AT&T: Calif. Regulators' Only Choice Is Granting ETC Relief Without Conditions

California should shut down AT&T’s deregulation bid, consumer groups argued in briefs to the California Public Utilities Commission Friday. After denying AT&T relief from carrier of last resort (COLR) obligations in June (2406200065), the state commission is weighing AT&T’s separate application to relinquish its eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) designation (docket A.23-03-002). AT&T claimed that the CPUC has no choice but to grant the application for statewide relief.

"AT&T California legally must be allowed to relinquish its ETC designation throughout its service territory today, without conditions,” AT&T said. California providers must obtain ETC designation from the CPUC by agreeing to various requirements to receive federal high-cost or low-income support. "The scope of the Commission’s review … begins and ends with the text of Section 214(e)(4) of the federal Communications Act,” which says state commissions must permit ETCs to relinquish designations when multiple ETCs serve an area, AT&T argued: The carrier “has presented unrebutted evidence that it meets this condition.” Every AT&T wire center and census block in California has at least one alternative ETC, while 99.6% of the company’s Lifeline customers “can choose among at least five alternative ETCs,” it said.

However, intervenors that advocate for consumers said AT&T is wrong that the CPUC must approve the company's application when the carrier provides notice that another ETC could serve customers. In an April order modifying ETC designation requirements, the FCC "refrained" from limiting "what state commissions may consider -- including requiring like-for-like alternatives -- when adjudicating a provider’s request to relinquish its ETC designation,” The Utility Reform Network said. For example, the Kansas State Corporation Commission rejected a similar AT&T argument, TURN said.

The CPUC should deny the application completely because no full ETC provides services to an entire AT&T wire center, said TURN. Many of the providers that AT&T claims are alternatives aren’t full ETCs, the consumer group added: Lifeline-only ETCs don't count "because the FCC forbore statutory requirements to create” them. Nor do pure resellers count, whether they are wireless or wireline, said TURN. Also, the CPUC shouldn't include ETCs designated for Connect America Fund II or Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support "because the infrastructure and services are likely not yet available.” In addition, before allowing cable or wireless providers with full ETC designations to be considered as alternatives, the CPUC should confirm that they reliably reach customers inside their homes, said TURN, adding that CPUC and FCC maps overstate wireless coverage.

"Households who would be harmed by AT&T’s relinquishment of its ETC status disproportionately live in low-income communities,” TURN argued. Approval would additionally hurt rural communities where "wireless service may be at best unreliable and at worst simply not an option.” While acknowledging cord-cutting trends, TURN said 100,000 AT&T Lifeline customers in the state continue using landlines. The figure “suggests that wireless service does not meet the needs of a significant number of people -- due to age, disability, lack of reliable alternatives, or some combination of those factors.”

Evidence supporting AT&T's application remains deficient, the Center for Accessible Technology said in another brief. "Since the outset of this proceeding, AT&T has continuously made the same arguments to support its request, relying not only on repeated citations to faulty and self-serving interpretations of law, but also on repeated reference to the same data and the same analysis,” said the intervenor. "The record in this proceeding is so insufficient that it cannot serve as a basis to grant the Application."

The CPUC must consider whether customers can receive service from another provider in each area, not simply -- as AT&T argues -- if providers are required to have service there, said CforAT. "The existence of a legal requirement is by no means evidence of compliance with that legal requirement.”

AT&T countered that the alternative ETCs it listed “are not only legally obligated to serve AT&T California’s Lifeline customers; they are also currently capable of serving them." The law doesn’t differentiate between wireline and wireless ETCs when determining whether more than one ETC serves an area, said AT&T: CPUC maps confirm wide wireless coverage.

“But even if there were some question about the current network coverage of these alternative ETCs, Section 214(e)(4) would still grant AT&T California the legal right to relinquish its designation promptly.” That’s because federal law recognizes that some alternative ETCs may need time to buy or construct additional facilities to meet the requirement, and sets a one-year deadline for that to happen, the carrier said. If the CPUC is concerned that some alternative providers can't immediately serve AT&T customers, then it should order them “to follow through on their ETC commitments by purchasing or constructing additional facilities to serve the customers in question within a year."

Intervenors "misleadingly suggest" that approving the application would permit AT&T to discontinue service in areas where it has COLR obligations, the company said. "After ETC relinquishment is granted, AT&T California must and will continue providing basic residential voice service unless and until both this Commission and the FCC authorize it to discontinue that service.” Additionally, AT&T “will still provide state LifeLine service in any area where it provides basic residential voice service.”