{"id":365307,"date":"2026-06-18T05:45:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365307\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T05:45:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T05:45:31","slug":"california-says-att-lied-to-fcc-in-attempt-to-shut-off-old-phone-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365307\/","title":{"rendered":"California says AT&#038;T lied to FCC in attempt to shut off old phone network"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>State urges FCC to move slowly<\/p>\n<p>AT&amp;T said it has received relief from Carrier of Last Resort obligations in 20 of the 21 states in its wireline service territory. Carrier of Last Resort rules require phone companies to provide landline telephone service to any potential customer in their service territory.<\/p>\n<p>The CPUC <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/tech-policy\/2024\/06\/california-rejects-att-request-to-end-carriers-landline-phone-obligation\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">rejected AT&amp;T\u2019s request<\/a> to end its California landline obligations in 2024. At the time, the agency urged AT&amp;T to upgrade copper lines to fiber rather than shut down the outdated portions of its network.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to its FCC petition, AT&amp;T filed a <a href=\"https:\/\/storage.courtlistener.com\/recap\/gov.uscourts.casd.856308\/gov.uscourts.casd.856308.1.0.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lawsuit<\/a> against California last month seeking an order that would preempt California\u2019s Carrier of Last Resort rules. \u201cCalifornia requires AT&amp;T to spend $1 billion each year to maintain a century-old telephone network that almost no one uses,\u201d AT&amp;T alleged in its lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>Lawsuits can take years, but the FCC may be inclined to act on AT&amp;T\u2019s requests more quickly. Under Chairman Brendan Carr, the FCC issued an <a href=\"https:\/\/docs.fcc.gov\/public\/attachments\/FCC-26-19A1.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">order<\/a> that made it easier for carriers to discontinue copper networks and asserted that state rules are subject to preemption if they conflict with the FCC\u2019s discontinuance authorizations and authority.<\/p>\n<p>California regulators urged the FCC to move with caution. If the agency doesn\u2019t reject AT&amp;T\u2019s applications outright, it should at least remove them from the streamlined process that could result in a quick approval, California said. California could ultimately sue the FCC if the agency tries to preempt the state rules.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCalifornia opposes the applications as presented and respectfully asks the Commission to reject these applications,\u201d the state said. \u201cIn the alternative, we ask the Wireline Competition Bureau to remove these applications from the streamlined process and ask the Commission to direct AT&amp;T to address the concerns we have raised here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"State urges FCC to move slowly AT&amp;T said it has received relief from Carrier of Last Resort obligations&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-365307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}