POTS replacement for every line in the building.
The copper is retiring. Your lines don’t have to. SIPNEX is an FCC-licensed carrier. We move every analog line in the building — phones, fax, elevator, alarms, gate boxes — to SIP at carrier rates. Your numbers port with you. The code-bound lines get the care the law requires.
What POTS replacement means.
POTS stands for plain old telephone service: the analog copper line that has carried phone calls for a century. A POTS replacement solution moves what that line did onto a different path. Usually that path is voice over internet protocol (VoIP). Your phones, fax machines, and alarm panels keep working. The copper pair goes away.
Three replacement paths exist. SIP lines from a carrier ride your internet connection; analog devices connect through an ATA (analog telephone adapter). Cellular line-replacement appliances emulate dial tone over LTE for sites without reliable connectivity. A cloud PBX replaces the phone system when the “lines” were really extensions in disguise. Most buildings end up with a mix, chosen line by line.
No shutoff date. A very real sunset.
There is no law turning POTS off on a date. What exists is deregulation compounding into retirement. The FCC’s 2019 forbearance order (FCC 19-72) ended wholesale copper obligations. Its March 2026 modernization order removed most of the remaining procedural steps between a carrier deciding to retire copper and doing it. Direct customer notice is now the main safeguard.
AT&T has publicly targeted exiting copper across the vast majority of its footprint by the end of 2029. Legacy line prices have climbed steeply by design.
The practical translation: every POTS line in your building is on borrowed, increasingly expensive time. The right moment to migrate is before the retirement notice arrives, not after.
Every line has a right answer.
The mistake in most POTS migrations is treating all lines alike. Phones and fax are straightforward SIP conversions. The life safety systems carry code requirements. The modem-based stragglers — credit card terminals, postage meters, building controllers — need honest triage. Line by line:
| LINE TYPE | REPLACEMENT PATH | WHAT MATTERS |
|---|---|---|
| Office phones & main numbers | SIP lines / cloud PBX | Port the numbers; retire the copper entirely |
| Fax machines | SIP with T.38 / G.711 via ATA | Avoid compressed cellular voice paths |
| Elevator phones | Code-compliant path (SIP or listed cellular) | ASME A17.1: monitoring, verification, standby power |
| Fire alarm panels | Listed communicator per NFPA 72 | Supervised path + ~24h secondary power; AHJ approval |
| Burglar alarms | Listed IP/cellular communicator | Central station and insurer dictate accepted paths |
| Credit card terminals / modems / postage meters | IP migration, or G.711 ATA at low baud | The most fragile devices on any voice path |
| Pool, garage & area-of-refuge call boxes | SIP via ATA, or cellular callbox | Confirm who answers; test after cutover |
| Gate & door boxes | SIP via ATA, or cellular callbox | Weatherized power and survivability planning |
Fire alarms, elevators, and emergency call lines go first.
Systems such as fire alarms and elevator phones are the lines where code compliance, not dial tone, is the requirement. They also take the longest to get approved. So they go first in the plan, not last.
Elevator phones — ASME A17.1
The code is technology-neutral. State guidance allows POTS, cellular, VoIP, or PBX paths. What it demands is behavior: one hands-free button, a trained human who answers 24/7, automatic daily line verification, and at least four hours of standby power. An unacknowledged call must redirect within 45 seconds.
Fire alarm panels — NFPA 72
The communicator must be listed for the purpose, and the transmission path must be supervised. Secondary power runs to roughly 24 hours. An elevator phone may never share the fire alarm’s line, nor vice versa. The AHJ approves the path — not the vendor brochure.
Emergency call boxes and 911
Pool phones, parking-garage call boxes, and area-of-refuge phones are the analog lines people forget until an inspection. Inventory them. For the phones that ride a phone system (an MLTS — a PBX or cloud PBX), an emergency call must still reach the right dispatcher: Kari’s Law demands that 911 be reachable with no prefix, and RAY BAUM’S Act requires dispatchable location with the call.
Both codes accept non-copper paths when those conditions are met. Get the AHJ and the monitoring company in the room before the copper order is cancelled, and keep the old line live until the new path has passed its test. SIPNEX provisions E911 with a Registered Location on every number in the 50 US states, so the lines that talk keep reaching the right public safety answering point.
Battery backup, power, and business continuity.
