Khari Johnson, Cal Matters

Still need your landline? California regulators just stopped AT&T from pulling the plug

This story was originally published by CalMatters, nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

California’s Public Utilities Commission today rejected AT&T’s application to stop providing landlines and other services in areas where there is no other option.

Its 4-0 vote came after a judge determined the application by AT&T California was “fatally flawed.”

AT&T is the “carrier of last resort” for California, an official designation that means it covers most major cities, rural communities, and the land of more than 100 tribal governments. To find out if your home is in that area visit this website. The commission first labeled AT&T a carrier of last resort nearly three decades ago.

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More than a dozen speakers during the public comment period at today’s meeting supported keeping AT&T’s carrier-of-last resort designation and landlines. Previously, more than 5,000 public comments were written in response to AT&T’s application and nearly 6,000 people attended eight public forums held earlier this year. Numerous commenters said that, due to inconsistent cell coverage in their area, their landline is their primary means of communication with family, medical providers, and the outside world in the event of an emergency. Those concerns are particularly important for senior citizens, people with disabilities, and people who say they are sensitive to electromagnetic activity.

AT&T has argued that the people its landlines are now serving in the areas in question can turn to voice over internet service offered by cable providers or to mobile phone service offered by wireless providers like Verizon.

Steve Hogle lives in rural Sonoma County and told the commission today that spotty cell phone coverage was a danger to his family during the 2019 Kincade wildfire.

“If we didn’t have a copper landline we would’ve not known about the evacuation and the extremely serious fire that went through here and most of our property,” he said. “I don’t want (voice over internet service) because if there’s no power, there’s no internet, and all these things are of extreme importance to the safety of this community.”

The company has attempted to end carrier-of-last-resort designation obligations in roughly half of U.S. states, but those efforts don’t always stay within the confines of the law, according to federal prosecutors. In 2022, AT&T Illinois agreed to pay a $23 million fine to resolve charges it attempted to influence former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.

“If we didn’t have a copper landline we would’ve not known about the extremely serious fire.”
STEVE HOGLE, SONOMA COUNTY

The commission’s decision does not bring an end to the carrier-of-last-resort debates in California. AT&T and roughly a dozen members of the California Legislature have publicly expressed support for Assembly Bill 2797, which would effectively bring an end to some carrier-of-last-resort obligations. The California State Association of Counties, Rural County Representatives of California, and Urban Counties of California said last week that they oppose the bill, adding in a letter to the bill’s author that it would “leave large swaths of the most vulnerable Californians without reliable and affordable access to basic telephone service.”

The Public Utilities Commission also voted 5-0 today to begin proceedings to change rules for companies that are designated a carrier of last resort. It’s time to modernize those rules, said commission president Alice Reynolds, because a lot has changed in the past 30 years, including a shift toward cell phones and away from landlines, and it’s now part of the commission’s mandate to make high-speed internet access universally available.

“I’m hopeful that through this new rulemaking, we can really modernize these programs and move towards the future to meet our broadband for all objectives,” she said ahead of the vote.

Millions of Californians weigh options after losing an affordable internet subsidy

This story was originally published by CalMatters, nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics. Lea esta historia en Español

Alfredo Camacho and his three daughters started a new routine last week: Every evening they go to the parking lot outside a nearby library to get Wi-Fi access. The kids do homework and download YouTube videos, while Alfredo checks his email and searches job listings.

Camacho and his daughters ages 9, 12, and 15 live in Guadalupe, a town of roughly 9,000 on the Central Coast of California. They used to rely on the Affordable Connectivity Program, a $30 to $75 monthly credit for high-speed internet, but that ends this month.

“This takes away grocery money,” he told CalMatters. “Being a single father, $30 goes a long way.”

Camacho is one of roughly three million Californians deciding whether to keep home internet access or give it up and deepen the digital divide.

Congress allocated $14.2 billion to the Affordable Connectivity Program in 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic was still top of mind and underscored people’s need for online access to do school and work. But since Congress failed to allocate more funding, that money runs out later this month. And since the subsidy only covers part of the bill, the onus is on subsidy recipients to cut the cord or it could end up costing them money.

