The End of the (Wire)Line

If you’re an American who lives in the middle of nowhere and you want phone and Internet service, you can pretty much have them, albeit in their least sexy form. That’s right, we’re talking about old-fashioned landlines for the phone and (shudder!) dial-up for the Internet. Hyper-wired, connected citizens have long since relegated those services to the dustbin of tech history. But for people living in remote areas (or some low-income neighborhoods), landlines and dial-up are still the lifeblood of telecommunications.

Take them away, and you’re sending people back to the Stone Age of telecommunications. But taking them away is effectively what big telecom companies — companies like AT&T to be specific — may well end up doing if they have their way. AT&T filed a petition last year with the Federal Communications Commission asking to get out from under regulations and lay its wireline services to rest. But the federal petition is but the most visible part of the strategy. AT&T has been playing a long game, flying under the radar at the state level. How? With the help of ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — of which AT&T appears to be a devoted member. (Not only does an AT&T representative sit on the group’s Private Enterprise Advisory Board, AT&T sponsored ALEC’s most recent conference, the Spring Task Force Summit in Oklahoma City.) Published on ALEC’s website are at least four model bills and statements echoing AT&T’s position on telecommunications regulations — briefly, that there should be little to none.