AT&T is sending out letters warning they want to kill virtually all landlines (and perhaps related data circuits where fiber is unavailable) across essentially their entire coverage area throughout California. This would have devastating effects. Related CPUC meetings will be taking place through March.
Landlines provide crucial services for individuals, businesses, and other organizations in a wide variety of situations -- not just emergencies when cellular and Internet service tends to rapidly fail, but also for vast numbers of people in areas with poor, unreliable, or in many cases (even in large sections of major cities!) NO cell service, NO fiber, etc.
Landlines often provide the only available communication in a wide variety of security and safety situations, from elevators to interior spaces of all sorts where cell service simply doesn't work.
Many disabled and other persons have crucial equipment that depends on landlines. Often they are not tech-savvy and do not have friends or relatives to help them through forced technology changes.
AT&T has been shirking its public safety responsibilities for years, while still leveraging their effective monopoly on services in so many areas.
Their new effort must be stopped. I'll have much more to say about this as the situation progresses.
And keep in mind, AT&T -- with its effective monopoly over its service areas -- only installs fiber in lucrative neighborhoods. Here in L.A. for example, much of the city has no fiber. Even in areas that have some fiber, you may find it on one side of the street and not on the other. AT&T just refuses to install it where they figure they can't make the big bucks. So the only voice and data services are via copper, and very little VoIP in those areas, mostly just conventional landlines. And many areas have no cable, no fiber, and no wireless service. That's here in Los Angeles! Imagine the rural areas! AT&T doesn't want to upgrade services, they just want to abandon customers most in need. AT&T has become one of the worst "telecom" companies on the planet, ever since divestiture. They're an utter disgrace.
From what i understand, europe built the fiber network collectively and leases space on it to the providers.
At the time i was discussing it, 50euro bought 10x the bandwidth for which i paid $80, plus in europe it came with many channels of cable teevee and a landline that could call anywhere in the world for free. I had the stripped down minimal service in order to have any connectivity at all.
@Uair Yes, but that model is impossible in the U.S. In fact, the dominant carriers spend a fortune lobbying Congress to make sure it couldn't happen here.
I can definitely say that's not the case. I worked on this program. I worked at AT&T Bell Labs before it, while it was being enacted, came back and consulted later, and advised munis and state admins on how to work this.
You sound like you know what you're talking about - the telcos in the USA are totally fucked. But read this thoroughly: state of Wisconsin has done a huge upgrade to the fiber and telco with this program:
@tuban_muzuru@Uair I think you're proving my point. In THEORY there's a national program. But it's a patchwork farce in terms of actually being national. You can argue Wisconsin has had success with it, but I would assert California most assuredly has not and AT&T is dragging us down into the toilet. To compare a "national" program of this sort with a truly national program in other countries where the national government is in control and forces it forward everywhere in the country, I would say with due respect is not a useful comparison.
I hate to ber That Guy, but there's an internal bank attached to this, which funds billions of dolllars to these situations where the cost of wiring up some little town exceeds the revenue they'll get for it.
Everyone thinks California is this bastion of Blueness. The closer anyone gets to Sacramento, you'll find out how shortsighted those fucking almond growers and chicken farmers are.
@lauren@tuban_muzuru@Uair On a DSL copper line from overhead wires. Google Fiber is being rolled out locally where the $ is. I don’t expect to see it. Copper run starts on fiber a few blocks away.
@tuban_muzuru@stevewfolds@Uair It pains me to say this, but I would trust Google to be a long term Internet provider as far as I could throw B43 at MTV.
@lauren@tuban_muzuru@stevewfolds@Uair
They've been hosting Usenet groups, but that's going away next month. (The groups will become read-only. Kills the ones that were still active.)
@PJ_Evans@tuban_muzuru@stevewfolds@Uair They've been breaking over there for a long time anyway. A real mess. Nobody at G wants to support their legacy stuff. It's not sexy. It's not good for the career ladder. Etc.
@tuban_muzuru@lauren@Uair 2 in fam closer to SLC have it, no complaints. Rural LTE at friends is 2x my suburban DSL speed & $0. (40 miles to nearest grocery store)
@stevewfolds@tuban_muzuru@Uair The point isn't people who are lucky enough to have good service. The point is people who are going to be screwed by AT&T and don't have practical alternatives for good (or ANY) service. Really, this isn't rocket science.
