Jenny Lee, Chair of the Ulster County Citizens Commission for Digital Inclusion, urges residents to learn about Verizon’s proposal to retire traditional copper telephone service, known as Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), and to make their voices heard.

Verizon is seeking FCC approval to retire POTS for portions of New York. The proposed discontinuance would begin on or after November 30, 2026, subject to FCC approval and required customer notice; it is not a single statewide shutoff date, and affected customers would receive notice of their specific transition date.

“Communication during an emergency is not a convenience - it can be a matter of life and death,” said Robert Drake, Commission member and Town of Shandaken Deputy Supervisor and Board member. “Any transition that reduces residents’ ability to reach emergency services cannot be called an equivalent, let alone an upgrade or an improvement.

Reliable emergency communications should be the standard for every resident, and that standard should not be lowered simply because someone lives in a rural area. If anything, rural residents need that reliability even more.”POTS has a significant emergency-resilience feature: a basic corded telephone can operate without commercial power at the customer’s home because the telephone line is powered from the telephone company’s central office. Its resilience is also related to the way the traditional network is engineered and, in some locations, where telephone lines are positioned on utility poles. The Commission seeks to ensure that any replacemen