AT&T Discontinuing Land Line Service

mt999999 · 2025-01-23T18:56:39+00:00

I went to sign onto DSL Reports to post that AT&T wire centers in the mid-west (pending regulatory approval) are going to cease offering local dial tone service or orders to move or change existing service, as of March 17th. Basically, they are grandfathering the traditional dial tone service, just as they officially have with ADSL service. I still have a traditional land-line and ADSL in eastern Ohio, that I suppose I can keep unless I move. I guess they'll continue to allow the service and lines to rot in place until it no longer functions. Anyway, back to DSL Reports, I managed to find this new site... Is DSL Reports done for good??

MacLeech

Man-of-Leisure They send everyone a letter “We’re retiring copper in your area on X date and upgrading to fiber. If you don’t schedule an installation with us, your service will be disconnected.”

They tend to send out multiple letters months apart, so it takes years to migrate an area over. It also doesn’t clear out the old equipment, which they’re responsible for and need operational until everyone in an area is migrated.

Like I said, overbuild and migrate. It’s not rip and replace. Especially in areas, like California, that don’t just allow companies to unilaterally slam customers into new services or let the legacy phone networks be turned off. That “ATT discontinued landline service” will be around in California for decades.

Man-of-Leisure

MacLeech They’re getting pretty aggressive with their copper retirements now.

AT&T and Verizon no longer even allow new DSL customers in most areas.

They want copper shut off entirely ASAP, and those customers will either be upgraded to fiber or pushed onto fixed wireless.

MacLeech Especially in areas, like California, that don’t just allow companies to unilaterally slam customers into new services or let the legacy phone networks be turned off.

The state can force them to keep it running for existing customers, but it doesn’t require them to allow new customers to sign up for those services, or maintain the networks if the parts are no longer being manufactured.

Verizon’s copper network has been essentially abandoned and garbage for years now. Pedestals are “fixed” with trash bags, infested with animals, etc. and their DSL was never upgraded past like 10Mbps. I’m sure they were using ancient DSLAMs that haven’t been manufactured for a long time now.

I worked at an office that was still using a Verizon POTS line as of a few years ago, and there was frequent static and it just sounded awful because the copper had been left to rot.

They essentially make the service so awful that customers will want to cancel on their own.

telcodad

MacLeech Like I said, overbuild and migrate. It’s not rip and replace. Especially in areas, like California, that don’t just allow companies to unilaterally slam customers into new services or let the legacy phone networks be turned off. That “ATT discontinued landline service” will be around in California for decades.

Man-of-Leisure They’re getting pretty aggressive with their copper retirements now.

AT&T and Verizon no longer even allow new DSL customers in most areas.

They want copper shut off entirely ASAP, and those customers will either be upgraded to fiber or pushed onto fixed wireless.

Well, landline service may be ending even in California now, with the introduction of a new state bill that would allow AT&T to end its legal obligation to be a carrier of last resort, requiring them to offer landlines to anyone who wants one:

AT&T could get permission to ‘phase out’ landlines under new state bill
By Nereida Moreno, LAist - July 15, 2025
https://laist.com/news/at-t-could-get-permission-to-phase-out-landlines-under-new-state-bill

Hundreds of thousands of California households could lose their landline service under a new state bill that would allow AT&T to be relieved of its legal obligation to be a carrier of last resort. That requires the telecom giant to offer landlines to anyone who wants one. ….

LightSpan

Last Mesa 6 Discs and IP Dslam
cabinet i turned down before i retired . Put a PFP right next to it

Man-of-Leisure

LightSpan Wow… these must be the “refrigerator” sized cabinets that people complained about appearing on their front lawns?

Good riddance.

DOCSIS and fiber don’t need anything even close to this.

SpottedCat

LightSpan It really is the end of an era. For so many years those wire pairs were all we had to communicate with, and now they’re being retired for good.

I actually wonder, are they going to pull out the old cabinets once all the lines that go through them are disconnected? Or just abandon it all in place? What about the massive cables with hundreds of pairs up on utility poles? I figure they might be valuable for copper recycling, right?

Makes me ponder how many remnants of the old copper network will sit and rot as an artifact from another era.

MacLeech

Man-of-Leisure Depends. Due to limited reach of PON, some are using similar sized cabinets for rack mounted rOLTs. Altice and ATT come to mind. Larger PFPs can also be smaller refrigerator sized.

Cable companies who launched fiber since 2020 are commonly using strand/pedestal mounted OLTs that are the same footprint as their RF nodes. Often being able to run RF modules, active-ethernet, and OLTs out of the same housing simultaneously.

Man-of-Leisure

SpottedCat For so many years those wire pairs were all we had to communicate with, and now they’re being retired for good.

They were also used for T1 lines and ISDN, right?

Before Comcast brought DOCSIS to our area, we had a Bell Atlantic ISDN line which was 128kbps and unlimited usage. Seemed blazing fast at the time, when most of our neighbors were probably using AOL dial-up.

