HAWLEY — 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.”
Earlier this month, Verizon filed a proposal with the FCC to end Plain Old Telephone
Service (“POTS”) in portions of California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, 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.
“Currently, Verizon’s network could serve over 28 million locations in these states with POTS. However, the overwhelming majority of consumers from these states who could subscribe to POTS service from Verizon do not — only approximately 750,000 residential and business locations, or 2.7%, still subscribe to legacy voice services,” Verizon wrote in the FCC filing. “Copper infrastructure is too slow to meet modern needs, many decades old, costly to maintain, and vulnerable to damage and theft.”
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.
“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.”
An earlier filing from August requested to end the service in portions of Arizona, Delaware, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
In rural western Massachusetts, community members are raising concerns about the proposal and its impact on people living in areas where cellular infrastructure is still insufficient.
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.”
According to the service coverage map on Verizon’s website, the company claims to provide 5G coverage throughout most of Franklin County and 4G in the rest. The map only notes a small section of Ashfield Mountain Road and an area near Lake Wyola as having no service whatsoever.
However, independently sourced maps — such as CoverageMap.com, which builds its service maps using crowd-sourced signal strength data — show much sparser coverage. CoverageMap.com’s map shows large gaps in the region with no coverage, such as almost the entirety of the Kenneth Dubuque Memorial State Forest in Hawley. BroadbandMap.com agrees that coverage around Hawley, Heath and Wendell is limited.
The Selectboard wrote that Verizon’s promises to provide battery backups are “better than nothing” but do not fully assuage concerns, as a battery with a lifespan of eight hours cannot hold up in a town where power outages can, sometimes, last for multiple days.
“In our experience, falling trees often break power lines, but the phone lines, lower on the pole, typically survive. We lose power several times a year, often for hours or even days,” the board wrote. “Widespread landline interruptions occur once a decade or less often. … Unfortunately, in a place like Hawley, an eight-hour battery backup or a wireless system that sometimes works just isn’t good enough, and certainly isn’t as good as what we have now.”
Stewart said that receiving the letter from Verizon felt like “being bullied” into purchasing new systems and that her current copper-based landline works perfectly fine. She added that the November date does not give residents enough time to consider their options.
The Verizon filing states that replacement service options do not cost more than existing landline services.
“Verizon’s fixed wireless POTS voice replacement services are available for as little as
$20 per month, plus taxes, surcharges and fees, and Verizon’s post-paid mobile wireless
subscriptions are available for $30 per month, plus taxes, surcharges and fees. Prepaid
mobile wireless service through Visible by Verizon is available starting at $19 per month,” the filing reads. “Additionally, voice service over Verizon’s fiber, where available, costs $30 per month plus taxes, surcharges and fees, in addition to the cost of Verizon fiber broadband.”
In a statement to WWNY TV, a Watertown, New York-based television network, Verizon officials said the company would not end service for customers where there is no suitable alternative to copper landlines.
“As we transition from legacy copper to modern networks, we are committed to ensuring no customer is left behind. Our customers’ home phone service is not going away. Receiving an initial notice simply marks the beginning of a multi-step regulatory process and does not mean immediate service disconnect. Furthermore, if a suitable replacement is not yet available, we will not discontinue a customer’s copper voice service.”
FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau is currently accepting public comment on the filing. To submit a comment, visit fcc.gov/ecfs/search/docket-detail/26-252. The docket number is 26-252.
