Telecom contracts: the line nobody has opened in years

Carrier contracts, unused circuits, mobile plans and SD-WAN renewals rarely get reviewed. With copper retirement underway, this is the year to check.

Telecom is the cost line that survives every budget review. Too small to get a project, too big to ignore, and spread across so many bills that nobody owns the total. Facilities owns the office lines. IT owns the circuits. Finance pays the mobile bill. Nobody owns the contract.

We have opened telecom files where the newest signed agreement was five years old. The services had changed several times since. The contract had not.

Why 2026 is the year to look

The carriers are changing the network under you. AT&T plans to retire the large majority of its copper network outside California by the end of 2029. In January 2026, Broadband Breakfast reported that the FCC had approved AT&T's application to discontinue copper-based service at wire centers serving about 90,000 customers in 18 states, with customers told service could end from November 15, 2026. Light Reading had earlier reported an approval covering about 500 wire centers, with forced migrations able to begin in June 2026.

If your business still runs alarm panels, elevator phones, fax lines or payment backups on copper, that migration is coming whether you plan for it or not. And legacy lines have not been getting cheaper. Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by SecurityInfoWatch showed average monthly rates for plain old telephone service rose 37% between 2012 and 2022.

A forced migration is a negotiation. Treat it as one.

What to check

1. Every circuit, by location. Pull three months of invoices from every carrier and match each circuit ID to a live site. Closed offices, merged branches and moved data centers leave circuits billing for years. In audits we run, this is where the quickest money sits.
2. Copper lines and what they serve. For each line, find the device on the other end. Some can move to a cellular or VoIP alternative. Some can simply be disconnected because the device is gone.
3. In-term or out-of-term. Services that rolled out of contract often bill at higher month-to-month rates. Others sit under minimum annual revenue commitments that outlived the business that signed them. Know which you have before you call.
4. Mobile plans. Count active lines against current employees. Look for devices nobody carries, international add-ons left on after a trip, and pooled data far above real use.
5. SD-WAN and managed network renewals. These are usually multi-year deals sold with bandwidth sized for a growth plan. Check utilization before renewal. The renewal quote is usually built from the old order, not from current usage.
6. Surcharges and billing entities. Look for fees on services that no longer exist and charges billed to the wrong site or legal entity.
7. Who can order. If anyone in IT or facilities can add a circuit by email, the inventory will drift again within a year.

How the review runs

Inventory first, then usage, then the market. Do not call the carrier until you know what you want to keep. Carrier account teams run renewal conversations every week; you run one every few years. Arrive with the list of what to disconnect, what to migrate and what to rebid, and ask for common end dates so the next negotiation happens on your schedule, not theirs.

Put every disconnect request in writing and track it to the final invoice. A circuit is not gone until the bill says so.

Who should own it

One person, one inventory, reviewed every quarter. You don't need a telecom specialist on staff. You need someone with the authority to say no to a new line nobody has justified.

Sources: Broadband Breakfast, AT&T approved to discontinue service at more than 30% of copper footprint, Light Reading, AT&T's copper retirement plan plows ahead, SecurityInfoWatch, POTS: not dead yet.