Setting the Record Straight on POTS Replacement ‘Scare Tactics’

Rumors surrounding POTS replacement have been greatly exaggerated.

Vendors, partners and customers have been eyeing Aug. 2, 2022, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enacted as a deadline three years ago. According to many parties in the telecommunications industry, the FCC mandated the decommissioning of plain old telephone services (POTS) lines by this date. One prominent telecommunications media outlet in December wrote that the FCC had mandated the POTS line replacement by Aug. 2. Searching “FCC POTS mandate” on LinkedIn shows a plethora of carriers and sales partners asserting that the FCC has required the mass decommissioning of all POTS lines.

But these assertions are based in misinformation and scare tactics, partners tell Channel Futures. An FCC representative confirmed via email that the Commission has not mandated POTS replacement by Aug. 2. Sources clarified that the ruling will apply to a very small subset of POTS lines, many of which lie outside the bounds of what channel partners sell.

MOReCOMM’s Jay Morris

“There are 38 million POTS line still out there on various ILECs and CLECs, and none of them are mandated by the FCC to be shut off or transitioned to IP telephony,” said Jay Morris, chief aggregation officer of MOReCOMM Solutions. “Not previously, not now, not in the near future.

Background

The FCC issued its 19-72 Memorandum and Order in response to a 2018 USTelecom petition for forbearance from two obligations set forth by the 1996. Specifically the trade association sought forbearance from UNE Analog Loop Obligations and Avoided-Cost Resale obligations outlined in the Act. The Avoided-Cost Resale Obligations required ILECs to “offer for resale at wholesale rates any telecommunications services that the carrier provides at retail to subscribers who are not telecommunications carriers.” In addition, UNE Analog Loop Obligations forced ILECs unbundle their analogue voice-grade copper loops.

The Commission granted carriers forbearance from these obligations, citing the importance of facilitating technology transitions and promoting broadband deployment.

“We find that it is no longer necessary to require price cap LECs to bear these once-upon-a-time market-opening obligations that today amount to disparate regulatory burdens that frustrate the transition to advanced communication services offered over next-generation networks,” the Commission wrote on Aug. 2, 2019.

The Ruling Defined

In addition, the 2019 FCC order instructed all local exchange carrier customers to move from their UNE Analog Loops to an alternative service by Aug. 2, 2022. But UNE Analog Loops only apply to a specific use case, according to Ross Artale, president and chief operating officer of Spectrotel.

Artale told Channel Futures that the FCC order impacts facilities-based providers and their co-located wholesale customers. The ruling would not affect any of the ILECs’ own POTS lines, Artale said.

Spectrotel’s Ross Artale

“It’s a small sliver of the collective total of those 38 million lines. I don’t have an exact number, but I would estimate that this ruling effects probably, at best, 200,000 lines,” he said.

Moreover, the order pertains to …