[conspire] AT&T and CPUC

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Paul Zander (paulz at ieee.org):

> I received email about hearings in Clovis and Ekiah.  Something about
> ATT wanting     Relief from its Carrier of Last Resort Obligation
> Anything I should be concerned about?  

Depends.  Do you depend on a landline?  Or do you care about others,
notably rural folks, having the legal right to a landline?

AT&T wants CPUC to absolve it of any legal obligation to provide
landline service in California (as it has also been trying to do
elsewhere) as "carrier of last resort", including operating local Public
Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) exchanges and offering basic 
voice service at regulated prices on nondiscriminatory terms -- as part
of its utter mania for killing copper-pair service as quickly as it can
and do fiber-only.  If this is granted than AT&T will no longer be
required to provide landlines for voice service wired DSL, either as the
vendor or as the line provider for other vendors.

It's a... well, at minimum disappointing if predictable thing for the
company to request, and would adversely affect many people, largely in
rural areas that rely on POTS, especially in emergencies.  It would
not, FWIW, affect my household, as we terminated landline service years
ago.

They basically don't want to be told they have any societal obligations,
and are not part of the common infrastructure, because they want to be
free to wander off into Galt's Gulch and serve only highly profitable
markets, not ones that people need and rely on.  Typical asshat
corporate highwaymen.

Background paper from about a decade ago (but the process of the fiber
transition has proceeded since then):
https://pubs.naruc.org/pub/FA85B978-00A3-862C-5E8D-9E10816FA7DB

Some of the nasty politics:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/11/11/secrets-of-an-att-scandal/
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/10/19/att-hit-with-23-million-fine-for-bribing-illinois-lawmaker/