As telecommunication giants accelerate the nationwide phaseout of legacy copper phone lines, several Western North Carolina residents are receiving notice that the landlines they have relied on for decades are nearing retirement. 

Nantahala resident Susan Carpenter got one of these letters from her phone company, Verizon, and at a September Macon County Commissioners meeting, asked, “What is the plan?”

For households tucked into the region’s hollers and dead zones, many, like Carpenter, worry the transition threatens to sever their primary connection to emergency services and the outside world.

In an interview with The Smoky Mountain News, Verizon spokesperson Lauren Peterson emphasized that copper customers will not be stranded without a fallback.

“No one’s going to be disconnected from copper until we are sure that either fiber or wireless is working to our standards before any disconnection is made,” Peterson said. “If we don’t have an approved and suitable option for them, they’re going to stay on their copper network, and they’ll get that communication from us.”

Nationwide, just 5% of households still use legacy copper telephone service, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

That number will continue to shrink in the coming years as providers push for a complete transition away from aging copper wire infrastructure that is increasingly expensive to maintain, vulnerable to theft, and has lower speeds and capacity.

In Western North Carolina, the number of copper line users is likely higher. Broadband connectivity lags in mountainous, remote areas of the state where infrastructure is costly and populations are sparse.

Additionally, rural mountain counties in the state have larger percentages of elderly populations that are slower to adopt new technologies, on average.

In Macon County, 19% of residents have no internet service at home, according to data from a 2026 Benton Institute for Broadband and Blue Ridge Broadband Alliance (BRBA) study.

In Jackson and Swain counties, that number is 24%, while Haywood comes in at 17%, the lowest in the SMN coverage area. All are nearly triple U.S. Census numbers that estimate just 6.8% of North Carolinians lack an internet subscription.

Because mountain topography often blocks both fiber buildouts and cellular reception, decommissioning legacy landlines poses a far greater risk in WNC than in urban areas of the state with redundant networks.   

To ease the shift, state and federal infrastructure programs are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into rural internet expansion. 

In March, Gov. Josh Stein announced $26 million in state stop-gap funding to expand broadband to unserved rural North Carolinians, with over $10 million allocated specifically for providers across Western North Carolina. On a national scale, the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program aims to deliver fiber optic connectivity to every unserved household by 2030.

Peterson said, for now, Verizon’s copper phone line users don’t need to take any action to ensure they remain connected. Verizon will be in communication with customers. Peterson also said when the transition away from copper occurs, customers will be able to keep their phone number and their original home phone.

“The only thing that’s changing is the technology that’s serving on the back end,” Peterson said.

Still, recently streamlined FCC rules have made it far easier for carriers to retire copper lines on shortened notice, leaving local officials and residents questioning what qualifies as a “suitable” replacement.

While BEAD-funded fiber expansion will take years to build out across rugged mountain terrain, cellular coverage maps for WNC remain notoriously unreliable, and alternative satellite or wireless home options often carry steeper monthly costs and, at times, don’t work in remote, rugged, densely forested areas.

In a region with an older demographic living on fixed incomes, the impending loss of traditional landlines has sparked concern, prompting calls for county commissioners and state regulators to intervene before mountain residents are left in the dark.

Macon County Broadband Coordinator Jeff Lee said that, in the past, the FCC required providers to demonstrate that alternative solutions to copper-based phone lines were equal to (if not better than) the original service.  

Under the Trump administration, however, new FCC leadership loosened those regulations. Lee noted that the burden of proof has effectively shifted to the consumer to show that a copper replacement is inadequate, rather than forcing providers to prove its reliability beforehand.

“This is not acceptable,” Lee said. “It’s making it more difficult to challenge going forward.”

Now Lee, along with leaders across Western North Carolina, is working together to champion regional broadband connectivity, understand the copper decommissioning process, and make sure no one in the area is left without a working phone line.

The BRBA launched in 2025 as a regional coalition of community leaders, organizations, and advocates. Their goal is to build digital access across WNC, according to the group’s website.  

The alliance formed after federal actions targeting the 2021 Digital Equity Act abruptly halted billions in broadband funding nationwide — including $45 million earmarked for North Carolina and $7 million awarded to the local Land of Sky Regional Council.

That funding freeze, coupled with the severe communications vulnerabilities exposed by Hurricane Helene, galvanized local leaders to advocate for the region’s connectivity needs.  Since then, alliance members have traveled to Raleigh and Washington, D.C., to meet with lawmakers, push to restore Digital Equity Act funding, and advocate for “last mile” connectivity.  In September, the alliance met with regional leaders to address the complex policy landscape surrounding copper line retirements. Coordinator Sara Nichols said the group is pushing to slow copper decommissioning while connecting copper-dependent customers with “digital navigators” who can help them navigate alternative options.  

“I’ve been doing broadband work for a while now, and what is unfortunate is that, for these folks who are still left out of a proper solution, because there are now fewer and fewer of them, they have less of a voice collectively to make change,” Nichols said.

Nichols said smaller, rural telecom providers are likely to be less aggressive with copper decommissioning. However, at scale, national companies will see larger gains from cashing in on copper’s record-high prices and moving away the expensive maintenance cost of legacy lines.

Now, across the country, legacy telecommunications carriers like AT&T, Lumen, and Windstream are racing to dismantle their copper networks under the new FCC rules, with AT&T targeting a complete phaseout by 2029.

Verizon has taken a softer public stance in WNC, promising not to sever copper lines without a working replacement, but nationally, providers are now operating under a deregulated federal framework which leaves residents reliant on provider-defined definitions of what constitutes a “working” alternative in mountain dead zones.

In the meantime, copper customers shouldn’t panic. The FCC has paused Verizon’s request to discontinue copper-based phone lines to take more time to review their proposal, and nothing can happen without the regulator’s go-ahead.

Nichols recommends copper customers who have received a letter should follow these steps to ensure they keep their service:

  • Keep paying the bill. Nichols warns if a phone company cuts off service due to nonpayment, they may not be required to reconnect you.
  • Check what alternatives actually work for you. See what mobile providers have coverage in your area and consider satellite if it is viable at your residence.
  • If copper is your only workable option, contact BRBA for help. Nicols said the alliance is ready to assist customers that need help submitting a comment to the FCC.
  • Contact your representatives in Raleigh and Washington, D.C. If you have received a letter in the mail and have no workable alternative, reach out to state and federal representatives to let them know how copper decommissioning would impact your household.