AT&T: CPUC Should Squash Plan That Rejects COLR Relief

AT&T raised legal and constitutional concerns as it protested a California Public Utilities Commission proposed decision that denies it relief of carrier of last resort (COLR) obligations. But in other comments the agency received Thursday, some local representatives strongly supported the plan to dismiss AT&T’s application. “Upholding this decision is vital to ensure residents across California … continue to have access to basic telephone service,” said San Mateo County in docket R.23-03-003.

California commissioners plan to vote June 20 on a plan rejecting AT&T’s application (see 2405100049). Also, the CPUC has said it plans to open a rulemaking on possibly revising COLR directives. The carrier filed its petition in March 2023. The commission held several hearings this spring and delayed the proceeding so it could find possible COLR replacements (see 2403120052). But the CPUC said it couldn’t locate potential replacements.

One day before comments were due, AT&T forwarded to the CPUC letters from 70 supporters of granting COLR relief. They included 18 state and local elected officials, 32 local and state organizations, 15 tribes and USTelecom. The California lawmakers included Minority Leader Brian Jones (R), two other Republican senators and two Democratic senators, plus six Republican and five Democratic Assembly members. "Closing [the digital] divide cannot be achieved through legacy copper networks and modernizing our approach to COLR is an opportunity to move investments to the areas of the state that need continued deployment,” Jones said in one letter. The two local officials were a vice mayor from Bell, California, and a city council member from Gardena.

It’s unfair to still be a COLR in today’s market, AT&T commented Thursday. "Only AT&T California -- not Comcast, not Charter, not Cox, not Verizon Wireless, not T-Mobile -- remains saddled with an obligation to provide a tariffed, standalone voice service to any requesting consumer or business within its service area,” it said. The CPUC would impose that "unique burden" on AT&T alone "not because the company has market power in any relevant market (it does not), but because it happened to be the incumbent telephone company many decades ago, before the rise of mobile and broadband competition,” it said. “That is an unfair and indefensible outcome.”

It's not right for the CPUC to say no based on disagreeing with AT&T's "good-faith belief" that the CPUC has discretion to grant the application, the carrier added. "Punishing the company for exercising that right to petition the government would violate the First Amendment and due process." The draft’s “central rationale for dismissal -- that the Commission lacks even the discretion to grant this Application -- rests on a misreading of applicable law,” AT&T said. State law lets carriers apply for relinquishment even if no COLR is designated, it said. Also, the commission may adapt prior decisions to material changes in technology or market conditions, it added. "The communications landscape has undergone (to say the least) ‘material changes’ since the COLR rules were adopted in the mid-1990s, when copper was king, few consumers had cellphones, and none had broadband."

The draft decision questions AT&T reliability and coverage gaps in certain areas, yet "no evidentiary hearing was conducted to identify such areas,” said AT&T. “Instead, the PD relies on unsworn public comments by a few individuals who live in undisclosed locations to the effect that they were unhappy with the service of certain (mostly unnamed) wireless providers."

Local governments said AT&T simply didn’t meet the legal standard for getting relief. "It is undisputed that there is no other COLR in AT&T’s service territory and that no carrier eligible to replace AT&T as COLR has agreed to do so,” commented San Mateo. “None of the alternative providers AT&T identifies ... have applied to be or have been designated as COLRs." Santa Clara County agreed. “No other COLR covers AT&T’s service territory or has volunteered to replace AT&T as COLR.” The CPUC should make clear "determining whether another entity is a COLR depends solely on whether the entity has been formally designated as a COLR such that the entity is legally obligated to provide basic service, and does not require a factual inquiry into the alternative services that another entity could provide to customers,” Santa Clara said.

Local representatives dispute having other reliable choices. Proposed alternative technologies are "often less reliable than [plain old telephone service (POTS)], including because the alternatives often rely on the local power grid or short-term, generator-based back-up power, whereas copper landlines are often powered at a more distant origination source, allowing landlines to remain operable during power outages, including, importantly, during natural hazards when communication with emergency responders is of paramount importance,” said San Mateo. Some rural parts of the county don’t “have any broadband internet or cellular service, and they may never be able to fully access wireless services," it said. Meanwhile, the power grid is unreliable during natural disasters, with outages sometimes lasting several days, it said.

Catalina Island “is subject to annual fire hazards, coastal flooding and other severe weather events affecting delivery of critical items such as medicines, fuel, and food,” said Catalina Island Connect (CIC). “Many people … maintain a landline due to poor cell phone coverage and capacity issues, frequent power outages which inhibit residents’ ability to maintain a charge on their cell phones, system outages due to cell phone facilities being damaged or destroyed by severe weather and severe congestion during peak tourist periods.”

CIC urged commissioners to go beyond the draft, which it said fails “to hold AT&T accountable for its multiple misstatements and abuse of the Commission process." The CPUC should issue an order to show cause against AT&T, "not only for filing a frivolous application, but for violating the Commission’s COLR rules and its own tariff by failing to provide landline POTS service to requesting customers,” it said.

The draft also received praise from consumer groups, including the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office (PAO), the Center for Accessible Technology and The Utility Reform Network. The proposed decision “makes clear that AT&T’s Application is dismissed because AT&T’s assertions are incorrect and fail as a matter of law, but also that the dismissal is with prejudice due to AT&T’s disregard for the law in its initial filing and mendacious acts,” said PAO. TURN said, “Granting the application would contravene the Commission’s rules and could lead to customers being denied voice service.”