AT&T is making headway on its copper retirement plan

The road to copper retirement is paved with paperwork, but AT&T seems to be moving along just fine in its quest to shut down its legacy copper network by 2029. AT&T recently secured Federal Communications Commission approval to fully discontinue copper services in about 500 wire centers, or 10 percent of its footprint. The update comes after the FCC got the ball rolling to speed up the copper retirement process for operators. It’s not as simple as switching off copper and replacing it with a newer technology. Susan Johnson, AT&T’s Senior EVP of Transformation and Global Supply Chain, explained that AT&T must first get relief from each state to discontinue copper. Only from there can it move forward with the FCC’s process, which involves a filing to grandfather and stop new copper services and indicating what alternatives are available to customers in an area.