As a trusted source of knowledge for distributors, dealer-integrators, and the professional security industry, Telguard wants to raise awareness about the imminent end of “plain old telephone service” (POTS) and how it will negatively affect your customers—if it isn’t already.
Three years ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued Forbearance Order 19-72A1 which allowed incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs)—AT&T, Verizon, CenturyLink, Windstream, Frontier, etc.—time to transition away from POTS. As of August 2, 2022, the FCC completely eliminated the requirement that ILECs must maintain these antiquated and degraded copper lines and come October 27, 2023, they will also be released from the remaining cost requirements.
These FCC orders effectively usher in an “end-of-life” scenario for POTS so what does that exactly mean for security and fire safety dealer-integrators and your customers? Because ILECs are no longer required to maintain POTS, they’ll have two choices: allow it to deteriorate until it no longer functions as intended or pass on the high cost of its maintenance to customers, usually without any warning. In fact, early last year, Verizon started to transition many of its customers away from POTS while AT&T announced it would decommission 50% of its legacy copper network by 2025, offering customers its fiber-based services to replace legacy POTS.
Perhaps your customers have already contacted you because they’ve noticed the steep increases in their monthly bills and/or decreasing reliability with their lines but if not, it’s a great opportunity for you to initiate the conversation about finally transitioning them to newer and more cost-effective digital technology through Telguard products.
When it comes to using POTS, fire code requires two communication paths (which can mean two phone lines) and has stricter regulations on how it must be monitored so we’ll use a commercial fire security system as an example to explain why the following options may or may not fit the current and future needs of your customers.
The least cost-effective and least reliable option would be for your customers to do nothing and keep their current phone lines because they’ll experience continuing and unprecedented price increases from ILECs stemming from the high cost of POTS maintenance. Although many customers have already moved away from POTS, there’s still a sizeable number that can be upgraded, particularly in the commercial segment. Through the direct and strong relationships that you’ve built with them, you can present better and more reliable options right now because adverse effects will keep accelerating from this ongoing transition.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ILECs have greatly increased the cost of POTS service because of the maintenance but also, to force customer migration away from the outdated copper-line infrastructure. From February 2012 to February 2022, average monthly rates have increased 37% and could be up 75% by 2026, as these current trends are expected to continue.
POTS will continue to degrade and become less stable until it’s completely unavailable because of the simple fact that manufacturers are no longer producing hops (switches), hubs, and other parts that were put in place many decades ago. For fire alarm systems, less reliability and lower quality in the signal could catastrophically lead to a missed bit of data, resulting in a failed alarm message delivery.
ILECs provide an alternative Voice over Internet Protocols (VoIP) platform that are designed to transmit voice over the Internet. These POTS replacement devices employ a packet-switched network and work similarly to modems, providing a physical interface that can be used to plug in voice equipment (such as old-fashioned telephones) and acquire a dial tone to make voice calls. However, they are unlikely to be UL 864 Listed or tested in accordance with NFPA 72 standards, unlike Telguard products. Additionally, the failure rates of these devices may be good enough for residential applications but unless they are stress-tested for reliability, it’s a gamble to use them with commercial fire systems.
Although POTS was traditionally used for fire alarm signal transmissions, cellular communication has become the more cost-effective and more reliable option, long before this transition started. And there really is no better solution for POTS replacement as Telguard communicators are uniquely positioned and designed to work with alarm panels that were never intended to be digital—even ones that were made 40 years ago from different manufacturers. Panels can be expensive but with a Telguard communicator, customers may not need to replace them when doing replacements or upgrades so this is key for dealer-integrators.
For commercial fire applications, your customers have the option of investing in a TG-7FP 5G LTE-M Sole Path Communicator, a TG-7FS 5G LTE-M Cellular Communicator, or a TG-7FE Dual Path Internet and 5G LTE-M Cellular Communicator.
Lastly, if your customers are still not ready to let go of their phone lines right now, you can take advantage of the opening and present them with a different option like cellular communicators as a backup path which monitors the phone line and jumps into action when it’s not working. Then when the time comes and your customer has decided to upgrade, Telguard products can be easily transitioned from backup to sole path.
It’s inevitable that these conversations about alternative options to POTS will happen but as dealer-integrators, it’s better that you initiate them with your customers to ensure that the replacement communication path chosen is one you can trust while you gain recurring monthly revenue from it. As a leader in the industry, Telguard encourages you to take advantage now because adverse effects from this transition will accelerate over the next year and moving your customers to cellular monitoring with Telguard’s commercial fire alarm communicators will cost them significantly less than POTS to operate almost immediately.
*Update 1/31/2026: On March 20, 2025, the FCC published several changes to the rules around how the carriers that operate the American analog "Plain-Old Telephone Service" (POTS) network are regulated, effectively giving telecommunications companies more flexibility to shut down their analog landline networks.
