber-optic connection, but copper-based phone lines remain active in rural areas across upstate New York. Neither company publishes their customer data, so it’s not clear how many customers remain connected to the copper-based network.
But in a letter to the FCC, Thomas Steed, chairman of the Association of BellTel Retirees, said the concern is that people living in rural areas will be abandoned by Verizon’s planned phase-out. He said he is worried customers will be connected via spotty or barely sufficient wireless connections susceptible to failure in severe weather when a phone might be most needed. Connecting customers to the fiber-optic network requires serious planning and costs for the company, while customers will have to pay to receive a wireless base station with no other investments from the company needed.
Steed suggested the FCC pursue a mandate that all customers be served with fiber-optics directly to each address, the way copper phone lines have to be strung to serve all customers.
“This ignores the needs of millions of older and vulnerable Americans, particularly those in rural areas, who rely on landlines in areas where cell service is inconsistent, potentially leaving millions of our fellow Americans entirely dependent on spotty or nonexistent cell service and at the mercy of price-gouging bottom dweller-providers,” his letter reads.
Steed also expressed concerns that the abandonment of the copper network will result in the termination of tens of thousands of working linemen who work to maintain it.
“Please vote to maintain basic, connected landline phone services. Our rate payers funded the build out of this system and access to it should be a public good for all, not another price-gouging profit machine for Verizon,” Steed’s letter concludes.
The Association of BellTel Retirees represents thousands of retired phone company employees from every state in the country. The group mostly organizes the large number of retired employees in negotiations to maintain benefits as the corporations they worked for dissolve, change hands or close.