Verizon, CenturyLink say abandoning copper network is a "myth"

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Verizon and CenturyLink may be anxious to shut down all of their copper facilities and transition to fiber, but each provider has told the Federal Communications Commission that de facto copper retirement is a "myth" and there's no need to include new requirements addressing the issue in its technology transition plans. De facto copper retirement is the process where a telecommunication company would let their aging copper plant deteriorate to the point where it would become necessary to replace the copper with fiber. The FCC is concerned about these allegations because CLECs, which rent copper facilities from ILECs like Verizon and CenturyLink, could be left without connections for their business customers.

Seeing greater operational efficiency and the potential to upsell FiOS services, Verizon has been replacing copper plant with fiber that connects to residential customers in various parts of its Northeast last mile network. In the second quarter of 2015, Verizon reported that it had converted 51,000 customers off of copper to fiber, bringing its first-half total to 98,000. It has set a full-year goal to convert 200,000 customers. However, Verizon said that de facto copper retirement does not exist and including a provision on it would make it more challenging to migrate customers to fiber, particularly in areas where the copper plant is unsustainable to maintain. "Consistent with our July 13 ex parte letter, we explained de facto copper retirement is a myth and defining copper retirement to include de facto retirement could result in unmanageable loop-by-loop retirement requirements and complicate a provider's ability to move customers to fiber when that is the best and most efficient way to resolve troubles they are experiencing with copper facilities," wrote Verizon in a FCC filing.


Verizon, CenturyLink say abandoning copper network is a "myth"