Interesting. I couldn't find the exact law to link to, but did turn up this WaPo article talking about 4 states starting to relax the requirement.

> The universal landline requirement has been repealed in Florida, North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. There, new homeowners have no guarantee that they could order phone service at affordable rates, consumer advocates say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/landline-rul...

That seems more like a plan [1] to ensure that people can get an affordable line if they want it. I can't find any laws saying that all homes require a phone line. It also appears that recent discussions in the government were about changing money allocation from pots lines to internet specifically. I suppose we would need a land developer here to chime in.

[1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/universal-service

I've dug everywhere and can't turn up anything definitive.

The language, however, of "guaranteed access to an affordable line" does seem to imply a TELCO will have to run a line to your property at your request? Without fees (since that wouldn't be affordable)?

Perhaps, in practice, this resulted in all new construction having lines run since that was cheaper than doing it ad-hoc upon demand.

> I suppose we would need a land developer here to chime in.

Yes, hopefully someone out there knows more! Honestly curious now, since I had always assumed this was how it was.

There was a loophole in the various provisions created to ensure rural connectivity that allowed for companies to advantage of the fact that independent and competitive local exchange carriers were able to bill higher per minute fees than average. This led to a boom in free conference and long distance calling companies that would be spun up to terminate at one of these destinations, splitting the fee with the telco.