This is the script of my national radio report yesterday on AT&T's
newest effort to bypass public comments and the California Public
Utilities Commission to take away landlines and leave millions of
Californians with inferior or no emergency communications services at
all. As always, there may have been minor wording variations from this
script as I presented this report live on air.
- - -
Yeah, we've talked before in detail about why landlines are so crucial
to millions of people in California and even more people elsewhere in
the country, but the situation has really become infuriating now
because the politics involved are absolutely toxic to consumers.
The thing about Big Tech (including older firms like traditional phone
companies), is that they're always trying to find ways to force us to
use stuff that we don't want -- like AI for example -- and take away
tech that many people need simply to stay alive in emergencies, like
landlines. But this is how various Big Tech firms keep their profit
streams going, so that billionaire CEOs can continue to enjoy the
lifestyles to which they've become accustomed.
AT&T made more than 12 billion dollars profit last year but they're
still desperate to rip away landlines from Californians who want and
NEED them. AT&T has been minimizing maintenance so that copper
landlines break down more, are subject to ever more copper cable
thefts, and then leave the affected customers without service for
months at a time, presumably in the hope that they'll just go away
somehow.
Last year the California Public Utilities Commission unanimously
turned down AT&T's request to end landline services, even saying the
firm had misrepresented the situation. There were many thousands of
public comments on the preceding, overwhelmingly opposed to AT&T's
request. Many were from people in rural or other areas who would have
been completely cut off from emergency communications without their
landlines, since they didn't have access to cable, didn't have
reliable wireless services -- if any -- or were just not physically
capable of dealing with these newer complex technologies. Landlines
are literally the only lifeline for so many.
But if there's one thing AT&T knows how to do, it's how to lobby and
donate money to politicians in both parties. So now they've been
pushing legislation -- AB470 in the California legislature -- to just
bypass the public and the public utilities commission, and do away
with pesky public comments. Just smooze with the politicians and make
all sorts of promises about the new technologies they'll bring in to
replace landlines. And they've already gotten the California assembly
to vote 52 to 2 in favor of this travesty, with 19 abstentions -- not
exactly profiles of courage there.
And now AB470 is racing through the state Senate committee level with
big pro-ATT votes. Our politicians in BOTH parties certainly DO know
which side their bread is buttered on. And AT&T is just DROOLING at
the prospect of pushing this all the way through the legislature and
into law. If you care about this in California, I urge you to do some
research on AB470 and then contact your state senators and Governor
Newsom to express your opinions on this.
Because AT&T's history is utterly clear. They commit to replace
landlines with modern fiber, and in so many places it just NEVER
HAPPENS. Just months ago AT&T announced that they weren't even going
to bother building fiber in half their areas. Even if you're an AT&T
customer without fiber on your side of the street and there's AT&T
fiber on the other side of the street, they usually won't bring it to
you. Keep in mind that in many developed countries fiber is mandated
by the government, but here in the U.S. it's all up to whether or not
the firms controlling your area see profit to be made.
AT&T will laugh its way to the bank while depriving millions of
Californians of vital communications by killing their landlines.
There's simply no logical reason to believe ANY of the promises that
AT&T is making to gather the support of politicians and various
business groups around the state, because we KNOW that over and over
again, AT&T doesn't follow through with their commitments, both very
recently and going back MANY years.
If you're in California, tell your elected representatives, tell the
governor, they need to care about ordinary people, not fat cat Big
Tech like AT&T. Unfortunately, trusting AT&T on issues like this has
been shown to be a big mistake. And so is AB470. Period.
- - -
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
[email protected] (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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