Telephone copper retirement and salvage (2023-2026)

Disposition: stated. Several short sources, read 2026-10-21 from search text unless marked; created in trail-2026-10-21.

What: who is pulling copper out of telephone networks as they move to fibre, and who gets the metal. Why: it is the live test of whether a retired community-owned network's copper goes to its members. Bears on farmer-mutual-telephones, wallsten-urban-infrastructure-mines and the resources leg of macro-view.

• Extracta (US salvage firm): telcos "can fund the whole extraction process by pulling out their unused copper ... and still have money left to help pay for their fiber deployments"; a 40,000 lb container is worth over $100,000. Vendor claim. https://www.fierce-network.com/broadband/telcos-can-extracta-old-copper-out-networks-and-earn-cold-cash
• Algar Telecom (Brazil): plans to remove its whole copper network across 87 cities by 2025 (up to 8,000 t) and pay for the removal from the metal; 47 t recovered at the time. TELETIME, 15 Mar 2023. https://teletime.com.br/15/03/2023/algar-telecom-quer-custear-retirada-de-rede-de-cobre-com-venda-do-metal/
• Pioneer Telephone Cooperative (Oklahoma, member-owned since 1953): ~13,000 miles of copper in a retirement programme alongside 11,000 miles of fibre; capital credits returned to members total $153M since 1953. The 2024 annual report (read in full) and the retirement page (read in full) say nothing about salvage. https://gopioneer.com/files/2024_Annual_Report_8.5x11single-pages_web.pdf ; https://gopioneer.com/copper-retirement
• 3 Rivers Communications (Montana co-op): fibre to the home 99% complete in 2025 after 17 years and ~$350M, about a third paid by members. https://www.choteauacantha.com/regional_news/article_e46ab64f-8f73-44f8-81a3-0421882772c3.html
• Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative (Kentucky): expected to remove all its copper within two years of 2021, "fully depreciated at the time it is removed" (audited statements filed with the Kentucky PSC). https://psc.ky.gov/Utility_Financial_Reports_Net/uploaded/support/SD_12500_2020_1.pdf
• US telephone accounting (47 CFR Part 32): the original cost of retired plant is charged to accumulated depreciation, with salvage tracked against it inside the regulated accounts. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-B/part-32

• Peoples Rural Telephone Cooperative, audited statements 2021, 2023, 2024 (read in full 2026-10-23, trail-2026-10-23): "Salvage, net of removals" was $75,843 (2020), nil (2021), $21,288 (2022), nil (2023), $37,510 (2024), against plant construction of $3.8M-$9.9M a year. Retired units "including cost of removal, net of any salvage value" are charged to accumulated depreciation, so salvage does not pass through margins or capital credits. Its RUS loan covenants require approval for the "disposition of proceeds for the sale or lease of plant, material, or scrap". https://psc.ky.gov/Utility_Financial_Reports_Net/uploaded/support/SD_12500_2021_1.pdf ; https://psc.ky.gov/Utility_Financial_Reports_Net/uploaded/support/SD_12500_2024_1.pdf ; RUS borrower accounts: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1770 (search text)

Not found: any co-op or municipality that reports what its copper fetched or where the money went.

Backlinks: trail-2026-10-23, farmer-mutual-telephones, wallsten-urban-infrastructure-mines, trail-2026-10-21