Then we got Comcast around 2002 which was 1.5Mbps or something.

SpottedCat Or just abandon it all in place?

Usually they just abandon it, and my guess is the pedestals and cabinets will only be removed if landscaping work needs to be done or the homeowner wants it off their front lawn.

SpottedCat

MacLeech “Limited reach”? Isn’t it something like 40km?

MacLeech

SpottedCat “Limited reach”? Isn’t it something like 40km?

Depends on the optical split, but standard 32-way puts it at 20km (12 miles) fiber distance from the OLT. Bigger splits reduce the distance but require fewer OLT ports, smaller splits extend the distance and require more OLT ports to support a population.

Cable hubs are often about 20 miles apart. Remote IP DSLAMs were installed to extend the range of the CO up to 20+ miles for acceptable DSL performance.

SpottedCat

MacLeech Ahh yes. I remember back in the day being “too far” from the CO to get DSL. Then they moved my line to a SLC-96 and remote DSLAM and suddenly I could get 6mbps DSL.

I guess it makes sense, if you already have a powered RT site with fiber feeding it, to set up a remote OLT there. It’s just a shame that this means active equipment in the field and less resilience against power outages.

This makes me wonder if my fiber (which comes from a PFP at the same RT location as my copper line did back in the day!) is on a remote OLT or if it goes all the way back to the CO.

telcodad

SpottedCat Ahh yes. I remember back in the day being “too far” from the CO to get DSL. Then they moved my line to a SLC-96 and remote DSLAM and suddenly I could get 6mbps DSL.

I had almost the same issue. When I applied for a DSL connection and put in my main landline number it said my loop was too long, too far from the CO.

I then tried the second line we had installed for the dial-up modem to exclusively use - that passed!

That was great because I did not have to install those ’DSL Filters" on any other phones/extensions then. 🙂

Splitpair

SpottedCat This makes me wonder if my fiber (which comes from a PFP at the same RT location as my copper line did back in the day!) is on a remote OLT or if it goes all the way back to the CO.

SpottedCat This makes me wonder if my fiber (which comes from a PFP at the same RT location as my copper line did back in the day!) is on a remote OLT or if it goes all the way back to the CO.

In AT&T land it could be either, one way to sort of tell is look for a small white cabinet about 40″ high adjacent to the crossbox, that’s a Purcell cabinet and they are used for two purposes, either to house a E-MUX or a ADSL DSLAM.

They are one of the last ADSL devices deployed by AT&T and as such will probably the last ones to be depreciated and turned down.

MacLeech

telcodad This is Assembly Bill 470:
https://acom.assembly.ca.gov/system/files/2025-06/ab-470-mckinnor-6.23.25.pdf
https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB470
https://billtexts.s3.amazonaws.com/ca/ca-analysishttps-leginfo-legislature-ca-gov-faces-billAnalysisClient-xhtml-bill-id-202520260AB470-ca-analysis-390234.pdf

The law (if passed) requires the eligible areas are census blocks that are “well-served” by 3 other facilities-based providers offering basic voice services and they must pass some additional CPUC approvals before ATT services are dropped.

CPUC shot down a similar ATT request last year, before this bill was introduced.
https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/news-and-updates/all-news/cpuc-rejects-att-request-to-withdraw-as-carrier

3 bills with language to end COLR requirement over the last 9 years have also died without becoming law.

Prior/Related Legislation

AB 2797 (McKinnor) of 2024, contained certain provisions substantially similar to this bill. The bill would have required the CPUC to relieve a telephone corporation of its COLR duties if certain criteria existed. The bill died in the Senate.

AB 1366 (Daly) of 2019, expanded the authority of the OES to regulate provision of next generation 9-1-1 services. A prior version of the bill heard by this committee would have extended laws prohibiting state and local governments from regulating VoIP services and other internet-based communications. The bill died in the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee.

AB 2395 (Low) of 2016, would have established a process by which a telecommunications provider could cease offering traditional telephone services. The bill died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Man-of-Leisure

telcodad

Under the bill, AT&T said copper services would be maintained “until new technologies are available that are equally or more reliable.”

Sounds fine to me, though this is going to take a long time in the most rural areas. Probably why AT&T doesn’t actually plan to phase out copper until 2029.

There are a ton of rural areas of the state (including all of Yosemite National Park) where AT&T is the only wired provider, and it’s still just DSL.

