AT&T price hikes and the economics of dumping your landline

AT&T has raised prices on wireline phone users in California, which has consumer advocates crying foul. The rate hikes aren’t just being driven by greed on the part of Ma Bell, but by the more rapid disintegration of the wireline business, as customers abandon ship while providers are stuck maintaining a network for fewer customers who oftentimes pay less.

The solution to this is to get Americans off the old copper networks, a goal of providers and the Federal Communications Commission. But between now and 2018, when an advisory council to the FCC hopes to kill off wireline service, AT&T still has assets to sweat and employees to pay, which means the laggards keeping their landlines will see the cost of their phone service rise.