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.
