Stop AT&T From Killing Your Grandmother

She lives somewhere with crummy cell service, if any at all, right?  The only way she can call 911 in an emergency is her prehistoric land line telephone, right?

AT&T wants to kill her.  Right now. And the Kentucky General Assembly is getting ready to let AT&T do it.

Why?  Because grandma's landline does not deliver billions in profits to AT&T. Grandma's landline might actually cost one of the world's most disgustingly rich corporations a few pennies to keep connected.

And we can't have a zillionaire corporation losing entire pennies on your pathetic rural grandmother who should be in a nursing home anyway.

From the Kentucky Resources Council:

HOUSE COMMITTEE APPROVES AT&T BILL - YOUR HELP NEEDED AGAIN TO PROTECT BASIC RELIABLE PHONE SERVICE!

On Thursday, February 5, the House Economic Development Committee passed HB 152, this year's AT&T Bill.  The bill is now in House Rules Committee, which could recommit the bill or send it to the floor for a vote.  Access to reliable landline phone service for thousands of Kentuckians hangs in the balance.

PLEASE CALL AGAIN TO 1-800-372-7181 AND LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR ALL STATE REPRESENTATIVES AND SENATORS TO REJECT HB 152 AND SB 3 AND TO PROTECT KENTUCKY'S CONSUMERS WHO DEPEND ON RELIABLE LANDLINE PHONE SERVICE.  ALSO, PLEASE EMAIL YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVE AND ASK THEM TO OPPOSE HB 152.

“AT&T” BILL WOULD OPEN DOOR TO LESS FUNCTIONAL, LESS RELIABLE PHONE SERVICE FOR KENTUCKIANS[1]

     AT&T is pushing for passage of HB 152 and SB 3, which would eliminate the right to stand-alone basic local phone service in Bowling Green, Georgetown, Henderson, Hopkinsville, Frankfort, Louisville, Owensboro, Paducah, Richmond, Boone County, Independence, Elizabethtown, Lexington, Nicholasville, and London, and would allow AT&T, Windstream and Cincinnati Bell to offer more expensive “bundled” services, and less functional IP-enabled voice service instead of reliable, less expensive stand-alone, basic local phone service.

     Outside of these urban areas, customers who move could lose the right to basic stand-alone service unless the new home or apartment has a landline installed by the current carrier , and wireless services that are less functional could replace reliable, independently powered landline service for new home and businesses built after the bill becomes law.

     The challenge facing the Commonwealth and the nation is how to assure the protection of consumers as the nation transitions from the “legacy” circuit switched phone network that has functioned with near-perfect reliability for some 125 years, to digital, packet-switched Internet Protocol (IP) communications.  HB 152 and SB 3 lack the protections needed to assure that the most vulnerable customers – low and fixed-income households and those with medical conditions requiring remote monitoring – are protected, and that the services we now use through our phone lines – burglary and fire alarms, and fax machines – continue to work where IP-enabled communications replace circuit-switched voice service.

The General Assembly should wait until the FCC finalizes the rules for the transition to digital communications

On November 21, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted a “Declaratory Ruling” clarifying when a carrier like AT&T must seek FCC approval to discontinue a service. The FCC ruling clarified that “discontinuance” of a service is viewed in functional terms of the practical impact of its actions on the consumer and the uses that the consumer makes of the phone service.

In testimony before a House Committee on February 5, 2015, an AT&T representative referred to that FCC Ruling, testifying that “[t]he FCC recently made clear that AT&T cannot stop offering legacy voice service in urban or rural areas of Kentucky without the FCC’s permission.  So as a practical matter, AT&T must continue providing legacy voice service throughout its Kentucky service areas until the FCC is satisfied that appropriate replacement services are available.”

What AT&T neglected to mention is that U.S. Telecom, the trade association to which it belongs, has asked the FCC to reconsider that ruling, arguing that the phone companies like AT&T do not need to assure that the IP-enabled wired or wireless voice services they offer will support third-party medical, fire, or burglar alarm or fax services, and that they should not have to seek FCC approval to replace legacy voice services with new services that don’t support these functions. A reading of the terms of service agreements available on the AT&T website for both the wired and wireless IP-enabled AT&T services reflects that they disclaim the equivalency of their IP-enabled services with wireline legacy services in terms of reliability, and ability to support alarms, monitoring, and fax usage.

     The FCC also opened a rulemaking on November 21, 2014 inviting comment on the rules that will be needed to protect consumers during this transition from the legacy network to IP-enabled communications.  Among the issues the FCC is seeking comment on are protecting consumers’ ability to call 911 during power outages, since unlike the current wireline network, IP-enabled wired and wireless services aren’t independently powered and have limited battery power.  Assuring accurate 911 location capability is another issue, since wireless services don’t warrant that if you call 911, your location can be determined. Finally, the FCC rule seeks greater consumer protection and a process to assure that new services meet needs of consumers before the traditional networks are retired.

     Kentucky should not weaken or eliminate current consumer protections under state law, unless and until we are certain that these protections will be afforded under federal law.

Kentucky’s Telecom Laws Have Not Impeded AT&T Investment, And Eliminating Basic-Local Stand-Alone Phone Service Won’t Guarantee Any New Investment

     AT&T testified in committee that if the General Assembly waits, Kentucky will lose new investment because our laws aren’t “modernized.”  AT&T suggested that investment is bypassing Kentucky because our laws are outdated and not business-friendly.

    Yet:

•  In June 2010, AT&T praised Kentucky leaders for creating “an environment that encourages companies to invest aggressively in Kentucky.” 

• In June 2011, AT&T announced that it had invested more than $525 million in Kentucky “over the past three years” and that “the company will continue to invest aggressively in” Kentucky as part of a $19-billion nationwide investment announced in 2011. 

• In March 2012, AT&T said that “thanks to the vision and business-friendly approach of the General Assembly, Kentucky has a strong regulatory environment for telecom infrastructure investment.” 

      AT&T invested more than $95 billion nationwide during 2007-2011 and $20 billion in 2011 alone. The $1.1 billion invested by AT&T in Kentucky from 2007 – 2011, which AT&T called “aggressive,” amounted to 1.1% of the total national AT&T capital investment over that period.  The announced 2013-2015 investment for Kentucky will continue that same investment trend as a percentage of national investment, and could be marginally higher or lower.  Current investment is still on the same pace of $200 million per year that it has been for several years.

     Eliminating the right to stand-alone, reliable, local exchange phone service does not appear likely to materially change AT&T investment in their wireless and wirelines networks in Kentucky, and certainly was no bar to “aggressive investment” in telecom infrastructure in recent years.  Nothing in HB 152 or SB 3 assures that AT&T will invest one cent more than it has planned to spend, nor will the bills do anything to advance broadband access for rural Kentuckians.

 

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[1] This article was authored by Tom FitzGerald, Director, Kentucky Resources Council, Inc., www.kyrc.org