@lauren We had problem with AT&T here - their cable vault under a sidewalk near the front of our house collapsed leaving an open hole in the sidewalk. The box was unmarked - no sign of ownership (beyond 50-pair cables, a sure sign of a telco.) I called the city and they red tagged it - and required me - not AT&T - to remediate the danger.
So I'm out $4000+ plus building permit fees to repair AT&T's broken cable vault.
I only confirmed AT&T ownership when about a year later there was an AT&T truck and repair guy working in the vault.
The city says that the utilities have so much more legal resources than the city that they walk over the city with impunity.
@lauren I live in one of those areas and there are a lot of dead zones with no cell signal, not to mention a lot of retired people who only have landlines!
Even the clinic only has landlines!
By the way, the letter AT&T is sending out is extremely deceptive. Gee, what a surprise. It speaks in the technobabble of their no longer wanting to be the "carrier of last resort". How utterly devastating that will be to so many people is something AT&T obviously doesn't want to be widely understood.
I'm still trying to pull this stuff together, and it may take a couple of weeks or so. There is a map AT&T posted which shows where they want out immediately. As far as I can tell it's their entire coverage area in California, except for some VERY tiny areas where instead they want permission to pull out quickly in the future rather than immediately. There is also a little note mentioning that "multiple parties oppose this proposal." Uh, yeah.
The cynic in me, who moved from the least populated state to the second least, thinks that they want to ditch all the rural customers.
Which would probably include the largest town I’ve lived in since the late 90’s of ~75k people… if it weren’t for it being on the interstate and having a college.
***** Full text of California PUC announcement of AT&T proposal to abandon California subscribers *****
As I discussed a couple of days ago. This electronic version of the physical letters that AT&T has been sending out are now starting to hit emails associated with AT&T accounts. -L
A Message from the California Public Utilities Commission
Notice of Public Hearings
Application 23-03-002 and Application 23-03-003
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) would like to hear from you. You are invited to participate in a public forum, also called a Public Participation Hearing (PPH), about the following applications:
• Application 23-03-002: regarding the application of AT&T California to Withdraw its Eligible Telecommunications Carrier Designation
• Application 23-03-003: regarding the application of AT&T California for Relief from its Carrier of Last Resort Obligation
During the hearing, you can make comments, raise concerns, and speak to a CPUC Administrative Law Judge.
Where and when will these Public Participation Hearings be held?
In-Person Public Participation Hearing, February 6, 2024, at 2:00 p.m.
Clovis City Council Chambers
1033 5th St., Clovis, CA 93612
In-Person Public Participation Hearing, February 6, 2024, at 6:00 p.m.
Clovis City Council Chambers
1033 5th St., Clovis, CA 93612
In-Person Public Participation Hearing, February 22, 2024, at 2:00 p.m.
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
501 Low Gap Road, Room 1070, Ukiah, CA 95482
In-Person Public Participation Hearing, February 22, 2024, at 6:00 p.m.
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
501 Low Gap Road, Room 1070, Ukiah, CA 95482
In-Person Public Participation Hearing, March 14, 2024, at 2:00 p.m.
Indio City Hall Council Chambers
100 Civic Center Mall, Indio, CA 92201
In-Person Public Participation Hearing, March 14, 2024, at 6:00 p.m.
Indio City Hall Council Chambers
100 Civic Center Mall, Indio, CA 92201
Why am I receiving this notice?
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) wants to hear from you and has asked AT&T to provide this notice. In-person and virtual public forums have been scheduled to hear your comments, concerns and opinions regarding the application of AT&T California to withdraw its Eligible Telecommunications Carrier designation, and the application of AT&T California for relief from its Carrier of Last Resort Obligations. Your participation by providing comments can help inform the CPUC’s decision. You can either attend any of the in-person forums or, for the remote forums, watch a livestream of the hearings or participate via telephone. You can also submit comments by mail or post them on the CPUC’s public comment portal.
How does this process work?
This application is assigned to a CPUC Administrative Law Judge and a Commissioner, who will consider proposals and evidence presented during formal processes, and then issue a proposed decision. Any CPUC Commissioner may sponsor an alternate decision with a different outcome. The proposed decision, and any alternate decisions, will be discussed and voted upon by the CPUC Commissioners at a public CPUC Voting Meeting.
Parties involved in the rulemaking include the Public Advocates Office. To find out more about the Public Advocates Office, you may contact them at: 1.415.703.1584, email PublicAdvocatesOffice@cpuc.ca.gov or visit PublicAdvocates.cpuc.ca.gov.
