Copper deadline lookup
Where the shutdown has reached
Enter a ZIP code and we will show you the retirement timeline that applies, what each stage means for the lines your building depends on, and exactly where to find your own cutoff date.
The timeline that applies to you
Already happened
Regulated wholesale access to copper ends
The FCC relieved the largest carriers of the obligation to lease copper lines to competitors at regulated rates. Cheap wholesale copper disappeared, and retail prices for the lines that remained began climbing - which is why a line that cost around $45 a month a decade ago may now bill several hundred.
Already happened
Carriers get a faster route out of copper
The FCC granted blanket authority to stop selling legacy services without individual applications, allowed bundled internet and wireless offerings to count as adequate replacements, and permitted carriers to post retirement notices on their own websites rather than filing them with the Commission. In practice this moved the burden of noticing onto the customer.
Already happened
What is left on copper, and how fast it is shrinking
FCC reporting put roughly 15 million traditional switched lines still in service, of which about 8.6 million were business lines, declining at close to 18 percent a year. What remains is disproportionately the code-driven core: fire alarm, elevator, refuge and alarm circuits that cannot simply move to an app.
Already happened
The exit ramp is made permanent
The Network and Services Modernization Order set a single replacement test where any of several alternatives qualifies, introduced a shot clock under which discontinuance applications are granted automatically, made grandfathering authority permanent, and preempted conflicting state rules. A carrier that wants out of copper anywhere in the country now has a fast and federally protected way to do it.
Every entry above links to its primary source. We publish nothing here on our own say-so, because you may be relying on one of these dates for a fire alarm line.
How to find your own cutoff date
Check your bill and your post. Carriers may now post retirement notices on their own websites rather than filing them with the regulator, so the notice you are waiting for may never arrive as a letter.
Check your carrier’s copper retirement page directly. Each major carrier maintains one, and it is the authoritative source for which exchanges are affected and when.
Ask us to look. The free line audit includes finding which of your lines sit in an affected exchange, and it is the part most people cannot do for themselves.