Phone companies would like to cut your landline cord for you

[Commentary] The Illinois Telecommunications Act is up for review the spring of 2015, and big phone companies are expected to push to eliminate a legal obligation to provide landlines, which are still the cheapest and most reliable form of phone service. In a measure being pushed by AT&T in states across the nation, consumer advocates say, the company wants to eliminate the act's "obligation to serve" requirement, which gives everyone in the state the right to landline service. That would open the door for phone companies to abandon areas they deem unprofitable. AT&T has said it plans to abandon the old Time Division Multiplexing system (your landline) by 2020.