“Fierce opposition” is what stands between the California public and a bill from Assembly Member Evan Low, and now that the bill is reportedly stalled in committee, its impact may not be felt for some time, if ever again. Some reports suggest that the bill may not be dead, however, and that it—like the villain in an eighties horror franchise—may return once more.
Low's bill called for allowing telecom providers the chance to move customers from land-line telephone service to voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) instead, assuming that the Public Utilities Commission could confirm alternative service was available in the area. It was a move welcomed by telecom companies like AT&T (News - Alert), who may well use the force of lobbyists to bring the bill back from its current deathlike state.
Some of the biggest outcry against the bill came from the chronically-underserved rural sector, who noted that, with VoIP service, power outages could not only kill the lights but also phone service, as land-line phones generally have backup power systems that continue to provide service even in a power outage.
Sierra County supervisor Lee Adams—former chair of the Rural County Representatives of California—noted that in places like San Jose, where the technological base was greater, an all-VoIP service may work out, but in places with little cell service and few payphones, a power outage would ultimately force “...a place like Sierra County back into the early 1900s as far as telecommunications service goes.”
Given that Low himself is a Bay Area representative, his district is well-served with wireless capabilities of several stripes. An all-VoIP program there, therefore, would probably work well as, in emergencies, wireless services could step in to fill the gaps. Low commented “My belief is this will incentivize our utility companies to invest in many of these rural areas and go with consumers. We’ve heard a lot of people ask, ‘Will we essentially be taking away plain old telephone service from grandma?’ The answer is no.”
It would be easy here to say that Low simply does not understand the economics involved, and that utility companies have had years—decades, even—to perform this investment he describes and have chronically failed to do so. His assertions that such a bill would “incentivize” development ignore the plain fact that it takes a whole lot of fiber optics to reach rural dwellers, who commonly live in areas of low population density. Thus, the payback period for such projects is agonizingly long, and why rural dwellers are often ignored outright when it comes to communications development.
Reliable communications are important to everyday life. Getting everyone—regardless of location—access to high-speed Internet without bandwidth caps is a great way to move the country forward. We need better infrastructure everywhere, but a bill like Low's is simply putting the cart before the horse, a development many ruralites understand intimately.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi