Verizon says it's telling some customers their copper landlines are staying put after all.
The company told the FCC it has begun contacting customers whose copper lines were caught up in a retirement plan that regulators paused across several states. Verizon has spent years retiring its legacy copper network, nudging customers toward fiber or wireless service instead. With the FCC's pause in effect, those targeted customers now get to keep their old lines, at least for the time being. Verizon has not said how many customers are affected or whether the broader retirement plan will eventually resume.
Copper landlines look like a relic, but they're still the only reliable line for many rural customers, older residents, and anyone who needs a phone that works when the power is out. A federal regulator stepping in to freeze a major carrier's network wind-down is rare, and it's a reminder that carriers don't get total control over how fast they can retire infrastructure, even when fiber and wireless are objectively better products.
Verizon has been chipping away at its copper network for years; this is just the latest reminder that regulators, not the calendar, decide when it actually dies.