AT&T Moves Forward on Plan to Retire Legacy Systems
As previewed during a recent financial call, it appears AT&T in recent days has been moving more aggressively to shut additional parts of its legacy copper network (see 2501270047). In December, in what AT&T executives saw as a model for future retirements, the FCC took no action, allowing AT&T to initially halt sales and then discontinue residential local service in nine Oklahoma wire centers (see 2412230066). AT&T CEO John Stankey said on the call that the carrier plans to file applications at the FCC to stop selling legacy products in about 1,300 wire centers, or about a quarter of the AT&T footprint. On Friday alone, the FCC posted retirement proposals for AT&T wire centers in Alliance, Ohio; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Easley, South Carolina; and Milwaukee.
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AT&T also sought to retire traditional residential and business wireline phone service in parts of 18 states. It noted that fewer than 3% of the “Living Units” in the areas covered subscribe to either service. Fewer than 0.05% of prospective customers there applied for residential service and fewer than 0.3% for business service from January to November of last year, AT&T said. It noted that other options for customers are widely available. “As with AT&T’s earlier applications, grandfathering these outdated services will benefit the public and serve as an important step toward meeting both AT&T’s and the Commission’s goals of advancing toward next-generation technologies that customers crave,” AT&T said. The filing covers markets in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile, AT&T also sought FCC permission to stop offering VoIP services in parts of the same 18 states. In the last year, fewer than 0.06% of prospective customers in those markets placed new orders for AT&T Phone Service over copper, and from January to June, fewer than 0.03% of prospective customers placed new orders for AT&T Phone for Business over copper, AT&T said. “In the same approximate time frame, cancellations of subscriptions to the Affected Services exceeded new orders of the service by over 350%,” AT&T said.
In another filing, AT&T asked to grandfather remote call forwarding (RCF) service in parts of 13 states. Subscribers that wish to keep the service can do so, it said. “The benefits of facilitating this transition in these specific wire centers are particularly pronounced given the extreme lack of demand for the Affected Service” in the areas covered, the carrier said, noting that between January and November, it received “zero new orders for RCF in over 85% of the wire centers affected by this application.” Subscribers have other options, including “AT&T Phone for Business-Advanced, which AT&T specifically designed as a reliable and cost-effective alternative to legacy voice service,” it said. The filing covers wire centers in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.