As we have already explored, Copper Sunset is an important trend that all businesses must plan for. This change represents a fundamental break from technology that has served us well for over 100 years, and is much more nuanced than just flipping a switch. With no universal or clearly defined cutoff date, copper networks will remain in use for years to come, but this doesn’t mean that businesses should stick with the status quo.
"This change represents a fundamental break from technology that has served us well for over 100 years..."
Service quality and reliability will only get worse as telcos are not making new investments in traditional PSTN infrastructure. Waiting until the last possible minute when your carrier finally announces end of service will leave you scrambling just for basic connectivity. Instead, business leaders need to be planning now for adopting nextgen digital services, even if that means working with multiple providers.
"Waiting until the last possible minute when your carrier finally announces end of service will leave you scrambling just for basic connectivity."
If your carrier isn’t giving you a firm timeline for decommissioning legacy telephony service, it’s for good reason. You may think they’re just dragging their feet, but there is a complex mix of factors and realities at play. This article addresses this complexity to help business leaders understand why Copper Sunset is harder to do than it looks.
Competing Points of View
Before considering the jumbled state of regulations that dictate how service providers address Copper Sunset, it’s important to recognize that the perspectives of carriers and subscribers are fundamentally at odds. Both positions are valid, and while these were shaped when carriers were protected by monopoly status, times have changed, and each side faces very different realities today.
"...the perspectives of carriers and subscribers are fundamentally at odds."
For subscribers, there’s an existential concern that Copper Sunset will take away their cherished landline service, which millions have relied on for generations. This is perfectly understandable given that many subscribers are still old enough to remember when PSTN was the gold standard for telephony service, and virtually no alternatives existed.
The social contract that came with monopoly status to serve the public good served both parties well for decades. In exchange for telephony being a closed market with no competitors, telcos had incentive to build out the broadest network possible – but also no incentive to innovate – and were kept in check by highly-regulated pricing power to ensure that all citizens could access this wonderful service at a reasonable cost (although that’s highly-debatable).
In the US, that changed with deregulation in 1984, and from there, unprecedented innovation followed, giving rise to VoIP. As IP networks evolved, Internet-based calling presented advantages that neither carriers nor consumers could ignore. With VoIP now firmly in place as the successor to PSTN, the subscriber position about losing telephony service with Copper Sunset has now become much harder to defend.
While we all welcome technology progress, there is also validity to the carrier’s position. As a monopoly, maintaining copper networks was simply a given, since that ensured the annuity-like revenues that came from subscribers. This was a sustainable status quo – until it wasn’t.
Initially, incumbent carriers fiercely resisted VoIP given how threatening it was to their perfect business model. This new technology took a long time to mature, and once broadband reached critical mass, it was impossible to dismiss VoIP as being the future of telephony. At that point of inflection, carriers needed to switch horses, and channel their network investments into broadband and fiber buildouts.
This transition has been decades in the making, but as copper networks continued aging out, there was no reason to continue running or maintaining them - especially as the legacy subscriber base has now dwindled to single digits of households for landline-only service. Except - for the framework of telecom regulations - many of which are pre-Internet era, and do not fully reflect the present.
There are very few households today that truly have no alternative to PSTN if service was decommissioned. We will always have the challenges of servicing remote locations – with either wireline or wireless – but not enough to justify continued investment in copper networks, especially when that Capex can be spent on modern networks that can provide alternatives, along with superior levels of network performance and reliability.
For carriers, the rationale for Copper Sunset has everything to do with modernizing their networks to support nextgen services, and very little for depriving a small minority of subscribers of service, many of whom only use PSTN as a backup to mobile telephony.
Building the Case for Carriers
Technology change on this scale is complex by nature, and Copper Sunset isn’t just about self-interest for carriers to protect their business. They certainly need to do that, but there is nuance related to supporting their position that must be considered. Here are four distinct factors to support the case for Copper Sunset.
1. Business rationale
As noted above, the base of legacy landline subscribers has been declining for decades now, and it’s never coming back. Between mobility and VoIP, there are ubiquitous alternatives to PSTN that consumers – and businesses – have become quite accustomed to. Initially, both options were vastly inferior to PSTN in many ways, but we are well-past that now.
Not only are these services more economical, but they are far more innovative, with features and integrations that legacy telephony could never support. No doubt, there have been concessions, especially around emergency and first responder services, but there is no call en masse for going back to legacy service. In short, today’s nominal subscriber base simply does not warrant the ongoing investment needed by carriers to keep the PSTN going.
2. Capex priorities
For carriers, the future is fiber and broadband, not PSTN. This has been true for decades, but buildouts are expensive, and take a long time – otherwise we would all have Gigabit service by now. Fiber buildouts are an ongoing activity, and while just as capital-intensive as 5G is for mobility, they can move slowly, especially around last-mile connectivity.
To whatever extent carriers are supporting both PSTN and fiber buildouts, it’s fair to say their preference would be to allocate every last dollar to the latter. Where regulations require support for legacy service, this takes resources away from deploying fiber. This matters in today’s competitive climate, where so much revenue is at stake for digital services.
Not only are carriers competing with each other for fiber customers – unlike regulated times, where incumbents had exclusive coverage in their home markets via facilities-based networks – but also with wireless carriers, cablecos, and in some cases utilities – all of whom can offer the same services. As such, legacy carriers have a serious business imperative to build out fiber ASAP.
