During the 12-month period ending in December 2023, 20 customers, or a quarter of the subscribers at the time, cancelled their subscriptions. 95% of households served by AT&T don’t use their copper-based landlines and are using a newer service that better meets their needs.
“The vast majority of customers in the Affected Service Area have already selected these services in lieu of the Affected Service. Indeed, only 1.9% of Living Units in the Affected Service Area still subscribe to the Affected Service.”-AT&T
There are other options available in the area for voice services, AT&T says, such as cable, fiber, fixed wireless, mobile wireless, and satellite. The company notes that it is working with its customers still using the old copper network to transition them to AT&T‘s mobile network in the area. One service that AT&T is offering in the region is AT&T Phone-Advanced (AP-A). This is a digital phone service that uses the carrier’s wireless network and any broadband network can be used as a backup.
Customers switching to AP-A will get to keep the same phone number and can even continue to use the same devices they currently own. AT&T says that their current device is often the cheaper option even compared with landline phones. This plan has some of the characteristics of a landline allowing the user to make calls (including unlimited domestic long-distance), and emergency calls to 9-1-1. Other features allow the user to detect and block spam calls. A 24-hour backup battery keeps the service going when an emergency has taken down the power grid.
AP-A also works with other TDM-based services including fax machines, home alarms, and medical monitoring devices.