AT&T to CPUC: Copper Is Dead

“The copper network is as obsolete as typewriters and VHS tapes,” declared AT&T in a Monday response to consumer groups opposing the carrier’s petition for carrier-of-last-resort regulation relief at the California Public Utilities Commission. Most consumers moved to mobile and fixed wireless from plain old telephone service, it said in docket A.23-03-003. “Nonetheless, legacy COLR requirements still compel AT&T California, alone among its competitors, to maintain the copper network for the small and decreasing percentage of consumers who still use it -- and to do so at great economic and environmental cost. Every other state in AT&T’s wireline footprint gave the carrier “substantial, if not total, COLR relief,” it added. Public advocates and rural counties raised concerns with the AT&T petition (see 2304070018 and 2304040030).