AT&T’s copper-based Legacy segment lost 24.5% of its revenue in a single year, falling from $2,013 million in Q3 2025 to $1,519 million in Q3 2026 (AT&T Form 8-K, Q3 2026), the clearest sign yet that the copper telephone network is being shut down on purpose rather than left to fade. In the UK, BT says over 95% of its landline users have moved to Digital Voice ahead of the 31 January 2027 PSTN switch-off, while in Europe only 10 of 31 countries expect to finish copper switch-off by 2030 (BEREC 2025). The FCC’s March 2026 order now lets US carriers grandfather legacy services without filing first. We aggregated data from the FCC, AT&T’s SEC filings, BT Group, Openreach, BEREC, Arcep, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, NBN Co, and Which?. For the cloud calling platforms that replace these lines, see our VoIP and UCaaS statistics.
TL;DR
- Interconnected VoIP carried over 79% of US retail fixed voice connections by December 2024, up from 58% in 2018 (FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026).
- AT&T Legacy segment revenue fell 25.3% in the first nine months of 2026, to $4,919 million (AT&T Form 8-K, Q3 2026).
- AT&T targets copper discontinuance in 50% of wire centers outside California by end-2027 (AT&T Q3 2026 earnings call).
- BT says over 95% of its landline users had switched to Digital Voice by September 2026 (BT, via ISPreview 2026).
- Openreach legacy line rental rose 20%, then 40%, then 40% again during 2026 (Openreach, February 2026).
- An estimated 2 million people in the UK use telecare (DSIT Telecare National Action Plan, 2025).
- Ofcom fined Virgin Media £23.8 million over telecare disconnections during digital migration (Ofcom, via Fibre Systems 2025).
- Only 10 of 31 European countries expect total copper switch-off by 2030 (BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025).
- 8,095 French communes had copper closure pushed back a year, covering about 23 million premises (Orange trajectory file, via Banque des Territoires 2026).
- NTT East and West still had about 11 million metal-line telephone subscribers at end-FY2024, down about 80% from the FY1998 peak (MIC Japan, 2025).
- More than half a million UK PSTN lines still served business premises in February 2026 (Openreach, 2026).
1. US Policy: The FCC Rewrites the Copper Retirement Rulebook
The legal default in the United States flipped in March 2026. Before the order, a carrier that wanted to stop selling copper voice service had to file and wait; afterwards it holds blanket authority to grandfather those services and only needs approval for the final discontinuance. The FCC’s own numbers explain the political logic: interconnected VoIP already carried over 79% of US retail fixed voice connections by December 2024, up from 58% in 2018 (FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026). Copper is no longer the network most voice customers use, so the agency treated its upkeep as a cost to remove.
The more telling figures are the emergency ones. Copper theft forced 11 unplanned retirements between early 2022 and March 2025, compared with a single case before 2022, and emergency discontinuance filings rose from 11 in 2024 to 19 in 2025. The sunset is partly a managed transition and partly a network failing underneath its users. In rural areas the replacement network often depends on subsidy programs, covered in our rural broadband BEAD statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Interconnected VoIP share of US retail fixed voice connections, 2018 vs December 2024 | 58% vs over 79% | FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026 (citing FCC Voice Telephone Services Reports) |
| Fall in US copper last-mile subscriptions, 2014 to 2024 | 81% | ICLE ex parte filing, February 2026 (cited in FCC 26-19) |
| Emergency discontinuance applications filed by incumbent local phone carriers: 2024 / 2025 / first three months of 2026 | 11 / 19 / 7 | FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026 |
| Copper retirements caused by copper theft: before 2022 vs early 2022 to March 2025 | 1 (in 2014) vs 11 | FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026 |
| Automatic grant period for a streamlined section 214 discontinuance application (with a 15-day objection window) | 31 days | FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026 |
| Annual capital the FCC says the order frees for new networks | ”tens of billions of dollars” (agency projection, no supporting figure published) | FCC press release, March 26, 2026 |
Context: “section 214” is the part of the US Communications Act that requires FCC permission before a carrier stops offering a service to a community. The 81% copper decline comes from an advocacy group’s filing, not from FCC data, so treat it as a claim the FCC chose to cite rather than an official count.
2. AT&T: The Largest Copper Exit Shows Up in the Financials
AT&T is the bellwether for the US sunset because it reports copper as its own segment. Legacy revenue fell to $1,519 million in Q3 2026 from $2,013 million a year earlier, a 24.5% drop (AT&T Form 8-K exhibit 99.2, Q3 2026). Costs are falling almost as fast (operations and support down 23.5%), which is the whole point: the company is not losing copper customers by accident, it is decommissioning the network that serves them.