Make a written public comment:
Please visit apps.cpuc.ca.gov/c/A2303002 to submit a public comment about AT&T California’s application to withdraw its Eligible Telecommunications Carrier designation.
Please visit apps.cpuc.ca.gov/c/A2303003 to submit a public comment about AT&T California’s application for relief from its Carrier of Last Resort Obligations.
Contact the CPUC:
You may also mail written comments to the CPUC’s Public Advisor’s address below. For more information on participating in the public hearing, submitting comments, to request special assistance, or to request a non-English or Spanish language interpreter, please contact the CPUC’s Public Advisor’s Office at least five days prior to the hearings.
CPUC Public Advisor’s Office
505 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102
Phone: 1.866.849.8390 (toll-free) or 1.415.703.2074
Email: Public.Advisor@cpuc.ca.gov
Please reference Application 22-03-002 or Application 22-03-003 in any communications you have with the CPUC regarding this matter.
@volkris AT&T isn't just some random corporation. AT&T has had effective monopoly status forever, got rate increases based on promises never delivered (like fiber deployments), and used that to lock out serious competition for decades. They've lied consistently in many realms while raking in obscene profits and now want to abandon the communities they've made most dependent. Yes, the problem IS AT&T. 100%. Don't drink their propaganda Kool-Aid. I've been dealing with them forever. I know those guys all too well.
@lauren I think that you are missing that all of what you are referring to is rooted in the people that we voted to empower to government.
It’s not about AT&T.
They are merely complying with the situation that we all voted for, the regulations that were promulgated based on our votes.
Lied? No I don’t think so. I have watched over and over again when the people that we voted into power, elected and re-elected, set up the incentives for them to do exactly what they did.
And let me emphasize re-elected. We keep re-electing the people who set the stage for this, so apparently we are happy with it.
I think we should stop re-electing these people, but I’m in the minority here, and I really think we should emphasize that we should stop re-electing the officials who put us into situations that we don’t like.
@volkris The fact that elected officials permitted corporations like AT&T to lie over so many years does not make those lies any less lies. They were not forced to lie, they chose to lie.
@volkris As a practical matter, lobbying by Big Telecom has distorted the process dramatically, affecting BOTH parties. But also as a practical matter, the way people vote is not typically based on issues such as we are discussing, but on broader economic ones, for example. It also doesn't help that these matters are extremely technical, unlike the simple slogans used by candidates and elected officials.
@lauren but none of that changes that we elect and re-elect these same people, showing that we approve of the way they have been operating in office.
Like, yeah we can make all the excuses that we want for what they are doing but at the end of the day, we are re-electing these people.
I think we should not be re-electing these people. I think that we should hold them accountable for what they have done and not get distracted by these side stories, but that’s just me.
For example, if you want to say that some politician is taking bribes but we re-elect that politician, the problem there isn’t the bribe the problem is that we reelected the person taking the bribes.
We really need to stop re-electing the same politicians doing bad things, and I think we really need to focus on that and not let them pass the buck.
@volkris A fundamental problem, I personally believe, is that the political sphere is no longer (to the extent it ever was) attractive to the kind of people we as a society presumably would prefer to be in government. If you want to consider that to be something of a condemnation of politics in general I won't argue the point.
Would this be the same California PUC that, once residential rooftop solar was legally mandated on new construction, and once a number of corporations and organizations had implemented it, as of this year reduced the power buyback rates so low new systems cannot pay for themselves before they wear out?
Btw, the PUC is entirely put in place by Gov Gavin Newsom and this is a massive disappointment.
@lauren 1934 Communications Act, 1996 Telecommunications Act were the gold standard that ensured equal access to modern communication systems to all parts of the nation. Equal telecommunication access allows equal health, economic, educational, public and emergency services, access to all Americans with the cost to corporation for the more expensive maintenance and expansion included in fees spread to all users in one of those mandated fees that appear in every phone/cell bill. (When rural MAGA complain about government taxes, remind them that they are the beneficiaries of this universal tax every time they use a cell or landline.) There was a rule change lobbied by telecom to change "full coverage" to allow "95% coverage" as full coverage, and expand the coverage area to create a larger denominator to increase the 5% exclusion/unserved raw numbers as the numerator.
