The lines running your fire panel are being switched off.
Not upgraded. Not migrated. Switched off, on a date, by the carrier, whether or not anything is ready to take over. This page is what is actually happening, what the replacement options are, and what they cost.
Reviewed 28 July 2026.
What is happening
In 2019 the FCC removed carriers' obligation to maintain copper. Since then every major carrier has been retiring it. AT&T stopped accepting new orders, moves or changes on copper POTS as of 15 October 2025, began decommissioning wire centers in June 2026, and targets full retirement by 2029. Verizon, Lumen and Frontier are running their own programs.
The economics are not subtle. AT&T has publicly framed copper as billions a year to maintain for under 5% of customers, with fewer technicians who know how to repair it every year. The physical plant is also genuinely failing: lead-and-pulp cable laid a century ago, sitting in manholes that are no longer pumped dry, spliced around corrosion rather than replaced. Even without the regulatory timeline, the copper was ending.
The dated version of all of this is on the watch page, with sources.
Why it lands on you and not on IT
The lines at issue were installed by facilities, are paid by accounts payable, and were forgotten years ago. They are not in anyone's IT inventory because they were never IT's. What is on them:
- Elevator emergency phones. Required. Separately subject to ASME A17.1, which in its 2019 edition adds a video and text requirement for cars with a rise of 60 feet or more.
- Fire alarm panel communicators. Monitored, inspected, governed by NFPA 72. The monitoring company will have an opinion about what you replace the line with, and it is worth getting that opinion before you buy.
- Burglar and access-control circuits, often with a dial backup nobody has tested since installation.
- Fax, POS terminals, and unused lines that are still being billed. In most portfolios a real audit finds at least one line nobody can account for.
What it has been costing already
POTS rates have risen sharply since 2022 — in many regions by multiples, not percentages. The mechanism is usually not a contract change. The contracted rate stays the same and the increase arrives as administrative fees and surcharges, on an invoice that accounts payable approves without reading because the line item name has not changed.
A building paying roughly $100 per line per month a few years ago is, in the worst documented cases, now paying ten times that for the same line. If you have not compared a current invoice against one from 2022, that is the single most useful thing to do this week, and you do not need us to do it.
The four ways out
Cellular POTS replacement
A device that presents a normal analog line to your equipment and carries the call over LTE or 5G. To the fire panel it looks like the copper line it has always had.
Hosted VoIP
The number ports to a hosted phone provider. The endpoint becomes an IP device, or an analog device behind an adapter.
Analog over fiber
Some carriers deliver an analog-presenting service over fiber to the building. Looks like POTS to the equipment; the transport underneath is fiber.
FXS gateway
One device at the building converts IP back to analog for all the legacy equipment, with SIP trunks underneath.
The short version: cellular for life-safety, hosted VoIP for lines people talk on, an FXS gateway once there are four or more endpoints at one address. Which specific supplier and device we would put you on depends on the building, the signal survey and what your monitoring company will certify — that goes in the written recommendation, not on a web page.
Five ways this goes wrong
- Assuming a device is certified. Not every cellular POTS device is approved for fire alarm or elevator use in every state. NFPA 72 and A17.1 are specific. Confirm certification for the actual application, with the AHJ, before installing.
- Moving fax to VoIP without T.38. It works about half the time, which is worse than not working, because you find out from the recipient.
- Breaking a contract early. Some legacy POTS contracts carry termination fees. Plan the migration before the lock expires and cut over at expiry; breaking early usually costs more than waiting.
- Not surveying signal. Cellular only works where there is cellular. Survey the actual device location — the basement, the machine room — not the lobby.
- Waiting for the notice. Once the carrier's notice arrives you are migrating on their clock. Pressure migrations cost more and break more.
What we do
We are an independent broker, not a carrier and not an installer. We work out what each line is for, which path fits it, and which supplier should carry it; we negotiate and place the order; the supplier provisions, ports and installs. We audit the first bills against what was quoted and stay on the ticket when something breaks.
We are paid by the supplier on residual. The audit costs you nothing, and if your current arrangement is already reasonable we will say so.