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Thursday, August 01, 2024
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Florida Landline Service Continues its Decline in PSC Telecom Report
TALLAHASSEE — In 2023, Florida’s business and residential telecommunication wireline markets continued to follow the national trend with significant decreases, according to the Florida Public Service Commission’s (PSC) annual “Report on the Status of Competition in the Telecommunications Industry.”
AT&T and CenturyLink experienced overall access line losses in Florida, while Frontier had a slight gain, due to an increase in business customers. Overall, carriers reported approximately 764,000 total landlines in Florida in 2023, about 17.7 percent fewer than in 2022, as Florida consumers continue to move from traditional landline to wireless and business Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.
For the thirteenth year in a row, the number of business landlines exceeded residential landlines. However, business access lines declined by 15 percent in 2023, while residential landlines declined by 21.8 percent. CenturyLink experienced a 19.9 percent decline in residential lines during 2023, while Frontier fell 25.6 percent. AT&T experienced the biggest residential loss, with a 27.2 percent decline in residential access lines during the same period.
Following the trend of past years, wireless and VoIP services drove the telecommunications markets in 2023. According to the most recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) data, Florida has an estimated 24 million wireless subscriptions and over 4.5 million VoIP connections, far eclipsing the remaining 764,000 landlines in 2023.
Delivered to the Florida Legislature by August 1 each year, the PSC report compiled data from Florida telecommunications companies for the 12-month period ending December 31, 2023. Access the entire report here, found on the PSC website under PSC Publications/Reports and Other Resources/Telecommunications.
For additional information, visit www.floridapsc.com.
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