There was a significant amount of flattening in the initial digital rollout, between SLC-96 and 5ESS remotes (GTD5 and DMS all have similar constructs) they did eliminate some very very small suburban offices. But there was not really another round of office consolidations after the last big round of mergers - with the replacement of the legacy TDM hardware with newer soft switches however this is happening.<p>This article however touches on an issue unique to Verizon, which is they&#x27;re letting their copper plant rot in the field, as a way to force customers off of it (the railroads did much the same thing with passenger service in the early 50&#x27;s) when Frontier has bought a former GTE&#x2F;Verizon area, they usually have to hire a bunch more in the way of field techs, and spend millions on OSP upgrades and repairs - to the point that additional FiOS expansion in the immediate future is unfeasible due to cost.<p>The future is going to have a mix of wireline and wireless - and some of it will still be copper, I still believe the best architecture for the future is FTTN (fiber to the node) with a node every block (or 3-400 yards) allowing for sub 1000 ft loops. I still think this offers the best price&#x2F;performance ratio.