AT&T sues California in attempt to shut off old phone network
AT&T has filed a lawsuit against California to stop the state from enforcing regulations that require the company to maintain its outdated copper phone network. The company argues that the network is underutilized and costly to maintain, while California officials assert that AT&T is allowed to upgrade its infrastructure. AT&T is also seeking support from the FCC to preempt California's rules and facilitate the transition to modern communication technologies.
- ▪AT&T is suing California over the state's refusal to allow the company to discontinue its copper phone network.
- ▪The lawsuit claims that maintaining the network costs AT&T $1 billion annually and serves only three percent of households.
- ▪California's Public Utilities Commission has rejected AT&T's request to eliminate its Carrier of Last Resort obligations.
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| Original publisher | Ars Technica |
| Canonical URL | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/att-sues-california-in-attempt-to-shut-off-old-phone-network/ |
| Publication time | Thu, 21 May 2026 21:10:01 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-21T21:51:35.723Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-21T21:51:35.723Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | vagfRb5Occqi |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Copper phone network AT&T sues California in attempt to shut off old phone network AT&T asks a court and the FCC to block California phone requirements. Jon Brodkin – May 21, 2026 5:10 pm | 8 Credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images Credit: Getty Images | SOPA Images Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav AT&T sued California yesterday over the state’s refusal to let the carrier stop providing phone service to all potential customers in its wireline network territory. AT&T is also asking 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.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ars Technica.
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