AT&T-Backed Report Prompts Question: Should The US Get Rid Of Phone Lines?

[Commentary] AT&T and Verizon have been pushing federal regulators to sunset the nation’s traditional copper-based communications network -- and many of the pesky regulations that come with it. Their latest effort to win support comes in the form of a new report written by a visiting scholar at Georgetown University and paid for by an organization known as the Internet Innovation Alliance that consistently supports AT&T’s agenda.

AT&T also provides an undisclosed amount of financial support to the group. At its heart, the report asserts that regulations that force the carriers to maintain the traditional telecommunications network are unnecessarily diverting investment away from modern broadband networks that don’t carry the same onerous regulatory requirements. To be clear, the report, which is titled “Telecommunications competition: the infrastructure-investment race,” frames the issue just a little differently and uses somewhat stronger language. It asserts that “outdated regulations that force companies to build and maintain obsolete copper-based legacy telephone networks are unnecessarily diverting investment away from modern broadband networks and services that 95 percent of U.S. households prefer, desire and use.” Shamelessly misleading, the report makes a big deal about the explosive growth of IP-based video traffic and how it dwarfs legacy phone calls in size. This isn’t surprising given that phone calls are measured in kilobits and videos in megabytes. It’s also not particularly relevant since video is not an alternative to phone calls. But the report treats the two as equivalent.