Verizon's plans to retire copper services in a handful of US states has hit a slight snag after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it needs more time to assess the proposal.

As first reported by Fierce Wireless, the FCC has said it "requires additional time to complete its review" of Verizon's plans to discontinue residential and business legacy TDM-based voice service in parts of nine states.

"We emphasize that our removal of Verizon’s application from the automatic grant process is not a final determination on the merits of Verizon’s request for authority to discontinue service," said the FCC in response to Verizon's filing last month.

Verizon requested last month to retire residential and business legacy TDM-based voice services on its copper network in parts of Arizona, Delaware, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.

The carrier had intended to stop offering these services from next month.

Across these states, Verizon said it could serve more than 12 million locations with this Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) if required. However, the carrier pointed out in its FCC filing on August 10 that "the overwhelming majority of consumers from these states who could subscribe to POTS service from Verizon do not."

According to Verizon, only approximately 277,000 residential and business legacy voice lines, or less than 2.25 percent, remain in use.

"Copper infrastructure is too slow to meet modern needs, many decades old, costly to maintain, and vulnerable to damage and theft," stated Verizon.

"In this application, we seek authority to discontinue copper services only where customers can obtain facilities-based service from Verizon, one of our two nationwide mobile carrier competitors, or eight sizeable cable and/or fiber providers that compete significantly with us in the discontinuance area."

The company's plan includes the decommissioning of copper plant at 382 wire stations across former Frontier Communications properties in five states plus copper at 280 Verizon-branded wire stations in another three states.

Verizon closed its $20 billion acquisition of fiber provider Frontier Communications earlier this year.

In its filing to the FCC in August, a draft example of a customer notice from Frontier and Verizon outlined plans to migrate customers from copper to fiber.

"We’re pleased to inform you about updates to our home phone service. As part of our ongoing network improvements, we are planning to discontinue traditional copper-based home phone service in your area. If your service will be discontinued, you will have the opportunity to switch to service delivered using fiber, cable, or modern wireless technology," the letter outlined.

Carriers such as Verizon have pushed hard to drive their fiber rollout across the US in the last couple of years, with telcos advocating for the switch from legacy copper services to fiber instead.

Verizon isn't the only carrier to seek permission from the FCC to move away from offering copper services. In California, AT&T has had its own struggles trying to decommission copper services in the state.

At present, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has the authority to ensure AT&T continues to provide copper services in the state, even if on a smaller scale.