FCC Chairman Brendan Carr told reporters Thursday that he will look “very closely” at the state of play on legacy copper in carrier networks. “We have a regime in place where we are requiring carriers to invest billions and billions of dollars into aging, legacy copper networks,” sometimes in parallel with building a modern network, Carr said. “We need to find a way to create the incentives so that we can transition people to next-generation services and incentivize investment in new infrastructure.”
AT&T defended its proposal to stop accepting new customers for parts of its legacy copper network (see 2501310046), responding to opposition from the Communications Workers of America and Bandwidth (see 2502240025). AT&T has four applications pending at the FCC involving legacy services in wire centers in 18 states. “As detailed in each application, demand for each of these services is very low in the Affected Service Area, and new orders are almost nonexistent,” said a filing Tuesday in docket 25-45. “Grandfathering these outdated services will benefit the public and serve as an important step toward meeting both AT&T’s and the Commission’s goals of advancing toward next-generation technologies that customers crave.” AT&T said no actual end users filed comments on the applications. Contrary to CWA's allegations, “all existing customers of the Affected Services will be able to keep their current service,” the carrier said. “AT&T spends over $6 billion annually in direct costs to keep its copper services running -- resources that would be much better spent connecting more Americans to newer networks.”
Broadband officials and experts emphasized the need for greater communication and partnerships between industry and government to complete the transition from copper infrastructure to fiber and other technologies during NARUC's Winter Policy Summit on Tuesday. Some stressed the need for greater oversight of the transition and carrier of last resort (COLR) obligations. Others discussed the potential effects of the challenge to the FCC's Title II broadband reclassification and the U.S. Supreme Court's decision for a second time to deny rehearing a challenge to New York's broadband affordability law.
The Communications Workers of America and Bandwidth separately opposed AT&T’s moves to close additional parts of its legacy copper network (see 2501310046). AT&T CEO John Stankey said in January that the carrier plans to file applications at the FCC to stop selling legacy products in about 1,300 wire centers, which is roughly a quarter of the AT&T footprint (see 2501270047). AT&T started the push during the last administration and is taking a more aggressive approach at the current FCC.
Expect another year of declining net additions of broadband subscribers, Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino said Wednesday in a Fiber Broadband Association webinar. Net adds by fiber, cable and DSL were around 2.5 million in 2023 and 2.2 million last year, and will likely be fewer than 2 million this year, he said. While cable's lost broadband subscribers are often attributed to fiber and fixed wireless access competition, they might actually be due to incumbents feeling most acutely those declining net additions, he said. Cable has clearly lost its residential broadband monopoly, with close to two-thirds of households having fiber operator options alongside cable, Supino said. In five years, 75%-80% of households will have the choice of fiber and cable, he noted. Traditionally, cable saw its broadband subscriber numbers grow as the number of homes its network passed increased. Since broadband subscriber numbers are no longer growing in lockstep with number of homes its network passes, cable becomes more capital intensive, he said.
The FCC Wireline Bureau on Tuesday sought comment by Feb. 19 on parts of AT&T's requests last week as it shutters more of its legacy copper network. The bureau created dockets for comments about moving customers off DS1 and DS3 services (docket 25-45) and retiring remote call forwarding services (25-46) and VoIP calling (25-47). AT&T plans to move aggressively in the new Donald Trump administration to cut costs by closing parts of its legacy network (see 2501310046).
As previewed during a recent financial call, it appears AT&T in recent days has been moving more aggressively to shut additional parts of its legacy copper network (see 2501270047). In December, in what AT&T executives saw as a model for future retirements, the FCC took no action, allowing AT&T to initially halt sales and then discontinue residential local service in nine Oklahoma wire centers (see 2412230066). AT&T CEO John Stankey said on the call that the carrier plans to file applications at the FCC to stop selling legacy products in about 1,300 wire centers, or about a quarter of the AT&T footprint. On Friday alone, the FCC posted retirement proposals for AT&T wire centers in Alliance, Ohio; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Easley, South Carolina; and Milwaukee.
AT&T CEO John Stankey said Monday the carrier will move aggressively to shutter more of its legacy copper network in coming months, filing applications at the FCC to stop selling legacy products in about 1,300 wire centers. That is about a quarter of AT&T’s footprint, officials said on a call discussing Q4 results. AT&T also announced that its growth is continuing, with 482,000 postpaid phone subscription net adds in the quarter and 307,000 AT&T Fiber adds.
It is critical that more licensed spectrum becomes available for the wireless industry, Rhonda Johnson, AT&T executive vice president-federal regulatory relations, said Wednesday. “The U.S. has no supply of the licensed spectrum that fuels wireless services, and the FCC has no authority to auction the essential resource,” Johnson wrote in a blog post: “This spectrum drought has allowed other countries, including China, to surpass the U.S. in allocating key portions of spectrum.” Expanding AT&T’s network “requires expanding access to the licensed spectrum that powers it,” she said. AT&T arguably has been the most outspoken national wireless carrier in projecting positive things to come from Donald Trump's incoming administration (see 2412100069). Johnson also stressed the importance of regulators clearing a path for the provider to shutter inefficient copper networks (see 2405210059). “Outdated regulations force U.S. telecom companies to maintain inefficient copper networks, diverting investment from the resilient high-speed internet technologies of the future.”
AT&T said Monday the FCC approved its proposal to to initially stop new sales and then discontinue residential local service in nine Oklahoma wire centers. The proposal was deemed granted Saturday after the agency didn’t take further action. The Communications Workers of America slammed the development.