Copper had one quiet advantage. A POTS line carried its own power from the phone company’s central office, so a basic phone worked in a blackout. Every replacement path is locally powered. That is not automatically worse — but it has to be engineered, not assumed.
Battery backup has to cover the whole chain, not just the phone. On a SIP line that means the ATA, the router, the switch, and the modem or fiber terminal. If any one box loses power, the line is dead. Size the UPS for the longest requirement on the circuit: at least four hours for an elevator phone under ASME A17.1, and roughly 24 hours for a fire alarm path under NFPA 72.
Cellular appliances ship with internal batteries, commonly rated for about eight hours. Vendors sell extended packs because the base battery is often not enough on a life-safety line. The AHJ decides what is enough, not the spec sheet.
Business continuity is the second half of the question. A SIP line is not bound to a wire into one building. When a site loses its internet, its numbers can be answered from another site or another device. For a location with no reliable connectivity at all, a listed cellular device is the honest answer. Most buildings end up hybrid: SIP for everything that talks, a cellular path for a code-bound line or two.
How a POTS replacement project runs.
Six steps, in an order that keeps every line working until its replacement has proven itself.
Inventory every line
Pull the carrier bill and walk the building. Count phones, fax machines, alarm panels, elevator phones, gate boxes, credit card terminals, and anything else with an RJ11 jack. The bill usually lists lines nobody can find. The building usually has lines that are not on the bill.
Classify each line
Sort into three buckets: lines that talk (phones, main numbers), lines that modem (fax, terminals, meters), and life safety systems (fire alarms, elevators, emergency call boxes). Each bucket has its own replacement path and its own approver.
Choose the replacement solution
SIP through an ATA, or a cloud PBX, for the lines that talk. SIP with T.38 or G.711 for fax. Listed equipment, with the AHJ’s sign-off, for the life safety lines. Cellular only where the site lacks reliable connectivity or the code steers you there.
Port the numbers
Submit the port with a complete, accurate LOA. Simple ports of one to ten local numbers from one carrier typically take 7 to 14 business days from LOA to FOC date; larger or multi-carrier ports run 14 to 21. The old line keeps working until the port completes.
Test before you cancel
Send a multi-page fax. Confirm the elevator phone’s automatic daily verification reports correctly. Run a central-station test on the alarm panel. Place a test call from each ported number, and confirm the E911 Registered Location on file instead of placing a live 911 call.
Retire the copper
Cancel the analog lines only after the FOC date passes and every test is green. Keep the disconnect confirmation. Update the alarm monitoring and elevator maintenance contracts with the new path, so the next inspection has the paperwork.
The economics of leaving copper.
Industry sources document business analog lines that once ran $40–65 a month now billing $65–120+, with legacy-tariff extremes far higher. Dedicated copper elevator lines commonly bill $100–150 per elevator monthly. There is no official price index, so treat the figures as illustrative. The direction is not in dispute.
On the SIP side, the lines land at published carrier rates. Where the analog lines were really a phone system, hosted PBX extensions start at $6.99 per month with every feature included. A cellular device is priced per line by its vendor, and it wraps a carrier and often a reseller around your numbers. Ask what the price does at renewal before the hardware ships.
Replace copper with a carrier, not a coupon.
The POTS-replacement market is crowded with resellers wrapping hardware around someone else’s network. SIPNEX is the network. We are an FCC-licensed carrier providing SIP lines at carrier rates, number porting from our side of the table, and A-level STIR/SHAKEN attestation on outbound calls. Our engineers treat a dead line as a trace to read, not a ticket to route.
The endpoint can be an ATA on a fax machine, a cloud PBX replacing the phone closet, or trunks into a PBX you keep. Either way, the lines land on the carrier itself.
About POTS replacement with SIPNEX.
Is there a deadline when POTS lines shut off?
What replaces a POTS line?
How much do POTS lines cost now?
Can elevator phones and fire alarms move off POTS?
Do fax machines work over VoIP?
What happens to my phone numbers when POTS lines retire?
Does POTS replacement need battery backup?
Will a credit card terminal work after POTS replacement?
Is POTS replacement the same as switching to VoIP?
Why replace POTS lines with a carrier instead of a reseller box?
Related Guides
Audit the building before the notice arrives.
Send us your line inventory — or just the phone bill. You get back a line-by-line replacement plan: what moves to SIP, what needs listed equipment, how the numbers port, and what it costs at carrier rates.