Carrier of Last Resort is Still a Thing

I always find it interesting when old regulations bubble up into the news. As reported by Jon Brodkin in Ars Technica, an administrative law judge at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) rejected a petition by AT&T to walk away from its carrier of last resort obligations for voice service. In the petition in California, AT&T requested to be relieved of carrier of last resort obligations, which would give it the ability to stop providing telephone service in rural areas. The AT&T petition was met with a lot of protests from rural residents asking the CPUC to not let AT&T kill their telephone service. The Administrative law judge rejected the AT&T petition. He ruled that he was unable to ignore the existing California rules that require carrier of last resort. He also ruled against the AT&T claim that California rules would require AT&T to keep copper. He noted that there is nothing in the California rules that would stop AT&T from decommissioning copper wires. To some degree, this ruling is too little, too late.