Cables Analysis
Plan B against surveillance
New York is the landline capital of the United States, with four in ten adults in homes with a copper line. They are coming back for two reasons, children and surveillance. A device with no software has no door that opens from a distance. In Cochabamba the wire is ours, owned by more than 120,000 members, and we have gone more than 500 days without legitimate boards to answer for it.
By Violeta Ayala — Tecnóloga
New York
New York is the landline capital of the United States. Four in ten adults in the state live in a home with a copper line, while across the rest of the country the copper network is being switched off.
Traditional lines fell from 27.2 million in June 2022 to 15 million in June 2025, and almost 79% of American adults now live in wireless-only households. The Northeast resists: New York leads with 39.1%, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont.
The landline is coming back to New York kitchens and hallways for two reasons, children and surveillance.
Some parents want a phone their children can use with no feed, no camera and no browser, so they can call their grandmother or their friends without being handed a smartphone. A smaller, quieter group wants a phone with no software for a spy to exploit. Both arrive at the same object: a handset on a wall that does one thing.
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No operating system, no camera, no GPS and no apps. It carries its own power from the telephone exchange, so it works when the electricity is cut.
What it protects
A copper phone protects by what it lacks. No operating system, no apps, no GPS, no microphone anyone can switch on from a distance.
Spyware like Pegasus works by exploiting the software on a smartphone. A dumb handset on a wire offers no such door. To listen to a fixed line you need physical access to the cable or the carrier's cooperation, and both leave traces and cost effort for each target. That breaks the economics of mass surveillance, which depends on reaching thousands of devices silently and at once.
What does a copper line protect you from?
Tap each case.
Explanatory diagram, built from the documentation cited at the foot of this piece.
What it does not protect
The landline stops remote, silent, large-scale surveillance. It does nothing against a court order or a physical tap.
It also does not protect call records, which live with the carrier. The Chinese state group known as Salt Typhoon broke into at least nine US carriers, including AT&T and Verizon, and reached the lawful intercept systems that exist precisely to comply with court orders. It took call records and targeted the phones of senior political figures, including the 2024 presidential campaigns. The FBI says the group attacked organisations in more than 80 countries.
There is another catch. Almost all the new children's phones sold as landlines run over Wi-Fi or the internet.
They look like a landline and technically they are small computers. They share the risks of any connected device and their privacy depends on the company behind them.
The copper itself is disappearing. Verizon has retired it from dozens of wire centres in New York, from Flushing and JFK Airport to Staten Island, and in August 2026 the FCC approved further retirements across eight states.
When copper goes, the line that replaces it runs on fibre and software switches, needs a battery for a blackout, and loses almost everything that made it safe.
Here the wire is ours
I am a member of Comteco and I declare it before going on, because what follows touches me the way it touches any other member in this city.
In New York the wire belongs to Verizon, and Verizon is pulling it out. In Cochabamba the wire belongs to a telecommunications cooperative owned by its members, more than 120,000 people. That is an enormous difference and we almost never name it.
A cooperative changes who decides. The company does not answer to a shareholder in another country or to a foreign app, it answers to an assembly of neighbours who own the service they use.
According to the cooperative's own information, Comteco has around 800 kilometres of network and two exits to the Pacific, through Desaguadero and through Tambo Quemado. That is not a technical detail for a city with no sea: it is the route our conversations leave and enter by.
The legitimacy that is missing
Owning something works when there is someone who answers in the owners' name. At Comteco that has been broken for years.
In November 2023 the Constitutional Court annulled the 2021 electoral process, and since then the legitimacy of the boards has been in permanent dispute. On August 27, 2025 the violence began. Members spent months keeping vigil at the El Prado building, with almost no press coverage. On March 25, 2026 there was another violent day at those same premises, between members keeping vigil and administrative staff trying to get in.
On April 7, 2026, after more than 500 days of crisis, the cooperative asked the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to call full elections to renew the Administration and Oversight boards.
The president of the Administration board, Gamal Serhan, said he was seeking to restore legitimacy through the members' vote, and admitted that the conflict had been marked by acts of violence, irregular occupations and disruptions to services.
As this piece closes, we members are still waiting for elections to be called.
Until that happens, more than 120,000 owners have nobody to ask anything, and every week that passes the argument about who is in charge covers up the argument about what is being done with the network.
Why it matters to this city
The landline debate is a debate about control. A children's phone limits what comes into a house. A copper line limits who can listen. Both give a household power over its own channel.
That power depends on who owns the infrastructure. In New York the families going back to the wall phone want technology that does less, reports less and answers to them. In Cochabamba we already have that written down: the network belongs to the members.
With legitimate boards, an assembly of members can decide things no foreign company is going to decide for us.
What data the cooperative keeps about its own members and for how long. What is happening with the two Pacific exits and whether they still work. Whether the network is modernised with its own fibre or leased from outside. What is done with the surplus. All of that is decided in an assembly, and an assembly needs elected boards.
Bolivia has no personal data protection law, so no company is required to tell you what it keeps about you. A cooperative is the only place where that can be demanded without waiting for parliament, because the owner is you.
Without elections, we are owners on paper. With elections, Cochabamba can do with its network what New York can no longer do with its own, because there a company is pulling out the wire and here we can decide it in a vote.
Sources
- NumberBarn, The Landline Decline report, 2026: the share of adults living in households with a landline by state, with New York at 39.1%, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont; and 40.7% among people aged 65 and over.
- US Federal Communications Commission: the fall in retail switched-access lines from 27.2 million in June 2022 to 15 million in June 2025. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 78.7% of American adults in wireless-only households by late 2024.
- Coverage by Motherly, Fast Company and MacMyths of children's phones such as Tin Can and Pinwheel Home, which call only approved contacts and run over Wi-Fi or the internet.
- Nextgov and international coverage of Salt Typhoon: intrusion into at least nine US carriers, access to lawful intercept systems, the taking of call records, the targeting of senior political figures and the 2024 presidential campaigns, and organisations affected in more than 80 countries according to the FBI.
- Channel Futures and Broadband Breakfast, 2026: Verizon's copper retirements at New York wire centres, including Flushing, JFK Airport and Staten Island, and the FCC's approval in August 2026 of further retirements across eight states.
- Los Tiempos, April 7, 2026, reporting by Evelyn Rojas: Comteco's request to the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to call full elections after more than 500 days of crisis, and statements by the president of the Administration board, Gamal Serhan, on acts of violence, irregular occupations and disruptions to services.
- Los Tiempos, coverage of the Comteco crisis: the violent day of March 25, 2026 at the El Prado premises between members keeping vigil and administrative staff; accusations, internal mobilisations and corruption complaints reported in November 2025; members' claims over undistributed surplus in September 2025; and the members' march of February 2025.
- sala.red's own audiovisual record of the events of August 27, 2025 and of the members' vigils at the El Prado building.
The author is a member of the Cochabamba Telecommunications Cooperative and declares it in the body of the piece. The membership figure and the data on Comteco's network, including the 800 kilometres and the two Pacific exits through Desaguadero and Tambo Quemado, come from the cooperative's public communications and from press coverage, and have not been independently verified by sala.red; whether they remain current is pending confirmation. The annulment of the 2021 electoral process by the Constitutional Court in November 2023 is recorded according to published coverage. This piece attributes criminal responsibility to no person mentioned and the presumption of innocence applies. The comparisons with the New York case are context and do not imply equivalence between the two markets.
