SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
So when's the last time you placed a call over a landline? Cellphones and the internet have mostly replaced corded phones across the country. But for those who live in remote areas, landlines can be a sure way to reach emergency services. Kathy Yerger (ph) lives in the small community of Hacienda, California. She spoke to us on a landline - her landline - about why it's still important to her.
KATHY YERGER: If we need to call 911 for an ambulance or a fire - which California's had plenty of fires - that's the only reliable source we have to communicate outside of our neighborhood.
SIMON: Yue Stella Yu has been reporting on this story for CalMatters. She joins us now from Sacramento. Thanks so much for being with us.
YUE STELLA YU: Thanks for having me.
SIMON: Are landlines at risk of disappearing?
YU: So there are about 500,000 people in the state of California that rely on AT&T's copper landlines. Many of these landlines are what AT&T is required by law to provide. AT&T has an obligation by law to be the carrier of last resort in California, but the company is planning to retire its copper network nationwide. And part of their argument is maintaining copper is very expensive. It costs the company $1 billion a year just in California to maintain those copper lines. And if they can free up some of that money, they say they can start providing some more advanced technology, like fiber.
So the worry from many communities in California is how exactly that will affect their own neighborhoods. When I asked AT&T, the company said it won't pull out from all the areas in California, just the ones where people already have other options, like broadband and cellphone, or areas where nobody lives. But to this day, we don't really know which areas will be affected exactly, or how reliable those alternatives can be.
SIMON: What did people who have landlines tell you about why they still rely on them?
YU: Many of these people who still use landlines are in rural areas like where Kathy lives, where internet and cell services are unreliable and, in some cases, not even available. That is an issue in suburban areas as well. We're hearing from readers that some neighborhoods in the greater LA area also rely on landlines because sometimes they just don't have reliable alternatives. In the LA fire earlier this year, a lot of cell towers became obsolete really quickly. Other alternatives like the voice over internet protocol phones, which are often called another type of landlines - they also have to rely on power and internet to function. And you can imagine when electricity is out, a lot of those options quickly become unavailable.
SIMON: Is there a save the landlines movement?
YU: (Laughter) That depends on who you ask. I think in the rural northern California town that I went to, they are very aware of this problem. And AT&T has been fighting this fight in California for two years. It's not a new issue that just came on this year. It has tried and spent big to try to sway lawmakers and regulators to give it this relief. But we're seeing hundreds of comments from the public who are really worried that their landlines might be taken away. Those public members are also trying to lobby lawmakers and regulators to help them keep AT&T here.
SIMON: Yue Stella Yu, who is a politics reporter for CalMatters. Thanks so much for being with us.
YU: Thank you for having me.
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