Verizon Copper Retirement Planned in Numerous States

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to retire copper in numerous areas of New England, Maryland and Virginia.

The carrier plans to retire copper facilities and replace them with fiber facilities to provide services over the fiber-to-the-premises network infrastructure it has either deployed or plans to deploy.

In New England, the copper retirements are slated for areas in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The company scheduled all of the fiber implementations for September.

Verizon’s Richard Young

Verizon spokesman Richard Young said his company continues to replace copper facilities in some areas with fiber. The carrier has transitioned thousands of customers from its copper network to its fiber network, he said.

“These efforts benefit our customers due to fiber’s resiliency and reliability, and also provides customers with expanded bandwidth options,” he said. “Following this upgrade, customers in these areas will continue to have the option to purchase plain old telephone service (or POTS) over fiber at the same price as they received on copper facilities.”

After the retirement of the copper facilities, Verizon will no longer offer services over copper facilities and cease maintaining the facilities. Verizon may require customers and interconnecting entities to migrate services off of copper facilities well before the retirement implementation date. This is to ensure an orderly transition.

If no one files an objection, copper retirement notices usually go final on the 90th day after the release of the public notice of the filing. Retirements that don’t involve customers are final on the 15th day after public notice.

Earlier this month, CenturyLink asked the FCC to approve copper retirement in a number of states. The copper retirement will happen in parts of Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Utah and Washington. The company also scheduled the fiber implementations for September.