Some California residents with landlines and wired internet service will have power for three days in a power outage following a decision Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission.
The decision affects residents and others such as firefighters and hospital patients in areas of high wildfire risk.
In eight months, wired service providers must meet the backup requirement for hospitals, fire departments and other critical facilities. The same applies to facilities that provide service for wireless networks and communities not well-served by wireless services.
For all other facilities, CPUC commissioners gave wired service providers 18 months to meet the commission’s requirement.
“We need this sort of backup in place,” said Commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves before commissioners voted.
Commissioners voted unanimously, 4-0, with Commissioner Darcie Houck absent ahead of her swearing in next week.
In complaints filed with the commission, some people said that “they do not have reliable wireless service and solely rely on wireline during emergencies,” according to the Public Advocates Office, which advocates for utility ratepayers.
One person from Northern California said that “whenever the public utility power goes off, the Comcast ‘landline’ telephone service fails. I live in an area without cellular mobile coverage, so the telephone is my lifeline for wildfire alerts and health issues.”
The resident added, “As a regulated service it seems that Comcast needs to install backup power, especially since our utility turns the power off regularly in Northern California.”
Following a request for comment from Comcast, Carolyn McIntyre, president of the California Cable and Telecommunications Association, said in a statement, “We support the Commissioners’ decision to prioritize critical network facilities and connection support for wireless service.”
But she said they are still reviewing the decision and she stopped short of commenting on the requirement to provide backup power to residents not well-served by cellphone service.
Jim Kimberly, a spokesman for AT&T said, “We agree with the California PUC on the importance of keeping customers and first responders connected during emergencies, including power shutoffs.
“That is why we have invested more than $8.7 billion in our California networks from 2017 to 2019.”
The Public Advocates Office urged commissioners to require providers to have their backup power in place by October 2021, which won’t be met.
But the Public Advocates Office applauded the decision overall.
“These difficult times are making Californians more dependent than ever on our phones and the Internet for communications to telework, visit a doctor via telehealth, attend school via distance learning, and be in touch with loved ones,” said Elizabeth Echols, director of the office.
“Everyone should be able to rely on their phones and Internet during power outages, regardless of where they live or what kind of phone technology they have.”
Looks like another “fee” coming to our bills in order to pay for this.
Chances are I won’t make the list for this service but I am positive we’ll all be paying for it.
You know it
As a former employee of both PacTel and subsequently AT&T back when the government forced the Bell System to be broken up, I adhere to maintaining a landline service. Unless the overall central offices across the nation have deteriorated due to government interference the COs had not only large capacity strings of battery backup but most sites had emergency generators for back-up power. The generators were routinely tested with and without loads every month or shorter periods to vrfy operation.
If the PUCs allow the masses to dictate the organization of the COs, then it does not matter what the COs have! The massive promotion of dropping your landline service “because cell service is superior” and less expensive sucked alot of people in!! Until E911 was perfected cell 911 calls were impossible to pinpoint.
I moved my landline to mobile using an old mobile phone. By that time my landline was mainly getting robocalls and around 15 minutes used a month and AT&T was charging me around $25 a month for that! My monthly “landline” number on mobile costs me $3 a month for 30 minutes. And was up during the PG&E shutdowns.
I’m sure some of you have read that Homeland Security says we need to be ready for 6 months without power. They must be expecting a helluva cyberwar. I’ve also heard that replacement power line transformers are in short supply and China is our source for them.
And they thought that Doomsday Preppers were nuts!
We had a landline in California, but as soon as we decided to retire, I got a Google Voice number with a 615 area code. After we moved here, I bought an Obi-talk box and plugged my old telephone into it. The box was cheap and the Google Voice service is free.
In California, we usually had phone service during power outages. After the Christmas bombing, we lost cell and internet service, including the home phone, for a couple of days.
I don’t use a mobile/cell phone, but keep one around just in case. I do have a wireless phone connected to Comcast to which some folks refer as a “landline”. To me a landline is the actual telephone cable that used to hook up to our old phones of yore. So if the internet goes down, thus my wireless will follow. If anyone knows how I can procure a real landline service, I would be most appreciative.
And to Captain Bepops…I’m good on food and water preps for 6 months. Any suggestions on power back up? I was thinking about Generac…
Check that…wireless meaning cordless.
Lots of people in my neighborhood bought gas generators after the announced power outages in 2019. In India when I was there in 1996 lights would go out in cities and you could
hear gas generators starting up all over. Authorities pointed fingers at each other.
But maybe this is the start of Abrupt Climate Change as forecast in a 2004 government sponsored study? From FEMA:
https://bit.ly/2NclDzO
So much for global warming.
The California PUC actually did something? It must be a misprint, considering their history of being feckless and basically non-existent.