The schedule is now concrete. AT&T says it will discontinue copper services in half of its wire centers outside California by the end of 2027 and in substantially all of them by the end of 2029 (AT&T Q3 2026 earnings call, via MarketBeat). A “wire center” is the local telephone exchange building where copper lines terminate. Its Q3 2026 release adds that Legacy EBITDA is expected to turn negative after 2027, until the direct costs of the copper network are substantially gone.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| AT&T Legacy (copper) segment revenue, Q3 2026 vs Q3 2025 | $1,519M vs $2,013M (down 24.5%) | AT&T Form 8-K exhibit 99.2, Q3 2026 |
| AT&T Legacy segment revenue, first nine months of 2026 vs same period of 2025 | $4,919M vs $6,583M (down 25.3%) | AT&T Form 8-K exhibit 99.2, Q3 2026 |
| AT&T Legacy segment operating income and margin, Q3 2026 | $498M (down 26.7%), 32.8% margin | AT&T Form 8-K exhibit 99.2, Q3 2026 |
| Copper wire centers in AT&T’s footprint / annual cost of maintaining them | about 4,600 / about $6 billion | AT&T, reported by Broadband Breakfast, January 2026 |
| Customers served by wire centers in AT&T’s December 1, 2025 FCC discontinuance application (18 states) | about 90,000 | Broadband Breakfast, January 2026 |
| Share of AT&T’s copper footprint outside California with FCC approval to discontinue | more than 30% | AT&T, via Broadband Breakfast, January 2026 |
| Wire centers that no longer support any legacy-service customers (October 2026) | more than 100 | AT&T Q3 2026 earnings call, via MarketBeat |
| AT&T residential customers still on copper-based services (September 2025) | about 3% | AT&T EVP Rhonda Johnson, via Light Reading 2025 |
Context: the replacement is not only fiber. Of AT&T’s 769,000 Q3 2026 internet net adds, 442,000 were fiber and 327,000 were fixed wireless (AT&T Q3 2026 earnings release), which is why copper customers outside the fiber footprint are often offered wireless home service instead. Our 5G fixed wireless access statistics track that substitute.
3. United Kingdom: The Final Months of the PSTN
The UK is the only large market with a single national cut-over date, and the numbers show the curve flattening at the hard end. BT says over 95% of its landline users had switched to Digital Voice by September 2026 (BT, reported by ISPreview, September 2026), up from a milestone of over 3 million households in March 2026 (ISPreview, March 2026). The last few percent are the customers who have not responded, so BT has run a trial aimed at them; it says the trial prompted more than 80% of previously unresponsive customers to get in touch and start the switch.
Price is the other lever. Openreach set three wholesale rent increases for legacy WLR lines (WLR, Wholesale Line Rental, is the copper phone line product other providers resell) during 2026 (Openreach, February 2026). Compounded, the steps multiply the 2025 rent by 1.2 x 1.4 x 1.4 = 2.35, a little more than the “effectively doubling” Openreach describes.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| BT landline users switched to Digital Voice (September 2026) | over 95% | BT, reported by ISPreview, September 2026 |
| UK households switched to BT Digital Voice (March 2026) | over 3 million | BT, reported by ISPreview, March 2026 |
| UK residential landline customers still on the PSTN, December 2024 | 27% (about 5.2 million) | Ofcom estimate, cited by Which? 2025 |
| Share of all UK lines migrated to VoIP, June 2025 | over two-thirds | UK Government statement (Hansard), cited by Which? 2025 |
| Openreach legacy WLR rental increases in 2026 | +20% (1 April), +40% (1 July), +40% (1 October) | Openreach, February 2026 |
| Voice revenue headwind from PSTN closure in BT’s FY27 outlook | c. £150 to 200 million | BT Group FY26 results, May 2026 |
| Openreach broadband line losses, FY26 actual vs FY27 guidance | 825k vs c. 800k | BT Group FY26 results, May 2026 |
| Openreach FTTP footprint / take-up rate, end of June 2026 | 23.4 million premises / 40% | BT Q1 FY27 trading update, reported by ISPreview, July 2026 |
Context: the 95% figure is BT’s own and covers BT’s landline users, not every UK provider, so it should not be read as a national migration rate.
4. Telecare: Where the Switchover Becomes a Safety Issue
Most phone users barely notice a move to digital voice. Telecare users can. These are personal alarms, often worn by older or disabled people, that dial a monitoring center when pressed or when a fall is detected; many were built to signal over analogue tones that do not always survive IP conversion. An estimated 2 million people in the UK use telecare (DSIT Telecare National Action Plan, February 2025), and the government acknowledges “a small number of fatalities” after devices failed. Which? cites two deaths, in June and November 2023 (Which? policy report, August 2025).