All of Yosemite is still just 10Mb DSL which is carried over microwave dishes out of the park, since the NPS apparently refuses to allow them to run fiber.

dishrich

Well it appears there is a drop-dead date for discontinuing (copper) landline service in IL of 3/15/27:
https://www.citizensutilityboard.org/blog/2025/12/02/cub-qa-att-letters-announce-end-of-landline-service-in-2027/

There was a segment of this specifically discussing IL, in a segment on the Today show a couple weeks ago:

A client/friend of mine got this very letter first week of December, after just getting the “grandfathering” letter in September. Thing is, she gets a “concession” phone line for only $9/month, as she is an Ameritech/SBC retiree. But in doing some research for her, it appears her options are pretty limited at keeping this:
-If she does the “wireless replacement”, they may/may not honor the same rate for the service. Also, she is not thrilled with having to rely on a cell tower, for an emergency situation & I have grave doubts that the service, in fact, sends an actual home address to E911, like all landlines in Springfield do now. This IS important to her, as she is elderly & lives alone.
-While she does have AT&T fiber (internet) available, again if they would honor the rate for the home phone portion, she would be responsible for paying for a (minimal) fiber internet service - at least according to info from AT&T. The problem is, she does NOT want to dump Comcast TV service, as she is happy with the TV lineup & gets FREE Peacock for life, as part of Xfinity rewards; she also has internet thru them, as it brings down the cost of her base TV service. She absolutely does NOT want to go to a streaming replacement service!

Honestly at this point, I told her her best option might be to just forget the concession, & switch the landline to Comcast. While it’s more expensive than what she’s currently paying, it’s much cheaper than having to (double) pay for AT&T internet, & it WILL send E911 addressing to our PSAP. Since it’s a managed service, if something happens to the landline, Comcast is responsible for getting it back up, without her trying to troubleshoot if I was unavailable. She is probably going to do it in the next couple months, after I’m back from vacation.

px_eliezer_

dishrich Honestly at this point, I told her her best option might be to just forget the concession, & switch the landline to Comcast. While it’s more expensive than what she’s currently paying, it’s much cheaper than having to (double) pay for AT&T internet, & it WILL send E911 addressing to our PSAP.

I think you’re right.

Hopefully she also has a cellphone, it never hurts to have TWO methods at least even if the address transmission is not guaranteed for the cellphone…

My daughter has a basic cellular plan with Tello, which uses the T-Mobile network, and it’s just 8 bucks a month plus a little more for tax. Tello in our experience is well organized with billing etc. Plans are fully customizable (for her 8 dollar plan it’s 300 minutes, free texts, 2 GB data, for example). You can go even cheaper too. And they have decently priced phones for sale.
https://tello.com/buy/custom_plans

badtlc4

dishrich Port the landline number to Vonage or Ooma. Both offer full 911 services and run around $10/mo including unlimited long distance. Keep it simple.

badtlc4

px_eliezer_ I can also vouch for Tello. I put my kids on it. No issues with it other than it took them forever to get RCS enabled on iPhones.

dishrich

badtlc4 Port the landline number to Vonage or Ooma. Both offer full 911 services and run around $10/mo including unlimited long distance. Keep it simple.

Is Vonage or Ooma going to come to her house & diagnose it if she has problems with it? I don’t think so…

Again, this IS an 80+ year old lady I’m dealing with her & she is NOT worried about quibbling over $10 vs $20 a month for her landline. Again, Comcast WILL fix it if she’s having issues with it (since it’s in THEIR gateway…) & I’m not around…THAT’S more simple. And it also has unlimited LD, TV onscreen caller ID, & all features w/VM & comes on the same bill as all her other Comcast stuff. (cell phones, TV & internet, which she actually wants…)

hex0101

dishrich Lots of Comcast techs don’t like working with the telephone lines, they would rather you go and get a cordless phone system with a base station, plug in the telephone line from the gateway into the base station, and then you can put the telephone handsets around the house. No need to work with 20+ year phone wiring. Some will attempt to set it up but if troubleshooting keeps coming up short then that’s it. Your mileage may vary, maybe in your market they don’t mind and will absolutely set it up and even repair it if need be.

Though the VoIP was $30.00. Did you get a discount?

I did switch my elderly parents to MagicJack and it worked fine for 10+ years. Already had 18/1.5 DSL Internet service so it just used that and worked like a normal POTS line from the perspective of using the landline phone to make and receive calls. Switched the Home Alarm and Security System to a cellular dialer before eventually dropping it though.

px_eliezer_

dishrich Again, this IS an 80+ year old lady I’m dealing with her & she is NOT worried about quibbling over $10 vs $20 a month for her landline. Again, Comcast WILL fix it if she’s having issues with it (since it’s in THEIR gateway…) & I’m not around…THAT’S more simple.

I’m a huge fan of 3rd party VoIP, but in THIS situation with older folks you’re absolutely right, the Comcast phone service is the best of the possible choices.

Donut417

dishrich Again, this IS an 80+ year old lady I’m dealing with her & she is NOT worried about quibbling over $10 vs $20 a month for her landline.

I agree. When it comes to older people, the simpler it is the better it is, regardless if it costs more. Especially if your not going to be available to fix any issues.

« Previous Page Next Page »