In 2022, 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.”
The report shows that over the last year, Florida consumers continued to move from traditional landline telephone service to wireless and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Carriers reported approximately 900,000 total landlines in Florida for 2022, about 19.5 percent fewer than in 2021.
For the twelfth year, the number of business landlines exceeded residential landlines, although both experienced significant drops in 2022. Residential landlines declined by 16.5 percent, and business landlines declined by 21.3 percent. While the declines weren’t as substantial as 2021, CenturyLink experienced a 17.8 percent decline in residential lines during 2022, and AT&T fell 17.4 percent. Frontier again experienced the biggest residential loss, with a 23.7 percent decline in residential access lines during the same period.
As in past years, wireless and VoIP services drove the telecommunications markets in 2022. According to the most recent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) data, Florida has an estimated 23 million wireless subscriptions and over 4.6 million VoIP connections, far eclipsing landlines in 2022.
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, 2022.
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