Battery life is the quiet gap. An analogue phone line carries its own power, so an analogue alarm can run 12 to 24 hours on its internal battery during a power cut; Ofcom’s minimum for digital landline backup is at least one hour. Regulators are now enforcing: Ofcom’s investigation into Virgin Media’s migrations between August 2022 and December 2023, which it said put thousands of vulnerable customers at direct risk, ended in a £23.8 million fine (Fibre Systems, December 2025).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| People in the UK using telecare | an estimated 2 million | DSIT Telecare National Action Plan, 2025 |
| UK households using telecare | about 1.8 million | Centre for Care, cited by Which? 2025 |
| Telecare alarm call failure rate over digital lines | 2.3% to 3.4% (Telecare Services Association); 5% (FarrPoint estimate) | Which? policy report, 2025 |
| Ofcom fine on Virgin Media for telecare disconnections in migrations from August 2022 to December 2023 | £23.8 million | Ofcom, reported by Fibre Systems, 2025 |
| Landline users in a Which? survey (n = 1,027) who reported losing service and being unable to make calls | 7% | Which? Connect survey, July 2025 |
| Which? respondents with a problem who contacted their provider / share of those who were dissatisfied with the response | 47% / 41% | Which? Connect survey, July 2025 |
| Largest UK telecare providers still selling analogue alarm devices | 3 of 7 | Which? investigation, 2025 |
| Battery backup: Ofcom minimum for a digital landline vs typical internal battery of an analogue telecare device | at least 1 hour vs 12 to 24 hours | DSIT Telecare National Action Plan, 2025 |
Context: well-run upgrades work. One provider in the government plan, Carecall, reported that 96% of booked appointments ended in a successful upgrade, which suggests the failures are mainly about finding telecare users before the line is switched, not about the technology itself.
5. Europe: Most Countries Will Miss 2030
The European picture is a long tail of national plans with no shared finish line. Only 10 of the 31 countries surveyed by BEREC (8 of them EU Member States) expect total copper switch-off by 2030 on current timelines (BEREC Report on copper switch-off, BoR (25) 66, June 2025). Just over half of the incumbent operators with significant market power (SMP, the former state monopolies that regulators supervise most closely) have announced closure plans at all.
Policy is adjusting to that reality rather than forcing it. In June 2026 BEREC welcomed postponing the EU’s 2030 goal. Under the proposed Digital Networks Act, Member States would mandate switch-off by 31 December 2035, and BEREC says the process should be completed by the end of 2039 (BEREC position on the DNA, June 2026). One condition for the first stage is that fiber passes more than 95% of premises in the area.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| National regulators answering BEREC’s copper switch-off survey / those that have set migration and switch-off rules | 31 (including all 27 EU countries) / 20 | BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025 |
| Countries where the incumbent SMP operator has announced copper switch-off / countries where parts of the copper network are already closed | 17 of 31 / 18 | BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025 |
| Countries expecting total copper switch-off by 2030 on current timelines | 10 (8 EU Member States) | BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025 |
| End users forcibly disconnected during copper switch-off operations | 2% to 3% in 3 countries; 9% in France’s first operation | BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025 |
| Countries that have started copper switch-off / completed it by 2025 | 16 / 3 | BEREC BoR (26) 88_12, June 2026 |
| Proposed EU deadlines: switch-off mandate / completion | 31 December 2035 / end of 2039 | BEREC BoR (26) 88_12, June 2026 |
Context: “forcibly disconnected” means customers who had not moved to a new service when the copper was turned off. That share is the European equivalent of the UK’s unresponsive last few percent in section 3.
6. National Case Studies: France, Spain, Germany, Japan and Australia
Country data shows three distinct speeds. Spain is at the finish line, France is mid-flight and slipping, and Germany has not started. In France, Orange’s own plan puts its two largest batches (lots 4 and 5, about 8.3 + 11.7 = 20 million premises) into technical closure in 2028 and 2029, and its December 2025 trajectory update moved 8,095 communes, about 23 million premises out of nearly 44 million lines to close, back by a year (Banque des Territoires, January 2026), because fiber coverage in those towns did not yet meet the regulator’s completeness criteria (Arcep, January 2026).
Outside Europe the driver is age as much as policy. Japan’s regulator says NTT’s metal-line telephone service will become hard to maintain at its current level around 2035 (MIC Japan, October 2025), and Australia’s NBN Co is widening free fiber upgrades so it can remove copper from the national network (NBN Co, December 2025).
