Michigan’s Landlines Have Been Saved From Extinction…For Now

In February, I wrote an article about how AT&T submitted a waiver to no longer have to service landlines in California, effectively paving the way to end service for all landlines nationwide.

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However, the waiver has faced resistance from the nearly 100 million people in the US (my family included) who still have a landline. Now, a judge has made a decision dictating the future of landline telephones.

Landline Ruling

Now that the waiver has gone through the California Public Utilities Commission, a California judge has declared AT&T California's waiver was "fatally flawed" and received a 4-0 vote to keep the landlines in service.

Their reason for this is that AT&T is deemed as a "carrier of last resort" in California, meaning it covers major cities, rural communities, and tribal land. These areas are deemed areas that require support in case of emergencies where wifi may be unreliable.

As discussed in my previous article and brought up by more than 11,000 people in protest of AT&T's waiver, copper landlines are more reliable in rural areas and are still popular among people 65 and older. If WIFI were to go down, someone may be unable to make a call on their cellphones. Copper landlines rarely go down, so they will stay around.

Read More: End Of An Era: AT&T Seeks To Discontinue Copper-Wired Landlines |

This has stopped the copper wire landlines, which are more reliable than wifi-based digital transmission Voice Over IP (VOIP), from being disabled...for now. The vote today started the need to modernize the "carrier of last resort" rules. The committee is working to expand its universal WIFI to make VOIP connections more reliable.

I think of my grandparents who are one of two families on their dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Healthcare response is not close and were their cell phones to be dysfunctional, that could mean life or death.

So while landlines will be in service for the foreseeable future, changes in some form are most likely coming in the future.