By Jim Anderson with Todd Wineburner
The Citizens' Utility Board is concerned that telecommunications companies are working to eliminate traditional landline phones. Under current law, they have to provide a landline connection to any customer who wants one. Next year, however, they’ll be asking lawmakers to relieve them of the so-called “obligation to serve.” This is a bad idea, says David Kolata, head of the Citizens Utility Board.
“Big telecom’s push for total deregulation would threaten a significant number of Illinois consumers. The state has 1.3 million (residential) land lines, and some of our most vulnerable citizens depend on traditional home phone service as a reliable, affordable and power outage-proof lifeline,” he said.
Seniors accustomed to having land lines in their homes would be among the most affected. People who live in rural areas with spotty cell phone coverage would also be negatively affected, as their landline service could disappear, or the cost for such a service could rise dramatically.
The issue is coming up because Illinois’ Telecommunications Act is due to expire at the end of next year. Lawmakers will have to do something, even if it’s just extending the act as-is, but Kolata says the big phone companies – mainly AT&T and Frontier – will be asking to be relieved of their land-line accounts.
The phone industry says it has no intention of leaving needy customers high and dry. They argue, however, that there are many options now, including land-line service from the unregulated cable TV providers. With those options in the marketplace, telecommunications companies argue that regulations need not be as strict as they were in the past.