In the East and Southeast US, we have seen the abandonment of landlines and the refusal to maintain the remaining copper wiring, threatening our health services, educational access, and economic viability. Landlines, ironically, are a consistent profit center if you don't maintain them: the plan is to sell them off to small vendors to wring out remaining profit then abandon.
They're following Frontier's lead, which is scary. Perhaps their greatest motivation is that fiber phone lines do not have nearly the federal regulation that POTS copper phone lines have for measures like reliability, thus being much cheaper and more profitable.
Where I live, if the power goes out, so do the cell towers and Frontier fiber phones. That's a horrible situation for a community to be in during a disaster or emergency.
@lauren Also, FYI, we installed a landline campus "emergency phone" because our VoIP is less reliable in circumstances where you might actually want/need an "emergency phone"!
@spbollin@lauren probably worth looking at elevators and regulations - is voip allowed for elevator emergency lines? Do any voip carriers allow that kind of emergency use (including AT&T)? Heck, do data carriers have exclusions that bar use for voip or other emergency communications?
@fencepost@spbollin As I've been discussing, there are a vast array of emergency, security, medical, and other devices dependent on landlines. Even finding them all would be a massive task. Figuring out who was responsible for them another massive task. For many people without friends and family to help them, a disaster.
@lauren copper-based PSTN is also the only centrally powered comms solution. Some people only realise the implication of this once their power goes out for the first time. Openreach in the UK are well under way with their plan of ceasing copper by 2025.. It is a huge task for communications retailers to get people off copper in an organised fashion on a short time line, and it is already shambolic. It is only a matter of time before it kills someone here.
@interpipes@lauren It's unfortunately not always entirely true anymore, if it ever entirely was, in that it appears to be dependent on the nearest exchange/switch station having power.
People here on landlines lost their ability to call nearly instantly on a few occasions recently, when wider blackouts occurred.
The mobile towers took a few hours to go out, although they eventually did too.
This is incidentally what convinced me of the necessity of at minimum acquiring CB radios and ideally getting my HAM license so I can use frequencies relevant to directly contacting authorities for emergency support. Because the infrastructure has simply been left to rot, so it can't be relied on.
@lispi314@interpipes Most traditional landline central offices have major backup power facilities both banks of large batteries and often diesel generators as well. They're really quite impressive.
@lauren@lispi314 plus quite often the exchange will be far enough from you that if you have a more localised power failure there might still be mains power in the exchange anyway.
@interpipes@lispi314 And those batteries, large wet cell lead acid batteries. Rows of them tied together with massive copper bus bars. Very impressive.
@interpipes@lauren I finally ported my wireline service at home to VoIP because it wasn't reliable. Just a couple blocks from the nearest "central office", but Verizon was out of good working copper pairs on my street. New England weather (sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes freezing, sometimes hot—sometimes cycling through several of those in a short time) is hard on such infrastructure, and without spending on maintenance, it quits working.
@kentborg@interpipes The bit about "not being able to find good pairs" is largely bogus. I've chatted with phone techs locally about this, and they admitted that there are plenty of spare pairs since so many people dropped landline service. No problem finding spares. But management apparently doesn't want them to EVER tell that to customers. The real crunch was when so many people had a second line for dial-up modems. As those vanished, lots of pairs freed up immediately back then, too.
@kentborg@interpipes The point is, since AT&T has lied so much about fiber deployments and then not done them, in so many areas they don't have fiber and don't want to put it in. They just want to throw those subscribers to the wolves. This isn't a matter of people holding onto copper when fiber is available to them!
@kentborg@interpipes So in the areas where AT&T refuses to put in fiber (even when they've done so on the other side of the street!) all there is -- is copper. Data and VoIP then can only be delivered via U-verse, which runs on COPPER. So if they kill the copper, there's NOTHING.
@lauren landlines also carry electricity and can be used as emergency low power energy sources. They were useful in the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, check old issues of Whole Earth Review for details
@lauren Do you have any citations or news articles? We receive AT&T landline service in Sunnyvale, CA and have received no such warning letter.
The only news I'm able to find on this topic is from back in 2016, when an Assembly bill that would have allowed AT&T to drop landlines failed to pass; and from a crackpot web site that thinks smartmeters cause health problems.
@lauren OK, we just received the letter in today's mail, branded as AT&T but opening with "A Message from the California Public Utilities Commission". It's extremely obfuscated and refers only to "application of AT&T California for Relief From its Carrier of Last Resort Obligation". The term "landline phone" doesn't appear even once in this letter. It will not be clear to normal people that they're about to lose their wireline phone service. We definitely need more media coverage of this.
