Appearing on cio.com, by Ed Fox, MetTel CTO:
There has been a public challenge to the fact that AT&T is retiring its copper landlines in the state of California. This issue, however, is much bigger than the state of California and AT&T. It is not only national but global as well. In the US alone, there are estimates from 35 million to 100 million landlines still in operation (depending on how you count them), about 14 million of which are business lines.
Beyond AT&T, over the past few years, quietly and discreetly, the world’s biggest telecom providers have been retiring their physical copper lines to transition to the next era.
Digital transformation of copper lines – like most IT infrastructure – is better for telecommunications carriers/network providers and businesses alike, as copper networks are expensive to maintain and unreliable with gradual deterioration accelerating over the past decade. Meanwhile, the costs to maintain copper lines have grown to anywhere from 5x–10x traditional rates, making them untenable.