Check my lines
Now in effect: AT&T, Verizon and Lumen are retiring copper phone lines. Carriers can give as little as 90 days’ notice.
Analog line replacement · Fire, elevator, fax, security

POTS line replacement for business. Upgrade before your copper lines are shut off.

Fire alarms, elevator phones, fax machines and entry systems still run on old analog lines, and carriers are retiring them now. LandlineUpgrade moves every line to a modern digital connection, keeps your numbers and equipment, and cuts the bill.
  • Keep your phone numbers
  • Keep your existing equipment
  • Code-compliant for fire and elevator lines
Check my lines

Am I affected?

Who provides your phone lines today?
Received a carrier notice already? Forward it to us and we’ll prioritize your sites.
30%+
yearly increase on POTS line charges, with reliability falling
$2,700
per line per month in some AT&T states; $200 to $500+ common elsewhere
90 days
minimum notice before a carrier can cut a line, down from 180 in 2025
What's at risk

Which business systems still depend on copper phone lines?

Residential landlines are rare. Business copper is everywhere, and the systems on it fail quietly when the line goes dead.
Life safety

Fire alarm panels

Dials the monitoring center. NFPA 72 allows IP or cellular communicators in its place.
Life safety

Elevator phones

ASME A17.1 / CSA B44 require working two-way communication. A dead line is a code violation.
Security

Alarm and entry systems

Burglar panels, gate intercoms and door entry that call out over a dial-up line.

Operations

Fax, POS and monitoring

Healthcare and legal fax, card terminals, tank and temperature telemetry, SCADA dial-outs.

Without functioning emergency lines, a building can lose its Certificate of Occupancy and be forced to close until compliance is restored.

How it works

How POTS replacement works: three steps inside one notice window.

1

We inventory your lines

Every analog circuit at every address, what it’s connected to, and the carrier notice that applies to it.

2

We match each line to the right replacement

UL-listed cellular or IP communicators for fire panels, compliant elevator comms, and VoIP or LTE/5G gateways for everything else.

3

We install and cut over

The new connection plugs in where the copper did. Numbers port, panels stay, and the old line is cancelled.

  • Keep your phone numbers and handsets
  • Alarm, elevator and building panels stay in service
  • Battery backup where life safety requires it
Carrier status

AT&T, Verizon and Lumen copper retirement status

AT&T

Retiring
No new POTS orders, moves, adds or changes. Discontinuance filed Dec 2025 for wire centers in 18 states, years ahead of the 2029 sunset.
AT&T notice →

Verizon

Retiring
Decommissioned areas in New York and Massachusetts in 2024. From 2026, all customers move to fiber, affecting 5M+ lines.
Verizon announcements →

Lumen

Orders frozen
No POTS moves, adds or changes in 14 legacy CenturyLink states since May 1, 2025. Full decommissioning by end of 2029.
Lumen disclosures →
Quick answers

POTS replacement questions, answered

Plain Old Telephone Service: the original analog copper phone line. Businesses still use them for alarms, elevators, fax and older equipment, even where voice has moved to VoIP.

Copper is expensive to maintain, and FCC orders (15-97 and Forbearance Order 19-72A1) removed carriers’ obligation to keep supporting it. In 2025 the FCC also cut the retirement notice period from 180 days to 90.

No. Numbers port to the new service, and in most cases your existing handsets, panels and fax machines plug straight into the replacement device.

Lines get more expensive until the carrier retires them, then fire, elevator and security systems go offline, creating code violations, liability and possible loss of your Certificate of Occupancy.

Yes. We use UL-listed communicators meeting NFPA 72 for fire panels and solutions meeting ASME A17.1 / CSA B44 two-way communication rules for elevators, validated with your AHJ and monitoring provider.

Find out which of your lines are on the clock.

Free line report, one business day, no obligation.
Check my lines
© 2026 LandlineUpgrade · Analog line replacement for business
Sources: FCC · Verizon · AT&T · Lumen