California state regulators say AT&T lied to the Federal Communications Commission in an attempt to shut off its old copper phone network without providing an adequate replacement.
“AT&T asserts that California seeks to prohibit or hinder wireline carriers from discontinuing copper facilities and investing in fiber,” said a June 15 filing by the state of California and the California Public Utilities Commission. “Indeed, AT&T has been making this argument for years. It is not and has never been true.”
As we reported last month, AT&T sued California over the state’s refusal to let it stop providing phone service to all potential customers in its wireline network territory. AT&T also petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to declare that California cannot enforce its rules and to let AT&T stop providing service to about 199,000 phone customers.
Ha, this reminds me of how angry I got at NPR the other day when they aired this. They were all too happy for the centerpiece of their story to be an interview with some spokesperson who did the classic move of blaming Overbearing California Regulations as a problem, saying that it’s forcing them to keep a shitty old system in place, and then they moved on to the next piece without addressing how the real problem was that AT&T is refusing to install new equipment before cutting off service to the old stuff. California’s regulations are saving hundreds of thousands of people from losing service, and somehow they’re the bad guy here.
Drives me fucking crazy that NPR is somehow considered a left leaning news source. I guess it’s all relative, huh…
Edit, I’ve actually been trying to remember to make notes whenever NPR airs a story that pisses me off. Just for fun, I’m gonna include the few I have here:
Tap for spoiler
I’m American but the dates are d/m/y because this is from my personal notes so whatever:
9/06/26 npr ran a story about copper wire thieves, and painted California regs forcing att to serve rural communities as bad, instead of pointing out att can remove that copper the second they install an alternative for those homes
27/05/26 npr newscast called Texas trump endorsed candidate anti establishment. Technically did beat an incumbent but jfc trump is not anti establishment
20/05/26 planet money’s “human certification in the age of ai slop” may just be the dumbest piece of media I have ever heard. They put an H logo on a photo and call that verified??? Then they advertise a data collection service masquerading as a verification service, tell the company ahead of time that they are being tested, then end the episode. Genuinely, the mind boggles. Have they always been this bad and just forgot to lie about it?
23/01/26 I just listen to NPR regurgitate a line about Trump’s board of Peace presiding over Gaza without a single moment of criticism (in the politics podcast later I heard them eventually get into criticism but it’s insane they didn’t include 5 seconds in the original story to mention the price tag or who is slated to be on the board)
It’s partly because there realistically is no substantial left-wing voice remaining in the US. The right and corporations do their best to label centrist positions as far left positions, and the Overton Window continually shifts to the right as a result.
It’s also really, really popular to hate on California at the moment. The facts never matter.
Definitely sad that it’s NPR in this case, though.
It’s always been popular to hate on California.
California doesn’t put much effort into making itself actually likeable. They hoard unlikeable individuals like Pokemon cards.
Don’t worry, we don’t like those people either, but they still won’t leave.
Fuck, I remember like 2010 NPR being faux left presenting conservatives. Putting climate deniers with zero background on the same level as actual fucking scientists. Something about how they covered BLM protests also bugged me but I could never put my finger on it.
NPR is more corporate funded media, sure it’s through whoever’s endowment, but it’s the same difference. Like the New York Times, when the stakes are high and issues dead serious, you can count on a bullshit neoliberal take.
Yeah. One of their big donors is the Walton Family Foundation. That’s the Walmart family.
So is Zuckerberg’s foundation
Nooo wayyyyy whatttt im soooo surprised 😑
Everywhere I’ve worked still has tons of POTS lines. Sure, you can switch them to LTE or 5G if you happen to be in the city. Rural areas just get fucked though.
It’s endgame people, the law will no longer protect any of us.
But it will absolutely be used against us.
