Recent coverage by CBS News on Channel 13 in Sacramento, California documented how AT&T had cut off landline telephone from 80-year-old Patricia Pereira in Camp Seco. She called at the beginning of 2023 to ask if landline service could be transferred from a neighboring home to hers. Instead of transferring the service, AT&T cut the copper lines dead on both properties. She tried a cellphone, but she lives in a dead zone and barely receives cellular signals. She is now cut off from 911 and other essential services.
AT&T told CBS13 that “Our application seeks approval from the CPUC to remove outdated regulations in California and to help the limited remaining landline consumers transition to modern, alternative services to replace their current outdated ones. All AT&T California customers will continue to receive their traditional landline services until an alternative service becomes available by AT&T or another provider.”
That’s obviously not true since many rural customers are in the same position as Pereira, where cellular service doesn’t work well, or at all, in many rural places in the country. In this case, the company cut off Pereira long before the company applied to cut copper dead in her area.
This is happening in rural AT&T areas across the country. AT&T is walking away from rural copper facilities that provide landline telephone and DSL broadband.
I’m sure that the rural AT&T copper networks are old and in poor condition. It has been inevitable that copper technology will eventually come to an end. But that’s not the whole story. Copper networks maintained by smaller independent telephone companies are still in workable condition because these companies have been doing the needed maintenance over the years. AT&T stopped doing routine maintenance on rural networks decades ago, and the company’s neglect has accelerated the death of the copper networks.
State regulatory commissions have not been doing their job. AT&T and other telephone companies have been operating under regulations that include the concept of carrier-of-last-resort, which means that the telephone companies are obligated to provide customers with voice service. It sounds like a noble sentiment that AT&T wants to make sure that customers have an alternate service before killing copper – which would be cellular coverage in rural areas. However, the company’s treatment of Pereira shows that is just a statement for public consumption and not the truth.
If the California Public Service Commission was enforcing the carrier-of-last-resort rules, it would make sure that customers have cell coverage at home before allowing AT&T to walk away from the copper. If that means AT&T would have to build new cell towers, so be it.
One of the oddest things about the TV coverage is that the newscaster ended the segment by parroting AT&T’s position by saying, “All AT&T California customers will continue to receive their traditional landline service until an alternate service is available by AT&T or another provider.” This was said after a segment that shows that AT&T is already walking away from a customer, and without first getting permission from the CPUC.
Interesting… I travel to the Sacramento area a few times a year to visit family, and the linked story was rather factual as stories go from local news in Sac’to. My impression has been that most of their stories are “puff” pieces, but they seem to have hit a nerve on this one — with AT&T’s choice to pull out of rural landline. According to the story they seem to be going about this in a top-down ‘authoritarian manner’ — not really doing their homework to see if there is even one viable alternative.
Shame on them.
I expect that TV station sells a bit of ATT wireless advertising!
We’re seeing very similar issues in old US West, Qwest territory. Once the mandate was up, they quit maintaining the lines (or rather, quit repairing). We’ve converted small businesses over to VoIP services because the land lines went down and they were told weeks or months to repair.
That news piece ‘sounds’ pretty fair. However, I’ve never found a spot that a directional antenna on a cell booster didn’t work. Yes that’s cost and an old lady on a fixed budget may not be able to buy that. This is the sort of corner case that we should have gov funds for. The day of the land line is over and the taxpayer cost to maintain and repair those lines (it always falls to the taxpayer for mandated services) is far far higher than a weboost and antenna on the roof of a relatively small number of homes.
We are starting to get the calls for internet from people who got a letter that their DSL will be going away soon. We’re 90 miles north of Sacramento.
But, there is something I find really fascinating. I can’t find the map now, but I saw a map of the area AT&T wants to be removed from their COLR obligations. Compare that map to the map of AT&T’s supposed cellular coverage in this state. They show wide spread cell coverage even though those of us that live in this state know how sketchy it is in places. The map where they want removed from COLR obligations appears to me to be a lot more sane map of their actual cellular coverage. You think that is coincidence? My reasoning being that if they are going to transition those copper customers to cellular they might be a little more tighter on their signal requirements when doing the propagation studies than when they are trying to boast about how much coverage they have.
Could be totally unrelated, I have not way to prove it, it just looked suspicious to me.
I think you’ve exposed a lie here that will get overlooked haha
The issue of aging copper plant in the Sacramento region goes way back. Note the link to the Sacramento Bee story no longer works.
https://eldotelecom.blogspot.com/2006/04/sacramento-bee-rain-exposes-problems.html
https://eldotelecom.blogspot.com/2006/05/california-puc-deluged-by-complaints.html
I think this is basically a nation wide thing on all the old copper plant.
For years, Verizon has been guilty of this sort of activity in the Northeast. Now it appears that AT&T is doing the same in its territories. I’ve worried that stories like this would start surfacing about AT&T… Well, here we go.