Policymakers have long said they were doing what they could to ease the pocketbook pain of average Americans. Now, a new administration has the chance to take real action that will help prevent higher cell phone bills while also connecting more Americans and keeping our communications infrastructure competitive with China.

Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are continuing their fight against fines for selling user location data, with two of the big three carriers submitting new court briefs arguing that the Federal Communications Commission can’t punish them.

A Massachusetts federal court consolidated two class actions filed by AT&T Inc. retirees challenging the company’s move to de-risk $8 billion in pension assets with a subsidiary of private equity giant Apollo Global Management.

The “central question at the core” of each lawsuit is the same, and all parties “stand to gain meaningful benefits through consolidation,” Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts said Nov. 8.

He ordered the combination of Piercy v. AT&T Inc. and Schloss v. AT&T Inc., naming Zuckerman Spaeder LLP and Schlichter Bogard LLP as co-lead counsels.

By Marin Wolf, The Dallas Morning News – February 13, 2024

Anational public safety communications network will receive an $8 billion investment over the next 10 years to expand 5G capabilities and mission-critical services, the First Responder Network Authority and AT&T announced Tuesday.

The First Responder Network Authority, known as FirstNet, plans to invest $6.3 billion through its network contract with Dallas telecommunications giant AT&T, the official partner of the independent authority. The group anticipates an additional $2 billion for ongoing investments in public safety coverage enhancements.

By Joey Solitro, Kiplinger’s – February 12, 2024

AT&T’s recent request to end its obligations to provide service for traditional landlines in several California regions does not mean the company is walking away from providing landline service, a company spokesperson recently told Kiplinger.

It is, however, part of the telecom giant’s broad-based effort to switch customers away from “outdated technologies” such as copper-based phone lines to more modern services such as fiber or wireless technology, the spokesperson said in an email.

By Jon Brodkin, ARS Technica – February 6, 2024

AT&T’s application to end its landline phone obligations in California is drawing protest from residents as state officials consider whether to let AT&T off the hook.

AT&T filed an application to end its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligation in March 2023. The first of several public hearings on the application is being held today by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which is considering AT&T’s request. An evidentiary hearing has been scheduled for April, and a proposed decision is expected in September.

“Uncle Sam” called, and we answered: big time.

A few years ago, the U.S. Department of the Air Force initiated a formalized program, Enterprise Information Technology-as-a-Service (EITaaS), to upgrade or replace legacy communications technologies with commercially provided networking capabilities, service delivery, and cybersecurity enhancements across selected bases operated by the Air and Space Forces. This is a generational reinvention of technology and operations to help the Air and Space Forces modernize and improve how they deliver their mission with commercially provided technologies and services.

The idea was to transmit speech over electrical wires. On March 7, 1876, 147 years ago today, Alexander Graham Bell was granted patent #174765, and the telephone was born. His invention was a significant improvement over the telegraph and the culmination of his life’s work as a scientist and as a teacher of the deaf.

It was also the beginning of AT&T. For 147 years, inventors, visionaries and service-minded employees have walked our halls, each playing a role in technology’s constant evolution and changing the world. And that spirit of purposeful creation still drives us today.

To help support our customers in California* recently impacted by winter storms, we are waiving the following charges for residential and business wireline orders placed now through February 29, 2024.

• One-time activation fee for establishing Remote Call Forwarding, Remote Access to Call Forwarding, Call Forwarding features and Messaging services.
• Monthly rate for one month for Remote Call Forwarding, Remote Access to Call Forwarding, Call Forwarding features and Messaging services.
• Service charge for installation of service at the temporary or new permanent location of the customer and again when the customer moves back to the original premises.
• Fee for one jack and associated wiring at the temporary location regardless of whether the customer has an Inside Wire plan.
• Fee for up to five free jacks and associated wiring for Inside Wire Plan customers upon their return to their permanent location.
• Fee for one jack and associated wiring for non-Plan customers upon their return to their permanent location.

By Phil Harvey; Light Reading ~  Oct 14, 2022

DALLAS – Earlier this month, AT&T gave a few journalists a chance to see what the telecom network of 100 years ago looked like (some of it is still operational). We also got to hear what the near future holds for AT&T’s edge computing plans, which aim to blend its fiber and 5G networks to power a world-beating portfolio of network services.

As a nod to its past, our hosts whisked us through a Dallas central office located in a neighborhood between Deep Ellum and Lower Greenville. It was a cathedral of no-excuses, always-on connectivity.

Sitting at the ready are rooms of backup batteries and entire buildings housing industrial gas-powered generators. There are rows of switches, servers and what looked like thousands of miles of wires that, at this moment, no one needs at all. But, when needed, the whole operation cranks up and crackles to life, so the people on the other end of hundreds of thousands of regional phone and broadband connections never know the difference.

AT&T seems eager to return to those more industrial roots, but only in its attitude and focus. Technology is remarkably different now, but the drive to connect everyone with resilient networks is constant. The carrier’s newly promoted executives, several of whom have arrived from other industries, see AT&T as a company focused on 5G and fiber.