AT&T copper retirement accelerates as legacy base shrinks to 1%

AT&T has decommissioned more than 100 wire centers serving 500 communities and 1.3 million locations across 18 states, and says just 1% of its eligible customers still use its legacy copper-based voice technology.

That share is down sharply from 5% of residential customers as recently as December 2024, when Susan Johnson, AT&T's senior EVP of transformation and global supply chain, last updated analysts at the operator's investor day. The decline reflects both active migrations to wireless and fiber services and customers leaving copper on their own.

"As anticipated, we are continuing to see a decline in the number of customers that are using our legacy services," Johnson told Light Reading on Monday. "Customers are leaving for many reasons, but preeminent among them is it's no longer meeting their needs for speeds and reliability."

What comes next in the shutdown?

AT&T is working to decommission the bulk of its copper network — except California — by 2030. The company started from roughly 4,600 wire centers and is now entering what Johnson calls the migration acceleration phase.

Key milestones ahead:

• FCC approval covers shutdown of more than 30% of wire centers by end of 2026.
• About half of wire centers outside California should stop serving customers by end of 2027.
• Another 1,500 communities are slated for completion over the next year.

"You're going to see scale pretty materially from here on out," Johnson said.

In the early phase, AT&T is taking a wireless-first approach in areas with adequate coverage, followed by areas where it has built fiber. Its POTS replacement, AT&T Phone-Advanced, supports legacy devices including caller ID, E911, fax machines, alarm systems and medical monitoring over wireless or fiber. Johnson said AT&T tests signal strengths carefully and runs a "white glove" process for customers anxious the new service won't be like-for-like.

Why is California different?

California's 615 wire centers sit on a separate timeline. AT&T has filed with the FCC to decommission about 360 of them where it has adequate fiber and wireless coverage — roughly 60% of its territory in the state — with FCC permission to begin on or after June 1, 2027. That plan carries a commitment to build fiber to an additional 4 million-plus homes and businesses in California, bringing the total commitment to 9 million.

The path is not settled. In May, AT&T sued in California to preempt state requirements it says block copper retirement, arguing they conflict with new FCC rules designed to speed migrations. Johnson expects to start the discontinuance process for the first 360 wire centers by mid-next year, "assuming all goes well."

The complaint record shows friction elsewhere too. A review of copper retirement opposition filings in FCC dockets, provided by an industry source, found 1,078 confirmed complaints against AT&T, concentrated in California, versus 743 for Verizon and 27 for CenturyLink/Lumen.

What is the copper worth?

AT&T expects to avoid about 600,000 kWh annually per wire center on average — up to 2.76 billion kWh per year once the transition completes — freeing energy supply in areas where data center demand is arriving.

The operator is also reclaiming the metal itself. It declined to update reclamation totals, but last year it estimated it had already pulled roughly 60 million pounds of copper from the network — about the weight of three Eiffel Towers.

The real estate is another asset. In early 2025, AT&T closed a sale-leaseback deal with Reign Capital covering 74 underutilized central office properties and more than 13 million square feet, generating over $850 million in upfront cash. Johnson said AT&T continues to weigh how to repurpose remaining wire center space — a strategy cable operators Comcast and Spectrum are already pursuing with freed-up headend and hub space for AI edge businesses.

With 1% of customers left on copper and a court fight pending in California, the pace of the next two years will determine whether AT&T hits its 2027 and 2030 milestones.