"Fiber buildouts...can move slowly, especially around last-mile connectivity."
3. Copper theft
This may seem like an afterthought, but it’s another strand for supporting Copper Sunset. In analog times, copper theft would have been unthinkable. Infrastructure for all utility services may be a soft target for bad actors, but being so critical for modern living, this was not fertile ground for crime.
Times are different now, and this has become a real issue for carriers, and not just in the US, but Canada as well. Copper may not be a precious metal, but it’s become more valuable as part of the ecosystem for building modern products, especially smartphones, computers and cars. There is no shortage of scrap dealers and metal recyclers who will buy copper no questions asked, and remarkably, that has enabled a healthy cottage industry for extracting copper wire from telephony networks.
Carriers do try to protect their networks, but it’s impossible to cover all the ground. While thieves only think about the easy money to be made here, there are several repercussions for carriers. First is the service disruption when wire is cut and then stripped down for sale as a commodity. Since fiber networks often follow the same path as copper, these cables are often cut inadvertently during the extraction, causing further outages.
Going a step further, thieves will also attack fiber-only buildouts, thinking there’s copper, and upon finding nothing, they may damage the fiber out of frustration. Then there’s the aftermath, where carriers need to replace what’s been damaged – and paying today’s prices for new copper cable. All of this adds up to service disruption and a new set of costs for carriers to keep the PSTN going.
4. The AI race
AI is everywhere now, and while esoteric to most, it’s a very real factor for US carriers. Being the world leader in AI is a strategic priority for the current administration, and that has ripple effects across the entire infrastructure ecosystem for the US economy. AI is all about cloud, digital services and data centers, and the race is on to build out the right infrastructure before other nations get there first.
These are also the same drivers for carriers, and modernizing their networks is essential for survival. In the same way that maintaining the PSTN takes resources away from fiber buildouts, this also diverts energy consumption away from supporting AI infrastructure. Telephony – legacy or IP – is really not part of the AI narrative, so the needs of carriers become secondary for policymakers, who have been tasked by the Administration, with making the US #1 in AI.
We are still in early days here, but there could well come a time when AI policymakers deem that carriers can no longer consume energy to support the PSTN since it does not support their goals, and must be diverted to serve the higher needs of AI. This may seem draconian, but it actually aligns well with the carrier position for PSTN phase-out.
It’s worth noting that there is precedent here, such as during WWII, when resources were prioritized to support the war effort. At that time, for example, car factories were converted to build tanks, and the use of petroleum products was restricted for non-essential purposes, such as the production of vinyl records. We live in very disruptive times, where seemingly nothing can be taken for granted.
"Telephony – legacy or IP – is really not part of the AI narrative..."
Copper Sunset Realities
While the above factors create a very strong case for Copper Sunset, there are some realities that make this harder to do than it looks in the US. Here are two to consider.
State-level regulations
Without providing a discourse on the FCC’s posture towards carriers, it’s important to distinguish between federal and state-level regulations. The evolution of telecom policy is complex, and the US has a mix of regulatory guardrails at both levels. Of most relevance is COLR – Carrier of Last Resort – a state-level set of policies designed to protect consumers from arbitrary service exits without recourse for alternatives.
These policies cannot be overruled by the FCC, and states like California require carriers to offer alternatives when discontinuing PSTN service. Similarly, if new subscribers want PSTN, California-based carriers are obliged to provide it – that’s the essence of COLR.
Even though the FCC issued a set of orders in March 2025 making Copper Sunset easier, these state-level exceptions persist, and represent a bigger-picture obstacle for Copper Sunset. The intent behind COLR may be virtuous, but is rooted in a different time, and the burden carriers face in these states far outweighs the benefits they can deliver with a fully modernized network.
"...states like California require carriers to offer alternatives when discontinuing PSTN service."
Permitting system
Aside from the holdups around Copper Sunset, there is another messy reality related to the replacement technology for PSTN. In the US, the system around issuing permits for fiber buildouts is highly variable, and overly bureaucratic. It’s not difficult to argue for the urgency to bring fiber to the entire US population, yet city and state-level permitting hurdles persist.
Despite efforts from the carriers, these policies will likely persist for some time, ultimately slowing down network modernization. While not a deal-breaker, this is just another piece of the puzzle that carriers must contend with for Copper Sunset.
"...the system around issuing permits for fiber buildouts is highly variable..."
Conclusion
This analysis isn’t a comprehensive review of issues around Copper Sunset, but should be sufficient to support the view that while inevitable, the process will not unfold in a linear fashion. If we only paid heed to the position of carriers as outlined herein, the PSTN would be long-gone, but their desires do not exist in a vacuum. Consumers still have some degree of regulatory protection, and along with a host of other factors, there is clearly a complex mix of forces at play.
The issues are by no means insurmountable, and in time, Copper Sunset will come to pass. As stated in the Introduction, business leaders should not be on the sidelines waiting for this day to come – it could be imminent, but could also be years away. Adopting cloud-based, digital services should be top of mind for all businesses, and deployment plans should not be contingent on when your carrier stops providing PSTN service.
"Adopting cloud-based, digital services should be top of mind..."
