Verizon to Discontinue Copper Across Wide Area of New York

Verizon has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to retire copper in numerous areas of New York as it continues moving customers to fiber-based technology.

The carrier plans to retire copper facilities and replace them with fiber facilities to provide services over its fiber-to-the-premises network infrastructure, according to its FCC filing. It plans to do so on or after April 10.

Verizon intends to retire the copper facilities at all remaining locations in more than 100 wire centers. It plans to provide services over a fiber network infrastructure.

Verizon spokesman Richard Young said his company continues to replace copper facilities in some areas with fiber. During the past couple of years, Verizon has transitioned thousands of customers from its copper network to its fiber network, he said.

Verizon’s Richard Young

“These efforts benefit our customers due to fiber’s resiliency and reliability, and also provides customers with expanded bandwidth options,” he said. “Following this upgrade, customers in these areas will continue to have the option to purchase plain old telephone service (or POTS) over fiber at the same price as they received on copper facilities.”

After the retirement of the copper facilities, Verizon will no longer offer services over copper facilities and cease maintaining the facilities. To help ensure an orderly transition, Verizon said it may require customers and interconnecting entities to migrate services off of copper facilities well before the retirement implementation date.

If no objections are filed, a notice of copper retirement usually will be deemed final on the 90th day after the release of the commission’s public notice of the filing; however, if a retirement doesn’t involve any customers, those will be deemed final on the 15th day after the release of the public notice.