{"id":622,"date":"2026-05-22T20:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/?p=622"},"modified":"2026-05-22T20:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:03:17","slug":"att-sues-california-in-attempt-to-shut-off-old-phone-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/?p=622","title":{"rendered":"AT&#038;T sues California in attempt to shut off old phone network"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/att-phone-1152x648.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>AT&amp;T sued California yesterday over the state\u2019s refusal to let the carrier stop providing phone service to all potential customers in its wireline network territory. AT&amp;T is also asking the Federal Communications Commission to declare that California cannot enforce its rules and to let AT&amp;T stop providing service to about 199,000 phone customers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCalifornia requires AT&amp;T to spend $1 billion each year to maintain a century-old telephone network that almost no one uses,\u201d AT&amp;T said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.casd.856308\/gov.uscourts.casd.856308.1.0.pdf\">lawsuit<\/a> filed in US District Court for the Southern District of California. \u201cThe copper wires that once served every home now serve just three percent of households in AT&amp;T\u2019s California territory, with consumers fleeing every day to modern broadband services that are more affordable, reliable, and energy-efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In June 2024, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2024\/06\/california-rejects-att-request-to-end-carriers-landline-phone-obligation\/\">rejected AT&amp;T\u2019s request<\/a> to eliminate the Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligation that requires it to provide landline telephone service to any potential customer in its service territory. AT&amp;T has said it\u2019s received relief from COLR obligations in 20 of the 21 states in its wireline service territory, all except California.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe federal government and virtually all States where AT&amp;T historically offered POTS [Plain Old Telephone Service] have now eliminated outdated regulatory obstacles, allowing AT&amp;T to begin powering down its POTS network and increasing its investments in modern communication technologies. California stands alone in resisting this progress,\u201d AT&amp;T\u2019s lawsuit said.<\/p>\n<p>AT&amp;T complained that its \u201cbarely used copper network is an easy mark for criminals\u2014California has already suffered about 2,000 outages from copper thefts this year\u2014and drains the power grid of over 100 million kilowatt-hours each year.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>AT&amp;T won\u2019t upgrade all lines to fiber<\/h2>\n<p>AT&amp;T has argued for years that California is preventing it from replacing copper with more modern technology. But California officials say AT&amp;T is allowed to upgrade the copper lines with better technology.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2026\/05\/att-sues-california-in-attempt-to-shut-off-old-phone-network\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AT&amp;T sued California yesterday over the state\u2019s refusal to let the carrier stop providing phone service to all potential customers in its wireline network territory. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fluffyworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}