@Hoss I remember when phone lines went down somewhere around me and it turns out that the old copper was taken down so it could be recycled. Unfortunately it was just replaced with more copper instead of a more abundant resource.

I've thought about why telephone companies don't upgrade the infrastructure. They will likely complain about cost but I don't buy it. They expect people to believe that miles and miles of copper cable isn't a hidden plan B or even a reason to swap to better technology. They could just use all that copper to fund the upgrades. Granted, they would need to do it gradually as to not raise suspicion and make prices plummet.