What Is Copper Retirement?
If you still have plain phone lines, fax lines, or an alarm or elevator line coming in on copper, they are living on borrowed time. Here is what copper retirement actually is, why it is happening now, and what a NYC business needs to do before the shutoff notice arrives.
In 2025 the FCC acted to speed up copper retirement, and AT&T has said it plans to stop serving customers over copper across most of its network by 2029.
Source: FCC and industry reporting (AT&T copper phase-out timeline)
What POTS lines are
POTS stands for Plain Old Telephone Service, the analog phone lines that have run over copper wire for decades. They power desk phones, fax machines, credit-card terminals, and critical life-safety lines like fire alarm panels and elevator emergency phones.
Why copper is being retired
Copper is expensive to maintain and the carriers want out of it. Federal rules have been streamlined to let them retire copper faster and shift customers to fiber and wireless. This is a nationwide transition, not a local outage, and it is already underway in parts of New York.
What it means for your business
When copper is retired in your area, the carrier issues a shutoff notice and your service on those lines ends on a deadline. Phones can move to a modern cloud system, but fax, fire alarm, and elevator lines need a compliant replacement, typically a cellular device built to meet the relevant safety codes, before the copper goes dark.
Common questions
Is copper really going away?
Yes. Carriers including Verizon and AT&T are retiring copper nationwide, and the FCC has streamlined the rules to let them do it faster. It is a planned transition to fiber and wireless, not a temporary outage.
Will my fax and alarm lines stop working?
Eventually, if they run on copper. Once your area gets a shutoff notice, fax, fire alarm, and elevator lines on copper have to move to a compliant replacement, usually within about 90 days, or they stop working.
How much notice do I get?
When a carrier retires copper in your area it issues a shutoff notice, and service typically ends on a deadline about 90 days out. Waiting for the notice leaves little time, so it is better to plan the move ahead of it.
What replaces a copper line?
Phones move to a cloud phone system over your internet. Fire alarm and elevator lines move to a cellular device built to meet the relevant safety codes, with battery backup, so they keep working when copper is gone.
On copper lines in NYC? Let's plan the move.
We help NYC businesses move phones, fax, fire alarm, and elevator lines off copper before the shutoff notice hits. No pressure, just a plan.