@kkeller@bhahne Of course. I believe AT&T had hoped to slip this by the PUC, with only a few Native American groups in rural areas opposing because hardly anyone else knew about it or understood what was being proposed.
@lauren The closet in-person hearings are 162 miles and a 3-hour drive to the north, in Ukiah CA. All three of the in-person hearing locations are out in the middle of nowhere at locations that make it essentially impossible for people in large metropolitan areas to attend.
This process gives the appearance of being rigged to be able to claim "no material support for keeping landlines". That would be consistent with the CPUC's ongoing behavior as a protector of corporate profits.
@bhahne The virtual meeting in mid-March is crucial since everybody can "attend". Get the word out. Also, comments and other filings can be made at any time along the way.
Cuz in #Germany when #DTAG got allowed to do #Vectoring by @BNetzA they started instantly cancelling their #landline customers who didn't want to upgrafe to shitty #VDSL because they only wanted telephony.
Like a lots of seniors and folks who only needed a landline to call services and friends and family.
I really hope that shit didn't cause deaths because someone's line got shut off and they couldn't call an ambulance...
And now try to explain an 85yr old that it's not their fault they got booted of their 50+ year running contract where they paid for a year in advance of service.
Not to mention:
try to help them get their number ported within few days to a different provider like an MVNO and
setup some FWT/LTE Router to adapt their landline phone so it can use GSM metwork or a GSM Deskphone for them...
@kkarhan@bhahne@BNetzA Anyone who doesn't have friends or family to help with such transitions, even assuming the alternatives exist and the customer even knew their landline was about to go dead, is screwed. Utterly and totally screwed. Yeah, and maybe dead themselves when they want to call 911 and their phone is silent as the grave.
Yes, I have an 89-year-old uncle who lives alone and doesn't really know how to use his mobile flip-phone. He uses landline for all inbound and outbound calls. And not surprisingly for his age, he has to manage a lot of doctor's appointments by phone.
@lauren@rberger don’t do it. We swapped over to data lines for phones as part of our national broadband network and it’s rubbish. Every time you lose power you lose Phone.
@kcarruthers@lauren I don’t think AT&T is giving us a choice. Though I would be willing to trade real Fiber to the Home (with battery backup) for the lousy DSL that barely works now.
@rberger@lauren yes we’ve got the worst of all the options with FTTN aka fibre to the node with rubbish copper for the last kilometre. It’s bad. It’s raining today so it won’t work. I have a technician at my place every other week. Today he’s coming again. 🫠
@kcarruthers@rberger This is how AT&T U-verse works, which is often the only Internet option in AT&T areas that don't have fiber. Often even U-verse is not available.
@lauren@kcarruthers Yeah U-verse is not available where I live. Neither is cable. I have to use a small WISP to get any kind of Internet. I use the lousy AT&T DSL as backup. Yet I can see Apple HQ and all of Silicon Valley from my window.
@rberger@lauren@kcarruthers Reads like you're up in the hills. I'm down in the valley and it's not much better, UNLESS you live on a street that AT&T (or Sonic, or someone) have green-lined with fiber.. "U-verse" may be available from the fiber touts but is FTTN and my DSL performance has degraded because AT&T are letting their copper plant degrade, so why would I want "U-verse"? Probably going to end up holding my nose and doing something Comcastic.
@kcarruthers@lauren@rberger
We got a new phone system at work, as part of renovating the building, and it was very weird watching the phone boot. (Also we were told to never pull the cable out.)
@kcarruthers@lauren@rberger It gets even more fun - here in Santa Cruz we can't get a decent cellular signal, even though the tower is only a quarter of a mile away. So Verizon gave us a "femptocell" to put into the house to act as our own home cell tower - but it backhauls via our home wi-fi and Comcast cable. Comcast modems don't have the required battery backup (but we have our own UPS). So when power goes down we lose not only our "landline" (carried by Comcast), we also lose our cell phone and other home systems.
At our office we maintained a copper land line - until AT&T made that no longer available - because the building code required one for our fire and alarm systems. As far as I know that building code requirement is still in force but compliance is not possible.
@c_merriweather Like I said, I haven't done a rigorous comparison, but this looks like essentially all their service areas. The other areas appear to be non-AT&T.
@lauren Are they replacing these [I assume] copper lines with fibre? They're sort of doing that here, not so much replacing but running out of copper capacity due to more housing, new suburbs.
