With Federal Communications Commission (FCC) having released a Notice of Inquiry earlier this month to seek inputs on the proposal to extend high-speed Internet broadband throughout the US, leading telecom firm AT&T urged the regulatory authorities allow the telecom carriers to do away with the maintenance of cost-guzzling landline networks.

Saying that the elimination of landlines was more a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, AT&T asked the FCC to determine a “firm deadline” for the complete phasing out of the wireline service.

In its response to the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry, published online by technology blog GigaOM, AT&T said: “The business model for legacy phone services is in a death spiral. With an outdated product, falling revenues, and rising costs, the plain-old telephone service (POTS) business is unsustainable for the long run.”

Noting that most of the carriers were being forced to undertake substantial expenditure for maintaining “an antiquated network and outdated service,” AT&T added there is absolutely no need for service providers to “operate and maintain two distinct networks when technology and consumer preferences have made one of them increasingly obsolete.”

The AT&T argument for pulling the plug on landlines is substantiated by the fact that, between 2006 and 2009, there has been a twofold increase in the number of US households that have discarded the landline totally in favor of mobile phones.