California Fires Back at AT&T’s Bid to Get Feds to Let It Stop Providing Landline Service
Source: The Mercury News |By Ethan Baron
The utility’s lengthy battle to end its landline business has raised alarms that during earthquakes, fires, floods and storms, landline customers could be cut off from help, because cell phone infrastructure and internet service can be damaged or disrupted. The company has pledged to state regulators that it would only shut down a customer’s landline service when other options exist. But consumer advocates say landlines are key in disasters or in areas with poor cellular reception, and many people who would lose that service would lack reliable alternatives even if AT&T determined they had them.
It backed a failed 2016 bill in the California Legislature that would have allowed the withdrawal. When the utility applied to the California Public Utilities Commission in 2023 to end landline service, thousands of people flooded the commission’s website with comments in opposition. At the time, consumer group The Utility Reform Network estimated hundreds of thousands of households in the Bay Area and millions around California would lose landline service if the commission approved AT&T’s proposal.