@alanthecampbell No. As far as I can tell they just want out. Turn off the copper and leave. They no longer want to be the "carrier of last resort". Most of the state has no fiber. Even here in L.A., they only put fiber in "lucrative" areas. Many areas of the city have no fiber, no wireless service, no cable, nothing. AT&T just has turned into the scammiest telecom company on the planet.
@lauren Ah that sucks, seriously. Probably helps that we have smaller populations to deal with but fibre is very common here now due to a national initiative a few years ago now.
@alanthecampbell There are no "national initiatives" that are meaningful in technology in the U.S. It's all a farce. Every man for himself, with the country divided up into fiefdoms by the telecom companies who treat customers like garbage.
@lauren@alanthecampbell breaking up AT&T was always a mistake. They should instead have kept it as a monopoly and nationalized it. So much wasted infra in the RBOCs and they all just merged together again anyway. Run it as a non-profit public utility service, like the postal service (back before dolt45 gutted that).
@lauren@alanthecampbell
In norway our "carrier of last resort" has been allowed to end copper on the condition that all subscribers have acceptable cellular and fiber coverage. Whoever "wins the tender" to be "carrier of last resort" should obviously face similar conditions, but keeping copper indefinitely is not the way to go I think.
@hakona@alanthecampbell The U.S. regulatory environment is nothing like that in any other country. It's utter garbage here when it comes to telecom services. Unless you know the details, you can't even imagine.
@lauren@alanthecampbell It's worth noting here that most (all?) medical alert systems & assistive technologies are installed and run by municipalities, so they are in the loop with the telco as the land-lines are phased out.
@frainfostudent@alanthecampbell AFAIK Frontier would love to get out of the Verizon landline services they took over here in L.A. (Keep in mind L.A. is a patchwork of AT&T and Frontier - formerly Verizon - GTE - General Telephone - service areas).
I wonder how many alarms, security, access, and emergency systems rely on a landline even just for fallback, and were installed so long ago, people won't realise until it fails when the line is decommissioned. .
@TonyJWells@lauren Does anyone know what the typical lifetime of an alarm system is? Recent alarms default to cellular uplink these days, because it's cheaper than trying to physically run yet another wire, PLUS (as cleverly discovered by me at my friend's house), add a wired sensor to the telco DMARC to sense when someone opens it to tamper with the alarm signal (I was checking if he got his T1 installed) Yes, cell not exactly a replacement, just trying to validate this specific argument.
@trouble@TonyJWells Many businesses are in locations with ZERO reliable cell service (or none at all), either for the entire building or individual offices deep within. Extremely common. It's wired or nothing for them.
@lauren That's a huge amount of real estate, copper (and lead!), diesel fuel, and labor they want to dump. It's not surprising even if it's a bad idea put forth by a loathsome corporation.
@lauren
From what I've seen they're also doing this for maybe anticompetitive reasons. "We already ran fiber to your house and gave you a router voip device, why not get Internet and TV streaming from us as well? No additional equipment needed."
Not that their fiber service is bad, it's an infinitely better symmetric connection than cable modems, and similarly better than DSL or LTE or satellite. But... it further entrenches their offering. (See also: cable modem infrastructure owners are frelled anywhere fiber has been installed!)
I don't know if they provide the necessary backup batteries for free to keep service up in a power outage. Do the laws get interpreted as requiring that?
@lauren
Realistically I think the best way out of this is shoring up wireless network deployments to fill in the real gaps rather than paper over them and pretend coverage exists where in reality it is never usable within buildings. (Canyons and forests and occluded properties are hard)
Obviously nobody wants to pay to maintain dwindling use analog line POTS infrastructure.
I have no idea what that'd cost or who'd foot the bills.
@gpshead Many of these areas have poor to NO wireless coverage, ATT copper is all they have available. ATT does not want to "shore up" anything, they simply want to abandon their role as carrier of last resort, and are telling everyone affected to go screw themselves.
@gpshead Please read the rest of the thread. It is very long. They don't want to convert, they just want OUT as the carrier of last resort, and to turn off all copper, which includes vast numbers of people because in most areas AT&T has not provided fiber, and even in major cities it is not widespread and often, for example, on one side of the street but impossible to get on the other side, both served by AT&T. Everyone without fiber has to get all services by copper, and they want to turn off the copper and no longer serve most of their wireline service areas across the state. Again, this is a very long thread and it would be useful to go through it before commenting further.
