WORTHINGTON — Select Board Chair Charley Rose said he has received two complaints from town residents who are scared about Verizon’s proposal to discontinue traditional copper landlines.
Meanwhile, Verizon says worry not.
The major U.S. telecommunications company said that it will not discontinue service without an alternative in place for customers. No one is immediately losing service, and no one will wake up one day without service, according to the company.
“We want to make sure our customers that are concerned, especially in the more rural or remote areas, that they’re not going to be left without an option,” said Lauren Peterson, a Verizon spokesperson.
“No one is going to be left without connection. They’re going to keep their home phone. It’s just that back-end technology is changing,” she said.
But those reassurances are not calming nerves.
Leading up to Worthington resident Richard Mansfield’s home is a gravel, winding road that goes on for a quarter mile. A thin copper line dangles from tree to tree up the path before reaching his home. This has been the case since the 1980s.
Despite all the promises Verizon has made not to interrupt service, he still has an “uneasy” feeling, he said.
At 79, Mansfield is on a fixed income of Social Security after working his entire life in sawmills and as a logger.
“God bless FDR [President Franklin Delano Roosevelt] for Social Security,” he said. But another blessing has been his Verizon phone line and DSL internet connection.
As Verizon moves away from its aging copper network, Mansfield is worried about what will replace it.
“I’m willing to lose my landline, but I don’t want to lose the internet,” said Mansfield, who also has a cellphone.
Mansfield said he does not know what that alternative would look like at his home, or whether it would be affordable, even though he’s tried looking into it a couple of times and never received an answer.
“I don’t know who it would be, what it would cost, or anything like that,” he said.
Mansfield said Verizon has generally been reliable over the years. Even after ice storms and other problems, he said, technicians have typically come within a day or two when repairs were needed.
“They’ve been very good at keeping it up,” he said. “Very much appreciate that, but it takes me aback that suddenly it’s going to be gone.”
Earlier this month, Verizon filed a proposal with the FCC to end Plain Old Telephone Service (“POTS”) effective Nov. 30. Verizon said copper landline service is expensive to maintain, too slow to meet modern needs and not as many people use the service as the system could support.
The filing states that current POTS subscribers will be transitioned to fiber-based service or other wireless alternatives.
Letters the company sent to residents state that they can keep their existing phone numbers and that 911 calls would continue “seamlessly” in the transition. The company notes that the transition would “free up billions” that could be reinvested into improving and expanding modern systems across the nation.
In the letter, the date Nov. 30 is mentioned. But Verizon made clear that this is the date discussions will start with the FCC.
“That date is simply the date that the process kicks off with the FCC,” said Peterson. “In some areas, this process will take months, so we are far away from any transition actually happening.”
It’s unclear how many people the move will impact in Worthington, around the region and in 32 states. The only numbers Verizon gave were that the move would impact approximately 3% of its 147 million customers nationwide.
Given those numbers, it seems the move would impact 4.4 million users. Among those, seniors are the most likely to be impacted, said Peterson. Even her own grandmother didn’t want to adapt to a cellphone.
“We gave her a cellphone, and it stayed in her bag for years because she never turned it on, and she wound up giving it away,” she said. “There’s just not that appetite for some communities to have a cell phone. They want to keep their landline. It’s a sense of security for them, and we know how important that is.”
In Chesterfield, a copper line runs the town’s fax machine, which is important for communicating personal and protected information, including healthcare documents and ballots. That line may also be at stake, and it has already stopped working, said Town Clerk Sandy Wickland.
In Franklin County, similar fears are being expressed.
Jody Stewart does not have a cellphone, nor does she want one. But if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approves Verizon’s plans to end copper landline service, the 80-year-old Hawley resident fears she may have to.
“I don’t really want a cellphone,” said Stewart, a longtime poet who has lived in town since 1994 and is also known as Pamela Stewart and Jody Cothey. “I feel like I’m being bullied.”
Stewart said cell service in Hawley and neighboring communities is spotty, and the push to remove landline service could leave many residents, particularly older people, in a lurch.
“We rely on landlines. Cell service is OK where I live, but if you drive half a mile down the road, there’s no service,” Stewart said. “It’s horrifyingly insulting. … A landline is a lifeline for a lot of people.”
Stewart’s sentiments were echoed by members of the Hawley Selectboard, who voted unanimously Tuesday night to send a letter urging the FCC to reject the proposal.
“Copper landlines are not some bygone convenience here. They are a necessity, still popular with older and younger families,” the Selectboard’s letter states. “Cell service is marginal — in many cases, nonexistent in our mountainous landscape. … We are also prone to severe weather, which, with our abundance of trees, results in frequent power outages. The 2008 ice storm, Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and a storm in February 2025 all led to outages lasting several days. During these outages, residents relied on landlines to check on neighbors and contact emergency services.”
Selectboard Chair Will Crosby said Tuesday night that he does not think the letter will make much of a difference to the FCC, but with more than a dozen homes in town that do not have cell service, the town has to try.
“All of the major carriers are delusional about their coverage out here,” Selectboard member Hussain Hamdan said. “And it’s because what you get in February is very different than what you get in July, and it’s all about the leaves. … Cell service here, it’s very sporadic.”
Verizon cited a variety of reasons for the move, such as copper becoming a scarce metal, and Peterson noted how the penny was also scrapped this year. The copper lines in many areas are also more than 100 years old. She said copper is very susceptible to the elements, severe weather and vandalism. It also takes longer to repair.
“It’s a very aging infrastructure. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to maintain that network across the country,” Peterson said. “With fiber, we’re able to repair it faster. The fees are better overall. It’s just a superior experience for our customers.”
“Because it makes no sense to maintain a ubiquitous, costly legacy network that consumers have largely abandoned, we seek to transition customers to modern services provided by Verizon or another provider,” the FCC filing reads. “We will work to ensure that this is a smooth transition for copper-based POTS customers in the discontinuance area.”
Reporting from Staff Writer Madison Schofield was used in this article