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| France: premises in Orange copper closure lot 5 (technical closure January, May and October 2029) | about 11.7 million, in 10,470 communes | Arcep, January 2026 |
| France: communes with copper closure delayed by one year in the December 2025 trajectory | 8,095 (about 23 million premises) | Orange trajectory file, via Banque des Territoires, 2026 |
| Spain: copper exchanges (main distribution frames) switched off, end of 2024 actual vs end of 2025 plan | 91.7% (7,814) vs 100% (8,526) | BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025 |
| Germany: homes passed by fiber to the home or building, end of 2023 (no copper switch-off yet) | fewer than 50% | BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025 (most recent available data) |
| Japan: NTT East and West metal-line fixed telephone subscribers, end of FY2024 | about 11 million (down about 80% from the FY1998 peak) | MIC Japan, October 2025 |
| Japan: year when maintaining the current metal-line service level is expected to become difficult | around 2035 | MIC Japan, October 2025 |
| Australia: premises on fiber-to-the-node or fiber-to-the-curb (copper final link) eligible for a free full-fiber upgrade | more than 5 million | NBN Co, December 2025 |
| Australia: fiber-to-the-curb homes already upgraded / additional homes eligible from July 2026 | about 240,000 / about 600,000 | NBN Co, December 2025 |
Context: NBN Co expected full-fiber connections to outnumber its remaining copper-based FTTN and FTTC connections combined by early 2026. Japan’s NTT East and West announced on September 29, 2025 a phased move of metal-line subscribers to optical and mobile telephone services, citing declining usage, aging facilities and a shortage of engineers.
7. The Long Tail: Business Lines, Lifts, Alarms and 911
The residential migration gets the headlines, but the hardest lines to move are the ones nobody thinks of as phones. Openreach counted more than 12,000 lift (elevator) emergency lines and around 500 lines serving CCTV networks that still needed upgrading 12 months before the UK switch-off (Openreach, February 2026). Business premises are the other block: BT says 80% of its business voice customers had switched by March 2026, which leaves a fifth still on legacy service with less than a year to go. For most firms the destination is a SIP trunk (a digital connection that carries business calls over an internet link into the company’s phone system) or a fully cloud-hosted system.
In the US, emergency calling sets the pace. The FCC kept a requirement that carriers notify 911 authorities at least 90 days before filing a technology-transition discontinuance, and the pricing argument for moving is stark in the filings the agency relied on.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| UK PSTN lines still serving business premises (February 2026) | more than half a million | Openreach, February 2026 |
| UK lift (elevator) emergency phone lines / lines serving CCTV networks, both needing upgrade before the switch-off | more than 12,000 / around 500 | Openreach, February 2026 |
| BT business voice customers switched to digital (March 2026) | 80% | BT, reported by ISPreview, March 2026 |
| Minimum advance notice to 911 authorities before a US technology-transition discontinuance filing | at least 90 days | FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026 |
| US legacy copper voice prices cited to the FCC vs an advertised mobile voice plan | $45, $54 and $87 per month vs $20 per month | USTelecom waiver petition, cited in FCC 26-19 |
| Copper AT&T pulled out of its network in the year to September 2025 | about 60 million pounds | AT&T EVP Rhonda Johnson, via Light Reading 2025 |
Context: the USTelecom price comparison comes from an industry petition seeking relief, so it is the carriers’ framing. Legacy business lines also power fire panels, alarm diallers and payment terminals that were never inventoried as voice lines, which is why counts of “remaining lines” understate the engineering work left.
