AT&T Will End Traditional Landline Service in Wisconsin by 2030
Experts say the change poses risks for older, more rural customers.
AT&T plans to discontinue its traditional landline telephone service in Wisconsin and most states in its service area by the end of 2029. But experts say the change poses risks for older, more rural customers.
The company is phasing out its “legacy copper network operations,” or the copper lines that run into a home or business to provide landline phone services. A company spokesperson said the copper services no longer meet customer needs.
“We are seeing declining reliability with storms and increased copper theft. Copper simply does not do well with water and flooding,” AT&T said in a statement. “The copper network is an energy hog — an active technology which means that every line, every element is powered all the time.”
The company says only 5 percent of its residential customers still use copper technology and it’s working with them to ensure they do not lose voice or 911 services. The company has introduced a new service that works like a traditional landline, but connects using wireless networks or broadband.
In Wisconsin, roughly 15 percent of households still had a landline as of 2022, while roughly 5.5 percent of adults still primarily used their landline and 3 percent rely entirely on landlines, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
The vast majority of households used only wireless telephones in 2022 — 83.7 percent in Wisconsin. That number has come up substantially over the last few decades as advancements in cell phone technology have led to consumers increasingly ditching traditional landline service.
For comparison, about 12.8 percent of American households only had wireless phones in the latter half of 2006, according to federal data.
“I’ve watched the markets grow from just plain phone service to hybrid computers that are in our phones, so-called smartphones through which life is now lived,” said Barry Orton, a retired telecommunications professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“Old fashioned copper wire-based phones, which we all used to have in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s are now a thing of the past,” he added
From a business perspective, Orton said moving away from copper landline phone service makes sense because it generally generates smaller revenues than internet or cell phone services.
He called traditional landline service a “legacy service” from a time “when all of us had phones but nothing else.” And he expects more phone providers will continue to abandon copper landlines in the coming years.
Even so, he said moving away from traditional copper landlines does pose risks to Wisconsinites who live in rural areas with spotty cell service and poor broadband access.
“It’s old-fashioned technology, but there are some people in every state — particularly in rural areas — that don’t have another alternative because there’s still no good cell service and certainly no good internet service,” Orton said.
To ensure those who rely on copper landlines aren’t left behind, Orton said AT&T should invest in enhancing its rural cell and broadband services and infrastructure to ensure customers can continue to access critical services, like 911.
“Money has to be spent because other technology has to be put in (copper wire’s) place,” he said. “The older, more rural and less affluent you are, the harder it is for you to change over to the cell phone or the smartphone or whatever it is that is available.”
AT&T to discontinue traditional landline service in Wisconsin by the end of 2029 was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.
What about non-AT&T providers (Frontier, Century Link, etc.)? These generally are the incumbent landline providers in rural areas.