CWA Opposes AT&T's Plan to Abandon Rural Customers

CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. is asking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reject AT&T’s plan to abandon rural landline customers in 18 states. Instead of replacing copper lines with high-speed fiber internet connections, the company intends to leave many of them with lower-quality wireless or satellite service options.

In his comments to the FCC, President Cummings noted that on the same day that the company announced plans to retire most of its copper-based network by 2029, it said that it expects to return over $40 billion to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends over the next three years.

He said that instead of enriching wealthy investors by cutting service and eliminating good union jobs, AT&T should increase investment in fiber deployment to rural communities.

“While AT&T’s corporate executives and investors are insulated from the impacts of these cuts on the communities they serve, frontline workers bear the brunt of customers’ frustration with poor service quality, long wait times, and other harms from understaffing and outsourcing of critical functions,” President Cummings wrote.

While AT&T is trying to force rural customers onto second-class internet service, Elon Musk has been pushing the Trump Administration to redirect public funding intended for fiber buildout in rural areas to his own Starlink satellite internet service. Satellite internet is unreliable and has limited bandwidth, which leads to a reduction in speed as more users connect to the service.

CWA members and retirees are fighting to ensure that public funds continue to be used to build reliable, high-speed fiber internet connections and create good, union jobs in our communities. Click here to sign the petition.

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This post originally appeared on cwa-union.org.