AT&T President Paul La Schiazza (Photo courtesy of AT&T)

Gov. Bruce Rauner has promised to veto SB 1839, a multi-subject telecom bill passed by both houses in the General Assembly.

But the bill has never been delivered to the governor’s desk. That’s a relief for opponents of AT&T’s provision to cease their roll of “Carrier of Last Resort” (COLR) and cancel service to copper-wire landlines. The Illinois AARP, Citizens Utility Board and Public Interest Research Group all called AT&T’s bid to cancel landline service a poor deal for consumers, especially the elderly and low-income.

“AT&T’s argument is that wireless is just as good as a landline, but it’s not,” said Bryan McDaniel, CUB’s director of Governmental Affairs. “A traditional landline is the most reliable way to call 911 and it works in a power outage.”

But not being able to act on the bill, whether to sign or veto, is a problem for other reasons: The Illinois Telecommunications Act and laws governing the funding of state 911 systems and cable television are all set to expire on July 1.

Meanwhile, Rauner has threatened to veto the bill for completely different reasons: A bundled provision of the bill would increase Chicago residents’ 911 surcharge from $3.90 to $5 and the rest of the state from 87 cents to $1.50. Rauner said in May that Chicago’s plan to apply to city pensions the additional revenue from an increased 911 surcharge was an unfair tax.

AT&T had been asking lawmakers to let them off the hook for maintenance of the copper-based landline phone system still used by 1.2 million Illinois residents, many of whom also have cellphones service and a wireless router or Voice of Internet Protocol (VOIP) service.

But some older pacemakers and other medical devices, as well as some home alarm systems, require data to be uploaded through a landline, said Julie Vahling, associate state director of AARP.

“AARP is all about technology moving forward but we don’t believe that taking away the most reliable and affordable service is right for consumers.”

Those wishing to keep landlines could appeal within 30 days of being told they were being kicked off, but must prove they are out of service range of any kind of telecom line, including fiber-optic Internet lines.

AT&T is not the only landline provider in the state, but the bill was written to exclude Frontier Communications, the other big state provider, which covers more rural areas.

“Frontier’s not on the bill, [Frontier customers] still get to keep their landlines,” McDaniel said. “They didn’t want Frontier on the bill because those customers know wireless signals aren’t as reliable in rural areas.”

AT&T landline service covers the counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Lake, and most of McHenry, as well as the densely-populated areas around the cities of Peoria and Rockford and the highest-populated parts of Madison and St. Clair counties. Frontier provides service in all of DeKalb, McLean and Woodford counties, as well as more rural areas in Winnebago, Peoria and McHenry counties.

McDaniel said the original copper wiring system was installed throughout the state by then-monopoly Illinois Bell under “rate-of-return” regulation, which means consumers were charged for the costs. “Every dime AT&T invested in the copper network, they got back in profit,” McDaniel said. That ended around 2010, he said.

The issue is the “last mile” maintenance — landline telephone companies are on the hook for the line repairs from the network to each home.

“If they send you the signal wirelessly, they don’t have to pay for that last mile,” McDaniel said. “This is about disinvestment, it’s not about investment.”

The landline companies can’t pull the plug unless the Federal Communications Commission agrees that telephone providers can withdraw from “carrier of last resort” status.

Nineteen states have already passed similar legislation allowing AT&T to opt out — provided that the FCC agrees. California is the only state requiring AT&T keep landlines available.

AT&T President Paul La Schiazza said only 10 percent of Illinois AT&T customers still had a landline and that the company wasted millions of dollars maintaining obsolete technology. That money could be spent on new tech innovations, he said.

“Illinois is one step closer to a communications law that reflects reality, not history,” La Schiazza said when the bill passed. “Any claim by our opponents implying that home phone service is going away is absolutely false. Home phone service isn’t going away, it’s getting better,” La Schiazza said in a statement on the company website. “At AT&T, we value our customers and we want to keep them. In this transition, we want to improve the technology customers use for voice calling service from old service to modern landlines and wireless.”

If the FCC approves the changes, the new law would allow AT&T to give customers 60 days’ notice before disconnecting landlines.

AARP and CUB encouraged lawmakers to wait until the state was up-to-date on E911 before allowing any provider to disconnect landlines. Illinois is lagging behind in installing improved “Enhanced911” or E991 services which can accept texts and locate a cell phone or VOIP landline with GPS precision.

“We all want the next-generation 911 service, but let’s keep the most reliable access to 911 with the copper lines until the next-gen is up and running,” said Vahling.

Both AARP and CUB have recommended that lawmakers simply extend the sunset laws for the Emergency Telephone System Act and the Telephone Communications Act by two years or “as long as it takes” to get the E911 up to speed in Illinois.

“Our state legislators had an opportunity to put in good safeguards and provisions for consumer protections, but instead they just did everything this multinational company wanted,” said Vahling.

AT&T is a large donor to statehouse campaign committee funds through the AT&T Illinois Employee PAC, which has a current war chest of $331,000. Since 2002, the AT&T PAC has transferred and donated $3.9 million to Illinois politicians.

Rauner’s attorneys called for a “clean bill” that allowed 911 services to be extended without added legislation raising 911 surcharges in Chicago.

“Since it is clear that the governor will not sign this legislation as passed, I wanted to make sure you are aware of the potential impacts to other key provisions of the bill — specifically, the sunset provision for the Emergency Telephone System Act, which will repeal on July 1,” wrote Jason Heffley, a Rauner policy advisor. “Without an extension of the ETSA, carriers will no longer be able to collect surcharges from their customers and the State Police will no longer be able to distribute those surcharge monies to local 911 systems,” he wrote. “The General Assembly should not put the 911 system at risk by sending the governor legislation with poison pills knowing full well he will not sign them into law.”

Political brinksmanship may delay Rauner’s ability to sign or veto the bill before the sunset dates for Illinois telecommunications laws. As of press time, SB 1839 is in law limbo-land.

— AT&T hopes to hang up ‘last-resort’ landline service for 1.2 million —