The wires are there but the service is not. WiConduit is trying bring fiber to Forestville and the Sonoma Coast as well as Graton. Meanwhile, AT&T is in court making the case to shut off land lines
It’s my belief that all that money, millions and millions of dollars could have been better spent purchasing Starlink equipment, scaled subsidizes for folks to cover monthly costs while getting folks connected fast and easy. It solves both problems because the system is not dependent on cell towers and it works in most spots. Yea, I know: “I live in the deep woods and there is not sky available”. It is simply a system that works.
Copper lines are essential for emergency services and the people who need to reach them. As pointed out in the article, wireless service is not supported for extended periods and outages can last weeks. Personal example: my mother is 91 and has a landline. I know she can call out if she has an emergency or needs help during a wildfire, earthquake or flood. ATT is charging her $80 a month for local calling with no ability to add any other service. She cannot get call forwarding, voicemail, long distance calling, or add a second line. Reps told us that if Mom makes any changes to her service, it will be disconnected. If Mom cancels her landline service, she can't restore it.
When her copper line service goes out (once a year, generally when the rains start), she is out of service until they sent a landline service tech to drain the local junction box of water (they bill @ 2-3X higher rates than the VoIP or wireless techs). Last year she was hospitalized and came home to NO Phone Service, She was expecting multiple healthcare providers to call her for followup and continuing care during her recovery but they could not get through. ATT refused to allow call forwarding to be set up until I explicitly made clear this was an acute health & safety issue and may result in severe illness or death. They quietly set up forwarding without notifying us and removed it several weeks later without notice. It remains an option she cannot get otherwise.
It’s my belief that all that money, millions and millions of dollars could have been better spent purchasing Starlink equipment, scaled subsidizes for folks to cover monthly costs while getting folks connected fast and easy. It solves both problems because the system is not dependent on cell towers and it works in most spots. Yea, I know: “I live in the deep woods and there is not sky available”. It is simply a system that works.
You beat me to it. Exactly right.
Thank you for your reporting.
What a morass with no solution in sight. Thanks for the thorough explanation
$49M is enough to give 69,000 people a Starlink entirely for free for a year.
Copper lines are essential for emergency services and the people who need to reach them. As pointed out in the article, wireless service is not supported for extended periods and outages can last weeks. Personal example: my mother is 91 and has a landline. I know she can call out if she has an emergency or needs help during a wildfire, earthquake or flood. ATT is charging her $80 a month for local calling with no ability to add any other service. She cannot get call forwarding, voicemail, long distance calling, or add a second line. Reps told us that if Mom makes any changes to her service, it will be disconnected. If Mom cancels her landline service, she can't restore it.
When her copper line service goes out (once a year, generally when the rains start), she is out of service until they sent a landline service tech to drain the local junction box of water (they bill @ 2-3X higher rates than the VoIP or wireless techs). Last year she was hospitalized and came home to NO Phone Service, She was expecting multiple healthcare providers to call her for followup and continuing care during her recovery but they could not get through. ATT refused to allow call forwarding to be set up until I explicitly made clear this was an acute health & safety issue and may result in severe illness or death. They quietly set up forwarding without notifying us and removed it several weeks later without notice. It remains an option she cannot get otherwise.