On Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 12:40:27 PM UTC-5, Cosmic Dot wrote:

Also someone who live 20 miles away said they are selling off local access responsibility to another company, and they were told they'll be without phone service for two weeks until reprogrammed. I've not heard of that in this area though.

Read the article at this site:
http://stopthecap.com/2014/03/03/att...a-and-florida/

Although the title names 2 southern states, the article includes many others. End result is that copper land lines are being abandoned unless a local mom & pop phone company takes them over. AT&T will replace home phone service with satellite via Direct TV.