Nationwide, more than 23 million Americans benefited from the program. An additional 30 million eligible people never received the subsidy.

Four out of five households enrolled in the program cite affordability as the reason why they had inconsistent or no internet access, according to a Federal Communications Commission survey released two months ago. Roughly the same amount said the end of the subsidy will force them to find cheaper service or get rid of home internet service.

The Federal Communications Commission, which stopped accepting affordable internet applications in February, said internet service providers are required to inform recipients three times before charging consumers full price, with the final notification this month, the last billing cycle that includes a full subsidy. The federal agency said some people may receive partial affordable internet funding in May. People who haven’t received such notifications yet are encouraged to call their internet service provider.

In a letter urging leaders in Congress to pass a law extending funding last month, more than 150 members of Congress note that roughly half of Affordable Connectivity Program recipients are military families, one in four live in rural communities, and one in five are households with people who are 65 or older. The letter called internet service essential to education, health, and the economy, and warned that ending the program could reduce trust in government and internet service providers.

Camacho agrees that ending the program breaks public trust. “You gave everybody hope and then you dropped the ball,” he said.

‘Things are going to get worse’

Winnie Aguilar lives in senior housing in Imperial Beach and called the affordable internet subsidy important to her and many of her neighbors.

“For us who have very low income and cannot work anymore it’s hard to lose that $30,” she said.

The digital divide for students from poor families and rural areas can and should end, said Mary Nicely, the California Department of Education chief deputy superintendent of public instruction. “Our students and families deserve a greater investment, not less, to ensure they have a level playing field to succeed academically,” she wrote in a statement. “We have a long way to go to ensure that all students in this state have the resources they need to thrive academically.”

State officials offered no estimates for the number of students affected by the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program.

The pandemic led to the development of many online tools that still get used, Public Policy Institute of California researcher Joe Hayes told CalMatters. “So it stands to reason that households from historically underserved populations are going to be harder hit by the disappearance of the Affordable Connectivity Program,” he said.

A record 95% of Californians have access to the internet today, according to a report Hayes published earlier this month. In recent years, access has increased the most among low-income Black and Latino households headed by people who didn’t graduate from college, the report said. The digital divide has narrowed for grade-school students as well, but still persists, the institute found in February.

Despite years of progress that made him optimistic, Hayes expects the end of the Affordable Connectivity Program to widen the digital divide for students and low-income households.

“Things are going to get worse for people on the margins,” he told CalMatters. “Even if you’re in a place with fiber in the ground, if you suddenly can’t afford it, I do expect that that gap to widen.”

Still, Hayes notes that a number of federal programs continue to fund efforts to end the digital divide, including the Department of Treasury’s coronavirus projects fund and the broadband equity and access deployment program. There’s also a $6 billion state program to fund broadband infrastructure projects, and earlier this month the state of California received a $70 million federal grant to implement a digital equity plan. But he said these programs don’t address a key issue at the heart of the matter: high monthly costs charged by internet service providers.

“Even if you’re in a place with fiber in the ground, if you suddenly can’t afford it, I do expect that that gap to widen.”
JOE HAYES, RESEARCHER, PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA

The average cost of home internet is $83 a month, according to a 2023 survey by the California Department Of Technology. Latino households, people who live in rural areas, and low-income households are amongst those most in need of internet service, said the survey released in summer 2023. Roughly 3.5 million Californians still lack internet access due to lack of infrastructure, affordability, or other issues, according to the survey.

Sunne McPeak works to end the digital divide as the president and CEO of the California Emerging Technology Fund, which is informing people who received Affordable Connectivity Program money about low-cost options available from internet service providers.

She said there are two important next steps for California to close the digital divide despite the end of the program:

The Federal Communications Commission needs to keep sharing data with state agencies that administer federal assistance programs like Medi-Cal; groups attempting to bridge the digital divide use this data to reach households
Do as AB 1588 and SB 1179 propose and require internet service providers extend affordable offers to people who were eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Program. She said companies like AT&T, Comcast, Cox, and Frontier already do so.

“It’s a total political problem,” McPeak said about the digital divide. “They could solve it tomorrow with the right will.”