Customers Worry Their Landlines are Languishing as AT&T Escalates Bid to Drop Mandatory Service in California
Source: The Press Democrat |By Marisa Endicott
AT&T has redoubled efforts to end its obligation to provide basic phone service, and especially landlines, across large swaths of California. After failed regulatory bids and a legislative workaround last year, the telecom giant has now taken its yearslong fight to the federal level and the courts. AT&T has insisted the state’s regulatory system, which requires the utility to provide reliable voice connection to anyone in its service areas, is outdated. And, the increasing resources needed to maintain landline infrastructure used by a shrinking number of Californians, the utility contends, divert from investments in better, modern alternatives.
“AT&T has taken that and run with it,” said Regina Costa, telecommunications policy director for the Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group. “It’s a lot of places,” Costa said, listing off Calistoga in Napa County and Middletown, Lakeport and Kelseyville in Lake County as examples. “All of these places have had wildfires, and the argument is from AT&T, ‘Well, they have alternative services,’ but the flip side of this is, are they reliable?”
