MONTEREY – AT&T, the multinational communications company, has requested to be relieved of its Carrier of Last Resort obligations in certain areas of California ending access to landline services for many residents, but a delegation of Congressional members is urging the California Public Utilities Commission to reject that ask.
In a letter to CPUC President Alice Bushing Reynolds, the members, including Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, say that AT&T’s application to cease landline service in the communities of their constituencies “threatens public safety in an area plagued by earthquakes, severe storms, floods and fires and that has a geography that often disrupts cellular service for days, if not weeks, at a time.”
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If approved, AT&T California – landline service, separate from cellular – 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 such as Lifeline rates for eligible customers, free access to 9-1-1, Telephone Relay Service and directory and operator services.
Rep. Panetta highlighted last week’s AT&T hours-long outage of its U.S. cellular network as another reason to maintain landline service.
“Tens of thousands of AT&T customers woke up without cell service. With the network down, people couldn’t make calls, access the internet or receive updates,” said Rep. Panetta on social media. “Service has returned, but this highlights why we must have landlines in rural and vulnerable areas. In CA-19 (Panetta’s district), rural areas with rugged terrain make cellular service spotty at best. When emergencies hit, residents rely on their landlines.”
AT&T said last week’s outage appeared to be the result of a technical error, not a malicious attack and blamed the incident on an error in coding, without elaborating. But at its peak, outage incidents numbered upwards of 70,000, affecting a portion of the 240 million subscribers the country’s largest carrier provides service to.
“The expansion of cell service is an exciting prospect. But we need to be clear-eyed about its limitations in certain areas,” said Panetta in a post. “This latest issue underscores those concerns and my strong belief that we need to protect access to landline services in rural and vulnerable communities.”
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Panetta said he recently called on California regulators to protect access to landline services as a matter of public safety for the people in some rural communities. Those efforts have prompted AT&T to host a community town hall in San Lorenzo Valley at the Felton Community Hall on Wednesday from 5:30 to 7 p.m., so residents can directly voice their concerns.
In the letter to the CPUC president, the members said as an example this year already has seen hundreds of thousands of Californians who were without power due to the Pineapple Express weather system storms, floods, and landslides. The magnitude 6.4 Ferndale earthquake of 2022 left Californians without power for such an extended period of time, people were unable to charge their cellular phones. The only way to call for emergency services and stay in touch with the outside world was via neighbors that had landlines. What will happen if these landlines are removed? How will people call for emergency service in a disaster or in areas with poor cellular reception?
“As the CPUC considers AT&T’s proposal to discontinue lifesaving services, we think a clear-eyed analysis of the limitations of the cellular service in good conditions, and in the hilly and mountainous areas where disasters can cause prolonged power outages is necessary” said the members in the letter to the CPUC president. “We encourage you to fully and fairly consider the concerns from constituents in our districts about the impact the loss of land lines would have on the safety of our community.”
The members of Congress who signed the letter include Reps. Lou Correa (CA-46), Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10), Anna Eshoo (CA-16), John Garamendi (CA-08), Jared Huffman (CA-02), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Doug LaMalfa (CA-01), Barbara Lee (CA-12), Mike Levin (CA-49), Kevin Mullin (CA-15), Katie Porter (CA-47), Adam Schiff (CA-30) and Mark Takano (CA-39).
