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Carriers in the United States are mandated by law to maintain and offer copper-based landline phone service — even though the technology is well over half a century old. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking its first steps today to modernize that system with a new order that calls for companies like ATT and Verizon to submit proposals for how to provide telephone service of the future using IP — the protocol thats used to transmit data on the internet. With those proposals, the FCC will allow companies to engage in experimental IP phone service that addresses the numerous different requirements that such a system needs to pass before replacing the countrys universal wireline phone network. Companies like ATT and Verizon have pushed the FCC to let them drop support for costly and outdated copper phone service, and each has proposed its own plans as to how coaxial, fiber, and wireless networks could fill the gap.