By Thomas K. Pendergast

AT&T is trying to get out of providing landline service throughout much of California, including San Francisco, but the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has proposed rejecting AT&T’s request, although not before its next meeting on June 20. 

The CPUC says AT&T has requested to be relieved of its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligations in many areas of California. If approved, AT&T would no longer be required to offer landline telephone service where it is currently required to offer basic service in those areas. Basic service includes nine service elements, including Lifeline rates for eligible customers, free access to 9-1-1, telephone relay service and directory and operator services. 

On May 10, the CPUC issued a proposal rejecting AT&T’s request to withdraw as a COLR and indicating the CPUC intends to initiate a new rulemaking process to address COLR telecommunications service obligations, although it has not made a final ruling yet.

Wherever AT&T is the default landline telephone service provider, this means the company must provide traditional landline telephone service to any potential customer in that service territory. AT&T is proposing to withdraw as the COLR without a new carrier being designated as a COLR, according to the CPUC.

A transcript from a first-quarter earnings conference call among AT&T executives on April 24 explains why the telephone company is seeking this change. 

“We have some places where we have a good copper DSL base that we’re in the process of deploying fiber. And in some cases, fixed wireless can give better performance than what our copper network can deliver,” said John T. Stankey, AT&T’s CEO. “And we know that we’ll be 12 months, 18 months from fiber deployment, and we may want to hold some customers, offering them a better service. And we’ll use it as a bridging or hold strategy for customers that are high value to us. And we’ll continue to use that technique where we can. 

“Where I’ve got small numbers of data customers in place, I need to get them off of fixed infrastructure that I ultimately want to shutter because that allows me to turn down a geography that is a low utilization geography and a low profitable geography on the fixed side,” he said. “And I can turn out the lights, walk away, take cost out of business. I will do that.”

Telecommunications Policy Director Regina Costa, of The Utility Reform Network (TURN), however, says AT&T is trying to unilaterally rewrite universal service in California. 

“They could pick and choose who they wanted to serve,” Costa said. “They could abandon entire neighborhoods and communities if they wanted to. They are claiming that there are alternative (COLRs) and that is not true.”

Costa said AT&T is trying to pitch this as a broadband application, but she says what this would really do is eliminate AT&T’s obligation to serve.

“There’s nothing now stopping AT&T from upgrading its network to deploy broadband, they just don’t want to,” she said, noting that the COLR also serves business customers.

One scenario in which this might become critical is after a major earthquake, like the 1989 Loma Prieta quake. 

“The power was out for a considerable period of time and all of the things that AT&T points to as alternatives would stop working after a major earthquake in a prolonged power outage,” Costa said. “The universal carrier and (COLR) rules were adopted in a rule-making where everybody could sit down and have a rational, thoughtful discussion about how to go about it. They were not done in the context of a single company wanting to write its own rules.”

Roger Levin lives in the Inner Richmond and only has a landline and DSL internet service, which uses copper landlines. He also remembers the 1989 earthquake.

“During the earthquake in ’89, I was working downtown,” Levin said. “Remember phone booths? Well, almost all the cell phones were out. People were up and down the streets in the financial district waiting for the phone booths because those were working. So, when the power goes down or is interrupted, that’s going to be a real problem.” 

A 2021 study by the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of the Interior, titled The HayWired Scenario, considered what might happen immediately following a 7.0 rupture along the Hayward fault line, which runs through the East Bay.

“We find potential fragilities of central offices and unanchored equipment to extreme shaking in the East Bay, which is compounded by fires following the earthquake, and that data centers are more prone to liquefaction and cumulative effects of large aftershocks in Silicon Valley,” the report states. 

“Cellular towers built to Telecommunications Industry Alliance standards for wind loads appear to resist seismic loads of the HayWired Scenario and are mostly located away from other earthquake hazards, but are vulnerable to power outages. Cellular equipment on poles and buildings are vulnerable to extreme shaking, liquefaction and fire hazards. 

“Long-haul and interoffice fiber optic lines cross the fault rupture, run through areas with liquefaction and (or) fire (and landslides, to a lesser extent), and may run along the length of three-quarters of the more than 100 heavily affected bridges. Collateral damage to fiber optic lines may result from damage to or repair of bridges and similarly from collocations with roadways, railways, and water, gas and oil pipelines.

“Meeting demand for voice and data services after a large earthquake is limited by network functionality losses from damage to infrastructure, power outages and surges in demand for services.’

But aside from disaster scenarios, others say losing landline service will impact their everyday lives.

Marc Rabideau lives in the Richmond District but has a physical therapy clinic at 18th Avenue and Taraval Street. He said losing landline service would significantly disrupt his business. 

“I’d have to get a whole new system,” Rabideau said. “I work with a lot of law firms and a lot of them still use FAX. Not many people use FAX but law firms do and it would be very expensive for me to have to change, switch providers.

“I also have a home up in Lake County and that has a landline. And the way the alarm works on the house is if I have a landline. It’s not wireless. So, if they got rid of that landline I’d be in trouble there. People would be breaking in.”

Dianne Sun is a caretaker for her elderly mother in the Inner Richmond, who still uses a landline phone.

“At her age, she’s in her 90s, she’s not able to use a mobile (phone) effectively,” she said. “Let’s say I’m not home; my mother is on her own for a few hours and she needs to call someone. There’s an emergency. That would be her only recourse is to use her landline.”

Diana Merrill manages a building and she prefers the landline to other communication technologies.

“I like to have the landline because I trust it more when I’m on call, whereas with a smartphone you’re going to have to reboot the thing; you’re going to have to keep recharging it,” Merrill said. “If I have an emergency, I like the landline better. I think it’s more reliable.”