State POTS Replacement Requirements: Who Sets Them

State POTS replacement requirements do not sit in a single state rule. The obligations that reach a business come from three layers: the FCC rules governing how a carrier retires copper, the role a state commission plays when a carrier discontinues service, and the fire, elevator and building codes each state adopts for life-safety communications. The FCC's April 2026 network-change order reshuffled that overlap, and it is why a state requirement you were counting on may no longer hold.

Do States Require Businesses to Replace POTS Lines?

The requirement a business ends up facing is not a state replacement mandate. It arrives through the carrier: before an incumbent local exchange carrier removes or disables copper, it owes notice under the Commission's network change rules. 47 CFR § 51.325 requires public notice of any network change that will affect a competing service provider's ability to provide service, affect the incumbent carrier's interoperability with other providers, or result in a copper retirement — and defines a copper retirement as the removal or disabling of copper loops, subloops or the feeder portion of such loops, or their replacement with fiber-to-the-home or fiber-to-the-curb loops.

A state's authority shows up elsewhere: in a commission's service-quality and consumer-protection rules, in the conditions attached to a carrier's carrier-of-last-resort or eligible telecommunications carrier designation, and in the code edition the state or a local jurisdiction has adopted for fire alarm and elevator communications.

What the FCC Requires Before Copper Is Retired

47 CFR § 51.333 carries the mechanics. A carrier must serve a copy of a copper retirement notice on every telephone exchange service provider that directly interconnects with its network at least five business days before filing, or post it on its website where that provider has agreed to receive notice that way. The notice is deemed final on the 90th day after the Commission releases its public notice of the filing, or the 15th day where the copper facilities serve no customers — but never less than 90 days' notice where they do. A directly interconnecting provider that cannot accommodate the change can object, with an officer's affidavit and the earliest date it can accommodate, no later than the ninth business day after the Commission's public notice.

The April 2026 order, 91 FR 20913, changed the filing side. Adopted March 26, 2026 in WC Docket Nos. 25-208 and 25-209 as FCC 26-19, it eliminates all filing requirements in the network change disclosure rules and the Commission's public-notice and objection process for short-term network changes and copper retirements, codifying relief the Wireline Competition Bureau had already granted. Carriers must still post public notice through industry fora, industry publications or a publicly accessible website — reachable rather than behind a paywall. Direct notice of copper retirements and short-term network changes still goes to directly interconnected telephone exchange service providers and to 911 service providers.

The order is effective May 20, 2026 except for the instructions amending §§ 51.329, 51.333, 63.60, 63.62, 63.63, 63.71 and 63.602, which are delayed indefinitely until the Commission finishes reviewing the information collections.

What a State Commission Can Still Require

A state's power sits in the discontinuance process, and it is narrower than it first appears. 47 U.S.C. § 214 requires that notice of a carrier's application go to the Governor of each state in which service is proposed to be discontinued, reduced or impaired, and gives those notified the right to be heard — which lets a state object before the Commission authorizes anything. Section 214(c) then lets the United States, the Commission, the state commission, any state affected, or any party in interest sue to enjoin a discontinuance carried out contrary to that section.

Separately, 47 U.S.C. § 253(b) preserves a state's ability to impose, on a competitively neutral basis, requirements necessary to preserve and advance universal service, protect the public safety and welfare, ensure the continued quality of telecommunications services, and safeguard the rights of consumers.

Neither authority lets a state keep one specific service alive once the Commission has authorized its discontinuance.

Where the FCC Says State Requirements Are Preempted

The 2026 order addressed that directly. It concluded that Section 214 gives states "a limited role in the federal discontinuance regime," and that a grant of an "explicit consultative role ... works against, rather than for, [any] claim of other powers" over discontinuance. Once the Commission has authorized a carrier to discontinue an interstate or jurisdictionally mixed service, states may not enforce any law, regulation or other requirement that on its face or in practical terms requires the carrier to keep providing that service — including conditions that present as technology neutral but have that practical effect. The Commission declined to opine on how that applies to any specific state law.

It also rejected a narrower reading of its preemption power. The California Public Utilities Commission had argued that only an "unmistakably clear" statement in the Act could let the Commission preempt state requirements forcing a carrier to keep a service running; the order disagreed, resting on conflict preemption — state law yields where it prevents or frustrates a federal objective. The order states that the record indicates some states adopted requirements that carriers assert prevent them from discontinuing legacy voice service, and it determined that certain state and local requirements are subject to federal preemption.

The practical reading: if a migration plan rests on a state rule forcing your carrier to keep copper in place, that plan now depends on a legal position the Commission has rejected.

How to Find What Applies to Your Sites

Name the carrier of record for every circuit still on copper, and put one owner on that list. Ask in writing for its retirement or discontinuance plan and the dates touching your sites, and keep the answer — carriers must send copies of their discontinuance applications to the state public utility commissions (FCC 26-19), so the docket is a second place to confirm what you were told. Then check the code edition your state or local jurisdiction has adopted for fire alarm and elevator communications: that is where the in-building requirements carrying an inspection consequence live.

Two references shorten that work. Elevator Phone Requirements: What the Codes Actually Say covers the code side, and the FCC's copper retirement notice rules cover the filing side of the same event.

Sort the obligations by who owns them before you budget anything. Device certifications belong to the equipment maker. The 911, Kari's Law and RAY BAUM'S obligations travel with the voice network that carries the calls, not with the deployment. The migration work — inventory, cutover, testing — belongs to a deployment partner. To see where your exposure sits first, the copper sunset risk assessment walks a portfolio site by site.

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A state requirement is not a plan, and a carrier's notice is not a date on your calendar until someone owns it. Tell us what your sites still run on copper and we will map the replacements, the POTS replacement path each service needs, and the compliance layers that travel with it.