@lauren
It didn't load when I saw the post so I couldn'tbeven know there was more than a few posts. Blame the clouds.
Regardless of reasoning I understand why any copper pair govt granted local monopoly telco like AT&T would want to do this. If the service laws require maintaining something impossible to maintain at prices the laws require it be offered at (assuming they do, I have no idea, but CARE service requirements for low income exist and are used...). It's a race to the bottom. Doesn't matter who.
This would also be true if it were government owned and run.
Nobody wants to be left holding the bag. I expect popcorn and lawsuits.
@lauren
There are more and more instances where the government needs to take over some of this infrastructure. We can't depend on corporations because their only motive is profit.
@lauren providers in the UK have been doing this for a while. Where FTTP isn't available the existing DSL still continues.
Providers install a router with a phone port. Customer plugs into that.
Where the customer doesn't have a data service they are installing a low rate data service for the voice (VoIP or "Digital Voice" if locked down to their own equipment) to work over.
It's really not a disaster.
@lauren The only legitimate problem is long term support during prolonged power cuts.
In the UK the provider is obliged to provide UPS or similar systems to the customer to keep vulnerable people's phone service working for a few hours during such an event. However beyond that would be an issue, a new problem traditional phone lines didn't have. 2/2
@CenturyAvocado Nothing like that in the U.S. AT&T just wants to end service where there is copper only. And most of their customers don't have fiber available. They don't want to convert, they want to get out. Get it?
@lauren see my other comment. Can you post the letter showing this? I'm not saying it are not correct but having the source information helps, especially when I have several family members in CA.
@CenturyAvocado Now that the letters are going out there should be a lot more information available soon since a lot of people will be digging into it now.
@lauren "AT&T California is also required to provide notice of its application to all customers, local governments, and tribal communities that could be affected, as well as to other eligible companies that may wish to replace AT&T as the COLR for the areas AT&T wishes to withdraw."
It looks like the provision/requirement just changes to another company?
@lauren what's the alternative? You can't force a private company to continue especially if it forces them out of business due to the upkeep cost. The best you could hope for, if your worst case scenario occurs, is for the state to take on the existing network from att and run the provision themselves?
@CenturyAvocado These are not just any companies. They are companies that were granted quasi-monopoly status that they used to keep out competitors. They are in many cases the only available telecom provider in areas prone to fires, earthquakes, and worse. Now they just want to take the money and leave, public safety be damned. And apologists don't help the situation. Not one bit.
@CenturyAvocado Please read the entire threads before commenting. OK? If you did, you'd learn that AT&T doesn't want to convert the copper, they want to just terminate it and GET OUT. They want to be relieved of being the "carrier of last resort." They don't want to do conversions, they don't want to do VoIP in these cases AFAIK. They just want to turn off the copper say, go to hell to the subs even if they don't actually have viable alternatives, and leave. THIS NOTHING LIKE IN THE UK. Please read before commenting so that I don't have to keep repeating myself to people who just assume their country's experience is the same as in the U.S. It ain't.
@CenturyAvocado It's all in the CPUC documents online. It's a lot of stuff and will take time to figure out. Most telling is the massive map which shows where they want to eliminate service, which is essentially their entire service area in California. It was posted earlier in these threads today. The key is the name of the filings: Their goal is to no longer be the "carrier of last resort". That's the whole idea for them. Getting out.
FCC order 19-72 ended regulations and began permitting telecom services to cease their copper landlines. Since its effect in August 2022, most telecom providers have switched to VoIP-based landlines.
@HopelessDemigod AT&T isn't trying to switch to VoIP. They just want to abandon California subs entirely. They want to be removed as the "carrier of last resort." Gone. Poof. Even subs with NO practical alternatives, even for emergency calls. Get it?
@HopelessDemigod Ya' see, AT&T wants to abandon their copper. But in many areas, even in major cities, that's all they have. No fiber. Poor wireless coverage (if any). The only means they have to deliver data and VoIP (absent fiber) is over systems like U-verse, which are copper to the home. So, they just want out.
@lauren In the UK all landlines are being replaced by fibre digital services by 2025. However, the switch has been delayed, as issues have been found when trying to support those with critical needs.
@talktomike As I keep saying, the situation there is not comparable. AFAIK, AT&T does not want to convert landlines, they want to abandon them. They want to no longer be the "carrier of last resort". A very different and horrific situation.
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