Summary: PSTN Copper Sunset and SIP Migration by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Interconnected VoIP share of US retail fixed voice connections, December 2024 | over 79% | FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19, 2026 |
| AT&T residential customers still on copper-based services, September 2025 | about 3% | AT&T, via Light Reading, 2025 |
| Annual capital the FCC says its copper order frees | ”tens of billions of dollars” (agency projection) | FCC press release, March 2026 |
| AT&T Legacy (copper) segment revenue, Q3 2026, year-over-year change | $1,519M, down 24.5% | AT&T Form 8-K, Q3 2026 |
| AT&T annual cost of maintaining about 4,600 copper wire centers | about $6 billion | AT&T, via Broadband Breakfast, 2026 |
| AT&T wire centers outside California with copper services discontinued, target | 50% by end 2027; substantially all by end 2029 | AT&T Q3 2026 earnings call, via MarketBeat |
| BT landline users switched to Digital Voice, September 2026 | over 95% | BT, via ISPreview, 2026 |
| UK PSTN switch-off date | 31 January 2027 | DSIT Telecare National Action Plan, 2025; ISPreview, 2026 |
| Openreach legacy WLR rent after three 2026 increases, vs 2025 | 2.35x (1.2 x 1.4 x 1.4) | Openreach, 2026 (our calculation) |
| BT FY27 voice revenue headwind from PSTN closure | c. £150 to 200 million | BT Group FY26 results, 2026 |
| People in the UK using telecare | an estimated 2 million | DSIT Telecare National Action Plan, 2025 |
| Telecare alarm call failure rate over digital lines | 2.3% to 3.4% | Telecare Services Association, via Which? 2025 |
| Ofcom fine on Virgin Media over telecare disconnections | £23.8 million | Ofcom, via Fibre Systems, 2025 |
| European countries expecting total copper switch-off by 2030 | 10 of 31 | BEREC Report BoR (25) 66, 2025 |
| Proposed EU copper switch-off completion deadline | end of 2039 | BEREC BoR (26) 88_12, 2026 |
| French communes with copper closure delayed by one year | 8,095 (about 23 million premises) | Orange trajectory file, via Banque des Territoires, 2026 |
| Japan NTT metal-line telephone subscribers, end FY2024 | about 11 million | MIC Japan, 2025 |
| Australian FTTN/FTTC premises eligible for a free fiber upgrade | more than 5 million | NBN Co, 2025 |
| UK PSTN lines still serving business premises, February 2026 | more than half a million | Openreach, 2026 |
Methodology and Sources
- FCC Report and Order FCC 26-19 (Copper retirement and technology transitions), adopted March 26, 2026, including figures it cites from the FCC Voice Telephone Services Reports, an ICLE ex parte filing and a USTelecom waiver petition.
- FCC press release, March 26, 2026
- AT&T Form 8-K exhibit 99.2, Q3 2026 (SEC EDGAR)
- AT&T Q3 2026 earnings release
- AT&T Q3 2026 earnings call coverage, MarketBeat
- Broadband Breakfast, AT&T copper discontinuance approval, January 2026
- Light Reading, AT&T copper retirement plan, September 2025
- BT Group FY26 full-year results, May 2026 (RNS)
- Openreach, PSTN switch-off update, February 2026
- ISPreview, BT Digital Voice at 95%, September 2026, ISPreview, 3 million Digital Voice homes, March 2026 and ISPreview, BT Q1 FY27 trading update, July 2026, each reporting BT’s own figures.
- DSIT, Telecare National Action Plan, February 2025
- Which?, Closing the gaps: protecting telecare users in the shift from analogue to digital, August 2025, source for the Ofcom December 2024 estimate, the June 2025 government statement and the Which? Connect survey.
- Fibre Systems, Ofcom fines Virgin Media £23.8m, December 2025
- BEREC Report on copper switch-off, BoR (25) 66, June 2025
- BEREC position on Migration and Copper Switch-off in the Digital Networks Act, BoR (26) 88_12, June 2026
- Arcep, organisation of Orange’s copper network closure, updated January 2026
- Banque des Territoires (Localtis), copper closure timetable, January 2026
- Telefonica, closure of its last copper central offices, April 2023
- MIC Japan, consultation on the transition of fixed-line telephone services, October 2025
- NBN Co, FTTC to FTTP upgrade eligibility, December 2025
- Data watch: (1) The FCC order states the VoIP share two ways, “over 79% by December 2024” in one paragraph and “79% as of June 2024” in another; we use the December 2024 wording. (2) Telefonica’s 2023 release counted 8,532 copper exchanges to close, while BEREC’s June 2025 report gives 8,526 as the end-2025 plan; we use BEREC’s later figure, and BEREC’s report predates the end of 2025, so Spain’s 100% is a plan, not a confirmed result. (3) UK telecare user counts differ by unit: about 2 million people (DSIT) vs about 1.8 million households (Centre for Care, via Which?). (4) BT’s 95% and 80% migration figures are company-reported and were read through ISPreview, because Ofcom’s and BT’s own pages were not reachable during research; we could not locate Ofcom’s quarterly telecare incident reports to DSIT in public form. (5) Germany’s fiber coverage figure is end-2023 data, the most recent in BEREC’s survey. (6) We could not verify a primary, non-vendor figure for SIP trunking adoption or market size, so none is included; the January 2027 UK switch-off and AT&T’s next filings are the best near-term signals for business voice migration.
Last updated: October 24, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next refresh is expected when AT&T reports Q4 2026 results in January 2027, alongside BT’s post-switch-off figures after the 31 January 2027 PSTN closure.